Ke Huy Quan

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.

Hi there.

This is, I'm going to say it, this is the craziest life story we've heard from anyone on the show. It's an impossible life story.

I told a lot of people afterwards, after we recorded this episode, that it was a very special one.

Me too. It's the biggest delta that's ever been covered in a lifespan in two years.

Just such a beautiful performance.

Yes. Oh, and when you hear his life story, you just want to go back and rewatch.

I feel like we were almost crying the whole time.

Yep, that's fair. Also, you can see Kee currently in season two of Loki on Disney+. So please enjoy Kee Hui Kwan.

He's an armchair experimenter.

You came to visit us when we were shooting everything, everywhere, all at once.

Thousand percent. I intend to tell that story. You still live in Woodland Hills? Yeah. How long was that drive for you?

An hour. It was an hour? Friday's the worst. I miss the time where... I used to live in Covina.

Yes. Well, I know West Covina.

Yeah. It's just the next exit down. I used to go from Covina to Beverly Hills. Ooh. But back in the 90s, it used to take me only 45 minutes.

Yeah. Covina to Beverly Hills. Now, that's a 90-minute drive, for sure. Twice as long. I want to start with a very simple question, which is every time I hear someone introduce you, they go full.

Everybody calls me Kee. And sometimes they'll say Kee Kwan. Sometimes they'll say Kee, Hui Kwan. But as long as you say my name, I'm happy.

Okay. But I just want to make sure that I could say Kee.

Oh, everybody calls me Kee.

Okay. Wonderful.

In fact, my legal name is Jonathan Kee Hui Kwan. So I used to go by Jonathan for a long time, but everybody that knew me when I was a kid calls me Kee.

Are you happy that Kee and Peele was a big show? I mean, that really popularized Kee.

Yeah. Kiki Palmer. Oh, yeah. I made a joke. I attended the New York Film Festival, and Jordan Peele was there.

Yeah, you're halfway there.

Kee and Peele, Kiki Palmer. And then maybe I'll just change my name to Kiki Kee, you know?

Okay. So Kee, of every actor and expert we've interviewed, you're going to have, I think, among the wildest story. as far as the amount of ground you've covered in your life. It's almost impossible from where your life started to where it ended up. You even said it in your Oscar speech.

Yeah, I'm a Leon.

You're on the cusp, though, because I'm a Virgo 24th.

My wife says I'm more like a Virgo than I'm a Leon.

Yeah, I could see that.

By the way, your wife has the coolest name of all names, Echo.

Echo, yeah.

What a cool name. That is a good name.

Okay, so you're born in Vietnam in 1971, but your family's Chinese.

Yes. Actually, I was born in 1970.. It's wrong on IMDb.

Oh, wonderful.

It's not easy to change your birth date on IMDb.

I bet not.

Yeah, I tried.

And no one's trying to go older. You'd be the first person trying to go older.

I like a truth. I like authenticity. So, for the longest time, when I decided to get back into acting, I have IMDb Pro. So I messaged them and I go, I want to change my birth year. I sent numerous messages, emails, and it's like, you have to show your passport, all these, like, you know, identification.

Polygraph test?

Yeah, something like that.

But I do imagine most people would have been calling and saying, I was really born in 75.

Of course.

You're for sure the first person in history that wanted to make yourself older.

It's only one year. It's not like a big difference.

It is a big difference in terms of what was happening historically in Saigon. That's one more year of being born into an active war. Yeah. But how did your family end up in Vietnam from China?

It was a great place to do business. My mom was born in Hong Kong. My dad was in mainland China. And it's just for opportunities. They went to Vietnam, Saigon.

Okay, so probably 60s, she was there?

Probably sooner than that. Maybe in the early 50s. Okay, wow. And dad around the same time. And they met and they fell in love.

Nine kids. Wow. Okay, but you hinted at it, right? Which is? you already have family members that are adventurers, risk takers, entrepreneurial.

You know, my parents were doing really well in Vietnam.

What kind of business were they in?

My dad manufactures plastic bags.

Oh, no kidding?

Yeah. And my mom had a little clothing store.

And nine kids?

And nine kids.

That's not possible.

I don't know if they invented condom back then.

Yeah, your dad should have invented it.

Yeah, and so they were really happy.

Monica just really giggled at the thought of a plastic bag condom.

As a condom. That was funny. Wait, what's the span of ages? Like oldest to youngest kids?

My oldest sister right now is 68.

Okay. And are you the youngest?

I'm the seventh in the family.

She's 68 and you're 53 or 44?

Yeah, I'm 53.

53, so she's 15 years older. Okay, so she was born in 55-ish? Did I do that math right?

We're looking at about an 18-year range.

Maybe 56?

56.

Okay, wow. So you've got a full-grown adult sister when you're born? Yes.

I was an uncle when I was 10 years old. Wow. Really? Now I have over 20 nieces and nephews and more than 20 grandnieces and nephews. Oh, my goodness.

If they all just went five times, you had a runaway hit. In what order were you? What number were you?

Seven.

I was doing math when he said that.

I have a younger sister, I have a younger brother who I'm best friends with. He's so supportive. My family has been very proud and very happy for the last two years, and my brother more so than anybody.

Yeah, and he got a shout-out in your speech.

Yeah.

Sounds well-deserved. So, born in there in 1970, you wouldn't have memories, I can't imagine, of wartime in Saigon, do you? Because you're too young.

Yeah, but a lot of people have memories when they were two or three or four. But for some reason, everything that happened in Vietnam, I only have glimpses of it. Going out with my dad on his motorcycle or trying on new clothes at my mom's clothing store. Just like snapshots.

Would your father have been a potential enemy once Saigon fell, and he would have been a capitalist and a business owner, a manufacturer? Was he at risk with that?

There were a large Chinese community living in Saigon. And when the fall of Saigon happened, a lot of those Chinese people were targeted. And also, it was a chaotic time. Disclaimer, Vietnam today is very different. A lot of people go visit every year.

They did stay around for three years after the end of the war, right? Yes. So that would have been the most perilous period for them. Because now it's a communist country and there are entrepreneurial capitalists.

I think they were constantly living in fear. I'm really grateful to them because to get all of us out of Vietnam, we didn't succeed on the first attempt. And back then, a lot of that generation, they would have their savings not in the Vietnamese currency, but in gold. We escaped on a boat. So to get on a boat, every person would have to pay a huge amount in gold sheets.

How come it failed?

We were caught.

The boat got seized or stopped?

Before we made it onto the boat, we were put in jail.

The whole family?

Yeah, the whole family. And then it was not until the second time...

It was a big jail for your family. Yeah.

All 50 of you. Yeah, exactly. And then my parents worked really hard again to try to save up enough money to try the second time. The second time, my parents decided that maybe instead of going all together at once, let's split up. A little smaller group, and then whoever succeeds in getting out, then maybe they can help.

Okay, this explains. Yeah, because mom ends up going to Malaysia with three of your siblings and you and dad and five others go to Hong Kong. Yes.

