Ke Huy Quan has revealed the unusual way that Steven Spielberg pranked Harrison Ford when he visited the set of The Goonies.
Academy Award winner Quan, 53, recalled how the legendary director, 78, played a trick on Ford, 82, by buying up hundreds of copies of a biography that the Indiana Jones star despised.
The Everything Everywhere All at Once star had previously worked with Ford on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, starring as the hero’s sidekick Short Round when he was just 12 years old.
However, he still felt “starstruck” when Ford arrived on the set of The Goonies, the 1985 adventure film based on a story by Spielberg and produced by the director’s company Amblin Entertainment.
“I was star-struck when Harrison Ford came to visit because I’d made Indy [Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom],” Quan told The Guardian, before sharing the story of how Spielberg decided to wind up his leading man.
“Spielberg played a big joke on him,” Quan explained. “There was a biography out of him that he really hated, so Steven went out and bought about 300 copies, so that when Harrison came to visit and walked on to set, the security guard, the gaffers, the camera equipment people, everybody was reading that biography.”
Quan also shared his memories of a set visit from Michael Jackson, who he described as “very shy” and revealed that the singer gave the cast “tickets to watch him perform in Los Angeles”. The actor, however, managed to lose them, “which I’m very mad at myself for”.
In a 2022 interview, Quan revealed that he is still in touch with Spielberg, nearly four decades after they worked together, with the director still sending him presents every Christmas.
“He gave me my first job and, so many years later, he has not forgotten me,” he told The Guardian. “Every time I needed help, he’s always there.”
Quan also had an emotional reunion with Ford at Disney’s D23 convention in 2022. “As I walk close, my heart is pounding,” he told The New York Times of the meeting. “I’m thinking, ‘Is he gonna recognise me? The last time he saw me, I was a little kid.’”
“As I get closer, he turns and points his finger at me, and he has that classic, famous, grumpy Harrison Ford look,” Quan remembered.
“But he looks and points at me and says, ‘Are you Short Round?’ Immediately, I was transported back to 1984, when I was a little kid, and I said, ‘Yes, Indy.’ And he said, ‘Come here,’ and gave me a big hug.”