So my mom and three of my siblings went to Malaysia and then they stayed there for a year and they were granted political asylum and they immigrated to the United States. And they were there for a year when we tried to escape and we ended up in a refugee camp in Hong Kong.

You're seven or eight.

I was seven.

You must have memories of that. We're getting old enough to have memories.

Yeah, I was running around in my house and playing with my friends in Vietnam and Saigon and all of a sudden I find myself surrounded by security guards and police officers and chain link fence. That I didn't have the maturity or the wisdom to understand why.

You're living the life of a prisoner all of a sudden.

Yeah, and we were just in a makeshift refugee camp with a lot of bunk beds. It was just extremely crowded.

Yes, and sanitation was probably terrible.

Yeah, your mom's not there.

My best friend, my little brother, was not there. I was just with my five other siblings and my father.

And you were there for how long, a year?

More than a year.

Did they try to educate you? What happened all day long? How did you spend that time?

Not much. It's not like they cared about schoolwork or anything. We were just waiting. My dad, more than any of us, were trying to work on the paperwork and try to get out of there. And try to get in contact with my mom.

We'll place them everywhere.

So you saw all the correspondence.

And there were records. I found my name and my family's name in that archive.

You're kidding.

It was so emotional. It was just incredible. For the longest time, that experience existed only in my memories. And of course, we talked about it with our families. But it was the first time where I have paperwork, I have proof that happened.

And also the contrast between obviously I would imagine feeling quite forgotten for a year, only to find out later you're a part of this complicated and dynamic part of history that's been recorded probably validates the whole experience in a way.

Absolutely.

A year when you're 7 to 8, it's a long time. It's 15% of your life.

That experience really changed all of us. I was with five of my other siblings and I look at their lives now, and they're so strong-minded, they're so determined, they work really hard. It made them a lot tougher. And I think it really stemmed from that experience going from having a home to losing our home, being locked up in a refugee camp and then coming here.

That's unimaginable. Do you think it's given you all a baseline of gratitude that's a little higher than everyone else's?

Absolutely. That's why, to this day, I'm very grateful. One, to the American government at that time, who allowed us into this country and everything that's happened since.

How was it determined you would go to California?

Because that's where my mom and three of my siblings were living. They were living in Chinatown, Los Angeles. In fact, that archive had that address where my mom was staying at. They needed to contact her and to find out where she was living, so that it made sense for my dad and five of my other siblings and myself to immigrate to the U.S.

You guys would have a place to go specifically.

It reminds you there are real people on the other side of this making those connections. Reaching out, finding the people in America, then connecting them with the people in Hong Kong. People are doing this.

Thank God there are. You land in California, and I have to imagine it's gotta be a tricky time to have come from Vietnam. You're only four years out from this war. that was the most divisive war we've ever had. at that point.

got here? As an eight-year-old, you don't really understand. and especially when you have very protective parents, they kind of shield you from all of that. Living in Chinatown, Los Angeles, was also very beneficial because it's a whole Chinese community there. Insulated from all that news that was going on around the world at that time.

That is wild. And did you fly from Hong Kong to California? Yes.

No more boat rides. Yeah, so it's quite interesting how I was on a boat in the middle of the night escaping Vietnam, arrived in Hong Kong a year in a refugee camp and then I got on a plane to come to Los Angeles.

First plane ever? Yes. Were you excited in a way that you had never been in your life? You must have had a fantasy about America. No.

any of that. Oh, okay. You were probably.

mad. You're like, why am I on a plane?

I was happy because one, I was free and second, I knew that at the end of this flight I would be reuniting with my mom and my brother and my other sisters, who I haven't seen for more than a year.

Yes, you're just so excited, I imagine, for that reunion. Had dad told you anything about America? Like, what.

to expect? No, he didn't even know.

This is so fascinating. It's not like.

there were televisions where we can watch and see what the lives.

in America is like. Yeah, Baywatch wasn't out yet.

Yeah, yeah.

Because if you were born ten years later, you would have known all about Baywatch.

Do you sometimes think about that time and think I can't believe that was my life? that story belongs to me? Like, I would be so disassociated from that, I think. Because it's such a huge deal.

I don't think about that experience often. What I do think about is how lucky I am. How lucky my family is. They're all doing really well. Even during some of my darkest days.

Everyone made it safe. At some point, though, you move up to Sunland. from Chinatown? We moved to.

Monterey Park in the eastern part of Los Angeles. Right by Alhambra? Yes, by Alhambra.

Alhambra has a pretty large Asian population. Yes. Because my great fear for you as a little nine-year-old boy is joining now an elementary school where you don't speak English, you're very other, you represent this war we just had. I'm so scared for any little boy in that situation. Was elementary fine?

For me, it was fine, because I was trying very hard to learn English, to get accustomed to this new life.

And you had a fair amount of classmates that were also.

newly.

Oh, what a relief. This sounds like the ideal. Okay. This is an impossible gap, because really, within four years, you go from a refugee camp to starring in the biggest movie of the year, with the biggest movie star by the biggest director of all time. This is really not a possible experience.

It's pretty insane. I was just being a kid, going to school, and one day, this group of people came to my elementary school, and they had an open call. What? This is a dream!

If I were you, I would actually think, this can't be reality. You're definitely in a simulation. Okay, so you didn't, were you like a class clowny a little bit? I wasn't.

In fact, I wasn't even the one that was auditioning. It was my little brother. His teacher thought he was perfect. Sometimes, even to this day, I wonder why I was chosen and not him, because I think he's so much more talented than me, and he's funny. He makes me laugh all the time, so he was more of a ham than I was.

You're directing him. They should have hired you to direct him.

And the casting director saw me, and I was speaking to my brother in Chinese, in Cantonese. He saw something in me, and many years later, I reunited with our casting director, and he told me that they had a hard time finding the perfect kid to play short round. In fact, they went to London, to Hong Kong, Singapore, everywhere where there was a bigger Chinese community. Because back then, Chinatown Los Angeles was really small, and they didn't think they would find who they were looking for there, so they went everywhere except Chinatown Los Angeles. And they were about to give up, and they said, why don't we just give it one last try?

desperate they were that they were going to random elementary schools. Exactly.

That's not the normal casting. Yeah, exactly.

Especially for a movie of this size.

Oh, my god, this is unreal.

Okay, so you're barking orders at your brother, which is hysterical, and I can see why she or he would have seen, oh, this is what we need. This is a little guy who's running the show. Yeah, dynamic. And short round was a total survivor.

I was precocious. Yes!

You then auditioned.

Then I auditioned. They gave me the sight, and I could barely speak English at all, just very little, and then my reading comprehension was even worse. Of course. So I was saying the lines and really messing it up, saying like, trying to even understand what I was saying. I'm not even saying the lines, I'm reading the lines.

a series of sounds. Exactly.

And he saw something in that, and he says, Key, why don't you put that away, and let's just talk. Who's he? Mike Fenton. He cast E.T., The Goonies. Oh, this guy's a genius.

Oh, my God.

What are your parents thinking right now?

They had no clue what was going on, and they could barely speak any English when they answered that phone. The first.

Indiana Jones had come out. We haven't seen it. But you knew about it,

right? No, we didn't know. I mean, don't forget, we're living in Chinatown. We're very insulated by this small Chinese community. So we've never seen Star Wars.

this is not.

scared. Yeah, like, are we getting taken advantage?

of? Yes. We didn't think much of it. They didn't think I would land the role. Of course.

God. It's great you didn't know. Because you would have maybe felt a lot of pressure if you knew who Spielberg was. Yeah, that's why when I walked.

into the room, it was this bunch of guys with a mustache and a beard. Yeah. I didn't know their names. I didn't know any of the work at that time. I didn't know that I was meeting and talking to three of the most successful people.

And written by Lawrence Kasdan. Impossible. One of the greatest writers of all time. Okay, so you go in there and clearly you charmed them in that audition. Where.

was it filmed? It was filmed in Sri Lanka. So, after my audition for Steven and George and Harrison, a few weeks later, I was on a flight. Again, my second time being on a flight to Sri Lanka. The first time I was on a flight was from Hong Kong to LA.

They're serving you Coca-Colas and nuts and all this stuff. Sundays. And what's mom thinking? How's mom explaining this to you? Because you're probably looking at her like, how is this happening?

just really happy for me and proud. My parents gave up so much. In fact, when we got to the US, my parents were heavily in debt. Because they just didn't have enough money to get all of us out. so they were borrowing money from their friends.

It must have been an insane amount of money relative to what they were making by working. Here's what's so great.

about Lucas and Spielberg. I was 12 years old. We didn't have an agent or a manager. We didn't have anybody to look after us. No lawyer.

No! They gave you a point of the movie? Yeah, I was able to.

cheer in the success of the movie. That's why, when the movie came out and became one of the biggest movies in 1984, not long after that, I got a check in the mail. And that check was so nice that I was able to help my parents pay off the debt. We were renting a little house in Chinatown and I was able to use that money to buy a house in Monterey Park where my parents and all my siblings can live a bit more comfortable.

Again, the range of luck you have. You've got the worst luck and the greatest luck all within the span.

of four years. And I think that's what makes it a great life. And not only that, when the movie came out, our world premiere was in London, attended by Princess Diana and Prince Charles at that time, who is King Charles now. But going from a refugee camp, and I'm standing in line with Spielberg and Lucas and shaking hands with Princess Diana. They should make a movie.

about your life. I want to watch this movie. I want to see a little boy.

experience all this. Oh, I love this. That makes me love Steven Spielberg. They were so generous.

Lucas had done that too with the Star Wars cast. He gave them a percentage.

of their.

But everyone in Star Wars was also a no-name actor and he gave them some of the.

toy rights. That is so rare. You have to fight for it. Oh, my god. And be a profit participant.

say no and walk away five or.

six times. It was like on their own accord. It was out of their generosity.

Okay, so again, you have no awareness of who Harrison Ford is either at this point. So you arrive in Sri Lanka and you start working with him immediately? Yes. And is he intimidating? He is a very big man with a husky voice.

No, he was not. He was so friendly.

And playful? And playful.

and humble and kind. I would always play with him. Yeah. And he would make me laugh. All of us were staying in a hotel in Sri Lanka.

Ki, this is bonkers.

This is the best story I've ever heard. This is so special. And I know you know it because you reflect on it a lot and you give a lot of gratitude vocally.

But how wonderful. I guess I have such distrust of anything good that I would have had a hard time that whole experience accepting it was real. I would keep waiting to.

almost wake up. As a kid, you don't really know how special that is. Of course. And so to me, I thought, this is how movie making is. You know, like from now on, every movie that I make is going to be like.

this. The star will teach me how to swim.

Yeah. And you would walk on these big scale, beautiful sets. You get treated really well.

You'd have 200 days to shoot. Yeah.

So I thought every movie was like, and then very quickly I realized, oh wow, it doesn't always work like that. It's crazy.

how good you are in the movie. having never done it. I really think.

it's because of Stephen's direction. He's so good with kids. He would tell me specifically how to say my lines. And he would give me directions where, if I just follow that, then I can do what he wants. He was just the kindest.

So it was fun. You liked acting.

Because of that experience. That's the reason why I fell in love with acting. I remember we were shooting in London, Elstreet Studios. And that's where we built all those stages. I didn't even know this, because I hadn't seen Star Wars.

They must have all loved you. I think they were all there.

for Harrison Ford.

So, based on that experience, did it occur to you like, well, I want to do this more? Or were you thinking of it more like, wow, this weird, magical lottery ticket fell on my lap. That was that? Or what was your thought when that movie wrapped?

I wasn't thinking about whether I want to do this as a career. When Indiana Jones came out, I was immediately offered to do The Goonies. And I loved making movies because it got me out of school. I didn't have to spend eight hours in school. I get to travel to these wonderful places and treated really well.

when that movie came out and all of a sudden, all the kids in school now know you're in the biggest movie of the summer?

It felt really good. Nobody paid attention to me prior to that. I was just one of 30-something students there. And I couldn't even get my teacher's attention. And all of a sudden, I was the star in the classroom.

Yeah. Were any boys jealous of your attention and cruel to you?

That I don't know. You know, as a 12-year-old, you're not going to think, are people jealous of you? Well, you went to go do more.

movies. You didn't have time to pay attention to the kids in school. You're the bully. Yeah.

I was skinny. I was tiny. And I think it's because of that that I never got any bullying.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that did happen to a quadrant of kids. They were so tiny that there was no glory in pushing them around.

That's so true. He's so easy to beat up. What's in front.

of that, right? Because I've always been humongous and people think, oh, that must have been so nice. She probably never got picked. And I'm like, no, no. The opposite thing happened, which is like, boys from older grades that were afraid to fight anyone in their grade, I'll pick a fight with this younger kid, but he's big.

Armchair Experts, if you dare.

Okay, so you immediately go into Goonies. You're now with another really spectacular director, Richard Donner. And he took a real shine to you, right?

It was a very different experience, going from indie to the Goonies. Because, one, I, was the only kid on set. So I got all the attention, all the love. And all of a sudden, I walk on the Goonies set, I was with six other kids. You're one.

of six kids. And

they all knew what they were doing. Even though it was their first movie. Like, Sean Astin grew up in a movie family. Josh grew up in a movie family. Jeff Cohen was so awesome and cute.

We were like constantly jumping.

on him, screaming on set, overlapping each other all the time. Now I have to fight for attention. Which is something I was very familiar with because I grew up in a big family.

Right. And how were you getting along with the other kids? Obviously, you and Cohen became really close. Jeff, who played Chunk, you're lifetime friends. Yes.

We're best friends. We see each other all the time.

Isn't that awesome? Chunk became a lawyer? That's crazy.

But the reason why he became a lawyer, he wanted to be an actor. And when he hit puberty, all of a sudden, he wasn't this fat, cute kid anymore. And he couldn't get a job. It's hard to go from a kid actor to an adult actor. And he reached out to Dick Donner and says, what can I do?

And he went to maybe USC, then UCLA?

UC Berkeley, UCLA. Oh yeah, Berkeley.

and then UCLA for law school.

There's all these angels in this story. It's lovely.

That's why it's very heartwarming to see how successful these people are, yet, at the same time, they're so generous and kind.

Man, okay, so, was that movie fun though? Of course you were feeling probably the least prepared or the least professional, but were you having fun? Oh my gosh, it was incredible. Where were you? at, Oregon or something?

We shot the exterior stuff in Oregon, then we shot the majority of the movie at the Warner Brothers lot. We built the pirate ship in the biggest soundstage, I believe it's stage.

16.

was heated. Oh!

And Harrison Ford taught you how to swim. so you're set? One day we're.

walking on the pirate ship, the next day we're going down a water slide. I mean, it was like a kid's dream. Yes! Yeah,

wow. And how did you get on with everybody? I imagine Brolin was much older than you guys. He was like the older brother.

And we spent a lot of time in a trailer doing school work. together. We were like a big family. So, as with any other family, there was a lot of fighting, there was a lot of love, there was a lot of making fun, of, laughter. We had all of that.

I imagine your on-camera personas or roles that were assigned to you bleed into the dynamic outside of the set.

When you're a kid, you're basically being.

yourself. Did you have a crush on Martha?

Plimpton? Not Martha. I was too young. You were. Were you 13??

I had major crushes at that age.

You were a little bit ahead of sketch.

Again, I was enormous. I think it was later on that I thought Cary Green was really pretty.

Yeah, she was. She is. So, okay, that movie comes out, and now this is another hit movie. It wasn't.

as big of a hit as people thought it was. You have Dick Donna as the director, Steven Spielberg as the producer. I think we made around $66-67 million dollars, versus Indiana Jones, and the Temple of Doom made $200 million. But, it was.

also 1985, and $60 million in 1985 was still a major. It was profitable. But I know what you're saying, there's a handful of movies like this where we all think they were even bigger than they were. The classic example is Shawshank Redemption. Every human being has seen that movie, and it made like $8 million at the box office.

a hit on home video. And that's what Goonies was. It became a huge hit on home.

video. I bet just as many people walking the planet today have seen Goonies as they have Temple of Doom.

Yes. If not more. In fact, there are more Goonies fans than there are Indiana Jones fans. I bet.

It's a very seminal movie.

It's one of those movies where you grew up watching it. It made a huge impact on your childhood, and it changed you. And it was.

beautifully assembled, and the archetypes were almost any moviegoer could find themselves in that group of kids. That's the genius.

of that story and that screenplay by Chris Columbus. It is.

I think lesser writers tend to write multiple characters, but none of them are very clearly differentiated. That's the mark of Christopher Columbus. Those are very specific archetypes that play perfectly off each other.

And any kid watching that movie, you can relate to any one of those characters.

And even at times, right? Like, I feel like Chunk sometimes, and then also I feel like Brolin. at times. I feel like.

your mouth, or Mikey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the reasons why that movie became a huge hit is really the direction of Dick Donner. Back then, it is unheard of to do a movie where you have overlapping dialogue. Because of the editing, so you always have one actor finish their dialogue before another actor say his.

And just kill the editor later. That's the editor's problem.

I'm sure they had so many headaches putting that movie together.

So that one comes out, and now I imagine you're a bit more savvy. You've now been at this for a couple years. And you go to the premiere, and it's out again, and you're even more popular at school. Then did you start thinking, well, this will just continue like.

this? Not yet, because I was still in school. So I was busy all the time. If I'm not on a set, I was in school trying to have a normal life. That's why I never had any real friends in school.

Well, that's a question I had. Even as an adult, it can be kind of sad that you go on a movie set, and you're with people for three months, and you're as close as people can be. And then you return home to your real life, and you just don't see them anymore. And you're like, well, what happened?

And then you go back to school, and all of a sudden, you find yourself kind of like the new kid on the block. You don't have any friends. And a lot of times what happens is, when I first go back to school after a hiatus, everybody would have a lot of interest in me. It's like, oh my gosh! Like, key, right?

By the way, and your life at this point is already in this pattern of extreme highs and lows. I wonder if you've even gotten addicted to that cycle. Does that make?

any sense? Wow, that's a great question. I am an.

arousal junkie, because my childhood was all these peaks and valleys, and everything was really heightened. And I kind of crave that level of drama.

a bit. You're absolutely right. In some fashion, I grew accustomed to that. It's kind of like a musician when you're performing on stage, in front of 70,000 people, and you hear, like, all these cheers and applause, and all of a sudden you go backstage, or go back to the hotel room, and it's just dead quiet. It's such a huge contrast.

point, have an agent, you have the whole team, but you end up doing, interestingly, shortly after The Goonies, you do 40 episodes of a Taiwanese show where you're speaking Mandarin. What was that experience like? Because that's got to be a, I don't want to say a far fall, but a much different experience.

It was very different. If you look at my resume, I basically accepted everything that was offered to me. I never said no to anything. After The Goonies, I did a television show for CBS, and it was after that, then it started drying up. And then here was an opportunity from Taiwan.

back. That sounds lonely. Even.

though I'm Chinese, you know, I grew up basically in the States. Yeah. I've grown accustomed to what life is like in America. You're.

other, even though you're, in theory, Chinese ethnicity. When I go.

there, and I think the Asian diaspora in the States knows this, for example, when I go back to China or to Hong Kong, they never look at you as one of their own. You're like a foreigner. So when I went to Taiwan, they thought I was American. And I don't read or write Chinese. So it was a challenging time to do a 40 episode television show, because one, I didn't speak Mandarin at that time, so I have to learn the language.

dialogue orally. When you're.

16,, 17,, 18,. your memory works.

great. Yeah.

Now, I learn my dialogue way in advance, you know. Did you notice?

any tension in the family? Was there ever any jealousy between the nine siblings? Were they like, well...

But they pluck him out of this group. No, no.

We were never competitive with one another. In fact, it was quite the opposite, because I started to make a lot of money. So when my siblings got a little older and got their driver's license, I was able to buy a car.

for them. Yeah, what a hero.

All of this, you know, comes with a lot of benefits. That's why they're all very happy and very proud of what I've done.

But that's impressive, because if I was the younger brother and I was the one auditioning the first time for Indiana Jones, and then this bizarre turn of events happened, I'd be.

that's my bus ticket. I bought the bus ticket.

Yeah, that's mine. Or lottery ticket. I should be going.

there. Just quickly, back to the Taiwanese experience. Yeah, I have a friend who's Mexican, but he was born in Chicago. And he tells me when he goes to Mexico, even though he speaks Spanish, he's almost in another world. It's almost worse.

entire life, until recently, I always felt like an outsider. When I go back, they treat me as if I'm a foreigner. When I was growing up in the States, I was treated like I was an American. So for the longest time, I always felt rootless. Especially because I'm Chinese, but I was born in Vietnam.

identity, this identity we construct is the core of what makes us.

feel safe. I think I spent my entire life searching for my identity.

and never got it. I think it can be a much harder road. when it's as complicated as yours is. It's not.

until recently that I'm very comfortable with who I am. And also, for the very first time, even though I've been in this business for 40 years, it was the first time that I felt Hollywood has finally accepted me, that I belong. You're.

not an accident. You're not a lottery ticket. By the way, that's what I'm not putting a fine enough point on. You're spectacular. I mean, the fact that you got plucked out of school, now that's luck.

When Indian Goonies came out, at that time, it's great, because it's current news. This just happened to you. Then, can you imagine what it's like five years later, ten years later, twenty years later, thirty years later, when you are in your forties and people still talk about the work that you done when you were twelve?

years old. This is, I think, a uniquely hard experience to be very recognizable and famous and not working. Yeah. We just interviewed Chris Pine and his father was on Chips and he was huge. Everyone in the country knew who his father was and then he had a long period of not working and he had to just get normal jobs.

I've done Comic Cons for many years, where I'm signing autographs on a picture, you know, I was a kid. Yeah. I feel grateful and blessed that I have those two movies. But for the longest time, I always wished that I have something as an adult where people recognize me, for. I said it in my acceptance speech at the Golden Globes and there was something that scared the shit out of me, because it was something that I never shared before, but for the longest time.

Your experience can only be compared to the 16-year-old that wins the Olympics in gymnastics and now has the rest of their life where there'll be no more Olympics and there'll be no more gold medals and there'll be no more Wheaties commercials. Right. It's a unique thing to peak so early. I think it could be torturous. For a long.

time, you know, there was like rumors how, oh, we're gonna do a Goonies sequel, and I was just praying to God and Buddha, please let that come to fruition, because I always thought that would kickstart my acting career again. And every few years, there will be rumors, you know, Warner Brothers or Spielberg would hire writers and now we have a script and I'll always be holding my breath and it's like oh, please let the phone ring and tell me that we're gonna do this again, you know? It never came to pass. So at.

a certain age, you have to make the very painful decision that you're gonna stop pursuing acting. Yeah. This becomes an interesting chapter in anyone's life, even if you didn't have the previous chapter, but you do, you decide to go to USC.

That was one of the most difficult decisions that I've ever had to make in my entire life. I was in my early twenties. It was like right.

after high school. You're already in your backup plan. Yeah, everybody.

had their entire life ahead of them and I had it behind me. I find myself going, oh my gosh, there is no road for me to move forward. Right. I can never hit that success. The idea of stepping away, I remember I was 23 years old.

roles. It's on now, VHS. It's actually probably gaining some popularity.

in weird ways. And everywhere I go, people go, oh my god, you were so great. What are you doing now? What can we look forward to next?

Oh, it's soul crushing.

It is. And the pressure. Of course, your identity is all messed up, because if you have such big success when you're a kid, you're almost chasing, going backwards. Like, how can you ever move forward in life if the best is behind you? Yeah, and you.

had an identity that was defendable, which was I'm a movie star. For a couple years you were a movie star. And then, when you're 21 and someone asks you, well, I'm still a movie star. Now what? But I'm not.

Yeah, you graduate and then you see your friends, your classmates, moving on to great and better things.

I'm surprised you didn't turn into an alcoholic.

No, no, I didn't. You know, surprisingly, I never drank when I was younger. Not until later years. I drink.

now. Yeah. One thing I was going to say. of course, you're as close as you are to your family because, as you were saying, you have this really obscure identity. You're not Vietnamese.

Also, when you grew up in a big family. you don't need friends outside. Your siblings are your friends. Yeah. Family has always been a huge part of who I am, because they were my friends and if I needed anything, I can always come to them.

What was your explanation for why you weren't working? Did you come up with some concoction of like, is it because I'm not cute anymore? I'm not.

a kid anymore? I blame myself. I thought I wasn't tall enough. I was never classically trained as an actor, so I thought my acting wasn't good enough. When you're fighting for a role and you don't get it, you feel, there's gotta be something wrong with me.

And we gotta add, in, which you're probably not even taking into account at that time, there's like two roles a year for Asian men. Exactly. There's nothing. How many are coming up in?

the 90s? I did American, Born Chinese, and the show runner, Calvin Yu, used to work at the mail room of an agency and it was his job to go through all the scripts that comes in and then catalog them. and he said, back then, he went through a hundred scripts and out of those one hundred he'd be hard pressed to find one meaningful Asian character. Yeah. Right.

I don't know, I mean, God bless any Asian actor that gave it a shot. All the roles are for me and I was completely hopeless for nine years and I looked the part.

I can't even comprehend.

having had the exact same experience, but also on top of it, I'm Asian, I know like, yeah, two fucking opportunities.

a year. So you auditioned for nine years before you got that first role? Yeah. What made you want to go on? I was like.

it's never going to happen, I accept that, but I will be so disappointed in myself when I die if I didn't try it. It wasn't even that I thought I could do it, it was, I'm going to prevent this enormous regret, which is, if I give up on this, I'll be so disappointed in myself. So I'm just kind of wallowing in this sea of like, well, it's not going to happen and I'm never going to quit, so that I don't regret it. but then probably I'm going to regret having tried this for my whole life. So, yeah, it was just like a constant debate in my head of whether we're going to keep going.

or not. That was the same reason why I decided to get back into acting. Really? It was because I was turning 50 and it was bothering me. It was eating at me and I was so afraid.

And coward's the operative word, because that's the exact same word I would use. We don't want to die as cowards and I think that's okay.

A coward to yourself. It's one thing to be monitoring to the outside like. I don't want to look like a coward to the outside, but if you yourself feel like a coward, that's a good motivation. Yeah, it's like one of the.

oldest stories told. Are you going to be a coward? Are you going to risk failure and maybe do something?

But you know, that's worse when you think you're a coward versus someone telling you that you're a coward. Exactly. Because if someone's telling you that's just a one-time thing, but if you're thinking mentally inside, it eats at you. It doesn't let go.

And it's one of the most shameful assessments of yourself you can have, and that's interesting. That's kind of a product of story. We like heroes and we like people who go after it, and it's just interesting how internal that is. for us. The fear of being a coward is very powerful.

turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made in life. It gave me the knowledge that I needed. And at that time, I didn't know. Despite.

having been in these blockbusters. And when you.

an actor, you step in front of the camera, your perspective is very narrow. You only see your fellow actors. You see the director. You see the producer. And you don't really quite understand.

from the inside out. Yeah. It's kind.

of like, when you have a spotlight on you, you can't really see the audience. And going to film school expanded my perspective. Right.

And you learned to edit. there. I learned.

to edit. I learned about camera. I learned about lighting. I learned about sound. I learned about the casting process.

A great experience for all actors would be to be on the casting side for a minute. Because it depersonalizes the experience. You see quickly, people are right or wrong for stuff. You can't act your way out of being wrong for the role. And so it's not personal.

You know, something weird happened on my way here. I was driving, and I was by myself. And all of a sudden, for some reason, flashback to the days when I was much younger, driving to an audition. Because I've never been here before. And it was very similar.

voice. Everyone thinks that. No, no, no, no.

Like, you guys. Like, Dax, oh my god. You have one of those voices where it's so freaking, soothing. It's like, ask me anything and I will tell you everything.

Well, thank you so much. And I'm so sorry you felt that familiar feeling on your way here. I know that feeling very well. That's funny. But you learned to edit.

is very fascinating. I studied Taekwondo right after Indiana Jones. And for the whole.

ride, right? You never stopped doing it. So at some point out of USC, you start fight choreographing. Yeah. That's incredible.

right out of film school and I knew an action director named Kuo Yuan in Hong Kong, because many years ago, he came to me and wanted me to be in his movie. I couldn't do it because I was under contract for CBS at that time. But then we kept in touch. We stayed friends. And one day he found out that I graduated from film school.

Oh, my. I was doing fight.

choreography. I was an assistant action choreographer. There were three of us and we were in charge of the Wolverine mystique fight in the Statue of Liberty. Wow. It was on that set.

Kevin Feige. Oh, because he was like an associate.

producer on that. He was an associate producer on that. I met him there and little did I know that 22 years later, we would be working.

together. That is so wild. He'd be running Marvel, you'd be an Academy Award winner. All of it's impossible.

The impossible can.

be possible. So you stayed busy for the next 19 years doing all kinds of things. I was learning.

I was happy for a period of time because I had a career behind the camera. I was working in Hong Kong. I was busy.

That's all we need to be, kind of.

After a while, something just nagged at me and I didn't know what it was. I didn't understand it. The satisfaction diminished over time and I felt like the road is getting narrower and I can almost see an end.

When had you met Echo? In 2002?

when I was working for Wong Kar-wai.

You met her on a set? At his production.

office in Shanghai. What was she doing? She was working for the management department at that time. She was also working for the producers. When you're working in Asia, there's no one job description.

Exactly. And did you guys kind of.

fall in love immediately? It was one of those where, when we first met, right off the bat, we just talked non-stop. Our conversation can go on hours and hours. I didn't know that I was falling in love with her until.

it.

You know, we were in Shanghai at that time, and then I got called back to Hong Kong and it was that separation that I felt. Wow, I really miss her. Aww. And I felt that, you know, that butterfly that you have in your stomach that you have.

when you're in love. Had she grown up seeing you as Dada? She didn't. A lot of people.

in China didn't grow up watching the 80s movie. It was not until years later. Our first time meeting, because she knew that I was coming in, she saw a movie that I did and she asked the filmmakers, did they do something to his voice? Did they run his voice through like a synthesizer? Is that why he sounds like that?

Oh, my god. No wonder you're self-conscious about your voice on podcast.

Yeah, your primary love was critical when you met. How soon after that do you guys get married? Two years later. I gather from your speech, she was weirdly supportive throughout this whole journey. I ask her.

all the time. We've been together for 22 years now. There was not a year that went by that she didn't believe in me. There were many times in our time together, I felt like she deserved somebody better. Yeah.

you got angry, because now you're going to disappoint her. She has a belief in you that you don't have in yourself, so you're going to disappoint her. And she's betting on the wrong horse. That's a.

great way to put it. I felt like she bet on the wrong horse.

That's heartbreaking when you love somebody and you feel like you can't live up to their belief in you. From day.

one. when we were together, she said, you're gonna be.

I hope she gave you the biggest fucking. I told you so.

that's ever been given.

She should wake you up.

one morning and just go, I told you so. She earned it. She has a great eye. Many years ago, she saw a television show with Eddie Redmayne. This was before Eddie Redmayne became Eddie Redmayne.

Stay tuned for Armchair Expert.

if you dare.

Okay, so in 2018, you see Crazy Rich Asians, our friend John directed that.

Oh, you know, John Chu? Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

He's a USC boy.

Yes, he is.

Was there any overlap? No. Even though you're older, you went later.

No, no, no. He was much later.

He was there when Laura was there.

I know, but he went later at 23,. so I thought, maybe that gap.

I was there from 97 to 99.

Okay, never mind. So you see that movie and something clicks when you see that movie? Yeah. You go, wow, they're going to let us do this now, I imagine.

Well, no. The first thought I had was, God, I wish I was up there with them. Sure. There we go. The entire cast was Asians.

You're demonstrating the power of representation. If you can see yourself somewhere, you start to believe that you could be there. Yeah. That's so powerful. Good on you, John.

I know.

I'm not going to make it through this interview without crying. I can feel it welling up.

And what's so great about it is that it was a huge success.

Exactly.

It was a phenomenon. It made me believe that, wow, we can do a movie with an all Asian cast about an Asian story and people will watch it.

They want to see it. Yeah.

Okay, so you decide, I'm going to give this another shot. Where the fuck do you start? You don't have an agent. You're not doing the theater.

It starts with a conversation with my wife, Echo. And it was just a night where I'm enjoying a glass of wine and very casually, because I was really nervous, casually just bring, hey, what do you think if I give acting a try again? And Echo is always supportive of everything that I do, supportive of all my ideas. And she says, I think that's great. If that's what you want, if that's what you love, go for it.

Right. Yeah.

You can't. Come home every day destroyed.

If you're going to do it, you can't just be thin-skinned and throw in the towel at the first rejection. Because she knew you were probably very fragile and vulnerable.

When you're 18 and 21,, you get rejected. So that's true. I got my whole life ahead of me. But when you're 50 and still going out and auditioning, and my gosh, it's like getting rejected again and again. I didn't think I have it in me.

It's very brave.

How'd you get an agent?

So I had a friend in an agency. It was like a mid-sized agency. I called him and I said, please represent me. He was a senior agent at that agency. And he says, Key, I can't represent you, but let me introduce you to this wonderful young agent.

I'm assuming she's Asian.

She's Asian, yeah.

Do you decompress a tiny bit?

I just wanted an agent. I wasn't like being picky. I wasn't in a position to be choosy.

I know. I guess I just wonder if you feel like she would be more innately rooting for you, because, yeah, I don't know.

I was being interviewed. It was okay. I didn't have an ego going in, because I knew, coming in, I have to put all the success that I had as a child, put all of that away, and approach this as if I was a complete unknown. So after that meeting, I drove home, and I got a call from my friend and her saying, yes, we would like to represent you. And I remember her even telling me, she says, this is what you need to do, Key.

You're like, am I doing this?

Am I really doing this? I have to get an account so I can see the breakdowns. I can see what is out there.

Springing back some.

Yeah, I'm really getting sweaty remembering all this.

So I did all of that. And what's really interesting is, so I did all that, and because of the memories that I had when I was much younger, I didn't expect her to call me. Maybe I'll hear from her six months later. And that's okay. I can do other stuff.

Again, this is back to like impossible good luck, impossible bad luck.

She told me about the Daniels. I wasn't aware of the work at that time. She did tell me that it stars Michelle Yeoh, and she said it's one of the leads. And I go, what?

You're like, I thought I was going to audition for commercials.

I thought I was going to be auditioning for, like minor roles. That's what I was prepared to do. Maybe a guest star on a television show.

Get some insurance, maybe by the end of the year. Cobble together enough days. Wow, two weeks. Okay, so now this is where our lives intersect a little bit. Because Anissa had been doing My Hair on Bless This Mess, a TV show.

We were doing Laundromat.

Which, by the way, I wish I could go there after I saw the movie. Because it was just a shithole plaza. And I'm like, what movie are you guys making? And it was low budget. She's like, well, we film in that thing.

Right before. Literally, we started at the end of January. And we shot up until right before they shut everything down.

And then did you resume for a minute?

We shot everything with one more day to go. The entire world was shutting down. And we just kept going because we knew just a little bit more. One more day, one more day. And we kept going until 824 came to us and says, listen, guys, the entire country is shut down.

So you came back for one more day?

We came back eight months later. And they gave the Daniels time to put it together.

That might have been a blessing.

It was a blessing. Because the visual effects was done by five guys in a garage. It wasn't like a big visual effects company working on a movie. So it gave them that time. It gave the Daniels time to put it together.

This might be one of the most impressive movies I've ever seen in my life. For a million reasons.

It's such a good movie.

A, it's just a fucking brilliant movie. Even if the budget was $200 million, it would have lived up to that.

It's like it.

It's impossibly good and complex. And the editing, of all the editing I've ever seen in my life, I don't know how they kept all that straight. It's so impressive. But, of course, I was there. I saw the set.

Yeah, it was. In fact, we didn't even have trailers. And this is the genius of the screenplay. The Daniels wrote it in a way where they can shoot the majority of the movie in one building. And the entire cast had dressing rooms instead of trailers, because we couldn't afford that.

But when you saw it, did you have the same thing I had, which was like, Wow, this movie's gigantic.

For sure, it felt much bigger than what it cost us.

And what you probably felt like on set.

I felt small on set.

Often, it's the opposite experience. You go away. You make a movie for three months. You think you're making Gone with the Wind. You go to a first screen.

When I read the script for the first time, I knew it was a great script.

Was it hard to follow?

I was able to follow. I got all the jokes. But there was just one thing that I had question about was, how the hell are they going to pull this off? Right. It was so wild and crazy.

Oh, my God.

They built this couch. They rigged it where you can sink into the couch. I did not. And it was so brilliant. Our industry has gone through a long period of time where, don't even think about doing it practically.

They don't even want you to use squibs anymore. It's like, everything will be done digitally. Like, wow, really?

That's why it was so refreshing to be on the set, because we did everything practically. Wow.

Now, I wouldn't have thought this when I was watching it, but now that I rewatched some of it today, and I know about your fight choreography background in your second-degree black belt in Taekwondo, when you had your action scene, were you able to be helpful? Did you stay out of the way, or did you go like, hey, guys, by the way, I have choreographed quite a few fight scenes, and I'm a second-degree black belt. I have some thoughts.

A lot of things that happened to me was really a blessing. in disguise, like going to film school, working behind the camera as an assistant action choreographer. For everything, everywhere, all at once, I only wanted to wear the actor's hat. But when the action team came to me and said, these are the moves we're thinking of for this scene, I understood it right away. I knew the language.

You felt confident.

Very confident.

It's a great scene, that fucking fanny pack.

That movie, I think, is one of the best movies I've seen in 20 years. I mean, it's so powerful and good. What I love about it is at first, I'm trying to understand. I spend some portion of the movie at the beginning being like, okay, do I get it? And then at some point, you just surrender.

Yeah, you have all this anxiety, and then you surrender to the notion that it'll all make sense if you stop thinking. You have to do a leap of faith.

Which is the point of the movie. I know. It's the moral of the movie. It's so poignant.

It's so beautiful, too. The love story between you and your wife in that is so crushing.

You're so good in it.

What's amazing is, I've met so many fans. their age. It's a wide range.

Can I tell you my then eight-year-old, one of her favorite movies she ever saw?

Wow. Eight. And did she understood it?

She did. Yeah.

That's great. I think a lot of young people got it right away. I meet a lot of older fans, and they said, I love the movie. I've seen it three times. I didn't understand it the first two times.

Yeah, I've seen it twice, and I could go for a third viewing for sure. That's so good. What an incredible experience. It's brilliant. You're brilliant in it, especially for a dude who'd not done it for 20-plus years to come out and immediately be that proficient at it.

I did go through an anxiety phase after I won the Oscar, because all of a sudden I felt, okay, so I have this really successful movie, and it reminded me of Indiana Jones.

Of course.

So then I go, is history going to repeat itself? Am I going to do something next? that's going to be like the Goonies, and then after that, I'm just going to slip off the earth?

You've formatted your brain for these. highs, lows, highs, lows. That's what you know. Something terrible has got to come your way now.

Yeah. You know, I was asked a really interesting question yesterday. Do I still have anxiety or doubts about my next job? And I do, because when you have that for so long, it doesn't go away overnight. But I did feel like there was this huge anxiety of like making sure history doesn't repeat itself.

You're back to school, where every kid's interested in you. Yeah. It's all very familiar.

That's right.

And you have a hunch. this is going to go away, just like it always has.

Yeah, like they're interested for five minutes, and then they have to leave.

The fear, the fear that all of this is going to go away. And I felt like I had to make the right decision on the next step, and that was really hard.

Well, you joined the Marvel Universe. That's a great—.

But that was before the Oscars. I did that in 2022.. It was after the movie had came out, before all the accolades. It was slowly growing, and then I got that wonderful call from Kevin Feige about joining Loki. And then I had that.

The amount of, like, heightened experiences you've had.

Both ways.

Yeah, all the directions. Spielberg sent him Christmas presents for 39 years.

Yes. I love him.

It's hard not to love this guy.

I love him, too. Oh, my God. He is the sweetest. When I won the Oscar, during one of those commercial breaks, I went up to him, gave him a big hug, and I told him, I said, Stephen, I hope I made you proud tonight. And he said, you've always made me proud.

Yeah.

That's too much. Well— I love it. You were celebrated from Loki, too. You won a TV Critics' Choice Award.

I was nominated.

Oh, you didn't win.

No.

Well, then I take that back.

Honestly, that was such a huge gift, of being given that opportunity to play Ouroboros.

Can I say something really quick about Steven Spielberg? I feel like he must feel some responsibility for you. The presents say that a little bit. Like, I plucked this boy out of his elementary school and changed his life.

I have some responsibility.

I have some responsibility to him to make sure it's good. Not that he should have felt that, but I could see him feeling that way. Has he said anything to you as such?

No. I mean, he's given me so much. He was the first filmmaker to put an Asian kid in a big Hollywood movie. And he didn't do it one time. He did it two times.

But I just mean, he seems like such a—he seems like such an incredible person and soul that I can imagine that he probably took that out of him.

You know, over the years, I would do something, and I would get a card in the mail and say, Ki, I just saw you in this. You were brilliant. He was keeping an eye on you. Yeah, he was keeping an eye on me.

So, Ki, what are you doing next? I know you were in Kung Fu Panda 4..

Yeah, that was my first voiceover ever.

And how did you like it?

I loved it. It was a very different experience. I think. doing voiceover work, you have to place your faith and trust in the filmmakers more than live action. Because I didn't get to read the full script.

No context.

—context of what I'm doing.

No, you're doing the performance in a vacuum.

Yeah. So weird.

I'm bad at it. I've done a bit of it, and it does not come easy. for me. It's almost like the opposite of what I had to train myself to do as an actor, which is be calm, be still, have patience, undersell it. Your voice is so beautiful.

I just finished a movie for Universal Studios. It's called With Love. My first ever movie as the number one on cost sheet, a major studio film.

That's so exciting.

Are you allowed to tell us what it's about?

It's an action movie produced by David Leitch and Kelly McCormick, who did The Fall Guy.

Yes, I know David Leitch for years.

Yeah, he's great. It's an 87 North movie. It's a big action movie. We had a lot of fun. I grew up watching Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, you know, the Hong Kong 80s action movies, and they all did their own fights.

I completely agree.

But then mentally, I think I'm 21.

I cannot recommend enough for people to go back and watch the early Jackie Chan movies from Hong Kong because he was Buster Keaton. I mean, he's jumping out of buildings. He's jumping onto buses from 40 feet. I mean, the amount of stunts he did, we've never seen anything like that.

And I don't think we will ever see anything like it again, because now you wouldn't put an actor in that position. I mean, he's broken so many bones.

He's going through plate glass windows. Those early movies are almost impossible to believe they're real.

And especially now with the technology of AI and deepfake, it's like, why would any actor do that?

Yeah. Well, that's so exciting.

It's a big love story and action movie, and it comes out next February.

Wonderful. You should go back on Colbert because you were on Colbert on Valentine's Day.

That's right. Yes, yes.

Yes, you started your segment by saying happy Valentine's Day.

You're good, Dax.

So you should go back and commemorate it. Oh, and Valentine's Day is her anniversary too.

It is. That's the anniversary of this show.

Yeah. We have a good cast. I'm in it with Ariana DeBose, who gave me the Oscars when I won.

She was crying.

Yeah, she was. I love her so much. I remember her opening the envelope and announcing my name with such emotion.

She couldn't even say it.

And then Mashaun Lynch is in this too. You know, you won a Super Bowl.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fun.

Oh, this is exciting.

I'm so happy for you.

Thank you so much.

I'm so happy. What a beautiful story. What a story. My God. Really quick, I am landing the plane, but it crossed my mind.

He should.

Because he has this history of bringing back people that we all loved. Did you ever let yourself fantasize that maybe he was going to call you?

No.

It's a weird question. I love him.

I'm a big fan of his movies, of him.

But he only brought Travolta back. Yeah, yeah. And he brings Don Johnson back.

I never had that. I didn't know this, but being an Asian actor in Hollywood, we're conditioned to think a certain way. Let me give you an example. When 87 North, David Leitch, and Kelly McCormick came to me with love, I read the script, and I said, oh, you got the wrong person. This script is written for somebody else, for a white actor.

Oh, my Lord.

And then they go, we want you to come in. And I remember meeting them in person, and they have slides of me as that character. And I was staring at it, and I'm looking at David Leitch, who was one of the biggest directors in Hollywood. And I said, how come he can see me in this role, and I can't see myself in this role? It dawned on me that because my entire life, when I go to a movie theater, when I watch a movie similar to this, it always stars.

Go ahead, say it. Someone like you.

Someone not like me.

Ryan Reynolds, that type.

Yeah, so I didn't know that I was conditioned to think a certain way. When you said, like, did I ever dream a director like Tarantino would call me one day, no, I never did. I dreamt that I would get a call from my agent telling me there is this great role for you. I think you're perfect for it. We're going to send you out.

And now it's flipped. Now they all think you can do it. And you're worried, you can't. Yeah.

Isn't that interesting?

It is. And it's so common. The flip that has to happen. once you've achieved something you wanted, you have to reset your whole brain. We say on here all the time, like, I know what it's like to try to build something.

But it's a minorities dilemma. It's extra, right? Because, yeah, you're growing up proving yourself the whole time.

You have to be exceptional.

Yes, you have to be exceptional. And, like you said, you don't even dream the same dreams the other hegemonic group does, because that's just not part of the story. And so, once you get there to rewire, as in like, no, I'm a part of this group. now, is very hard.

It's a very hard transition back to identity.

I love Dan Kwan, half of the Daniels. Dan Kwan says something that I really love and resonated with me. He said, today's system is made up of follicle stories, meaning the stories of the past, something similar to that. And he said, if we want a new system, we have to make up new stories. For the last few years, I'm really grateful that Hollywood has opened up its doors for a lot of different groups of people that were never privy to those opportunities, and now they are.

And, Key, they're already the best ones we've had over the last 10 years. You have Atlanta, this black perspective. You have Rami, this Muslim perspective. You have everywhere. They're immediately among the very best that have ever been made.

It's really interesting, and that's why I wake up every day thinking, wow, it's great where things are going.

A new dawn.

Yeah, a new dawn, exactly.

Well, Key, thank you so much. This was delightful and life-affirming, and I loved every second of it.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Monica. Thank you, Dex. This is incredible. I was really nervous coming here.

Oh, I hope it subsided. And we'll come back and we'll talk about your movie.

Yeah, come back next time. Valentine.

Thank you so much.

All right, be well. He isn't our care expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God, Monica's here. She's got to let him have the facts.

Hi, Dex Shepard.

Yeah, my voice went really high there, didn't it? Hello, Monica.

What's the highest you can go?

Well, I just ate a bunch of weird food at a for real smorgasbord. I think maybe the world's first smorgasbord.

Fun.

Well, because I'm in.

You're in smorgastown?

I'm in smorgasbord, Norway. Where are you? I'm not really. I don't even know if this place has a name that's so tiny, but it did have a real life called a smorgasbord.

And what did you eat?

Okay, I ate too many things. Shit, I'm jumping ahead. I was about to show you the view. But yes, okay, so I ate a bunch of prime rib, but I also got into the potatoes. all grotten hard.

Vanilla sauce?

Yes, with also a berry sauce. It was divine. So when you ask, how high can I go, I'm a little handicapped at the moment with how high I could go. But I'll try. You ready?

I want you to try, yeah.

Okay, let me clear out my instrument. Please cut this.

Hi, Monica.

That's pretty good. That's good.

Let me try again. Let me try again. Hi. Yeah, it's best if you do, because I really don't want you to see me either. I'm going to cover my camera.

Okay.

Hi.

Yeah.

It's not good.

It does, it sounds.

It sounds terrible.

It sounds not high. It's like your voice sounds different, but it doesn't sound high.

I don't. Yeah, it just sounds weaker, my voice.

Yeah, it sounds like a mouse.

Too much dairy.

Okay, we're going to blame. Okay.

We'll try it. on the next one. I'll keep my instrument clean. I'll be preparing.

So you have not cheated, though.

What, on gluten?

On the things you wouldn't eat at Letterman's house.

Oh, no, I haven't. Now, you know what I did have over, it's been a week now. I did have a bite of a croissant. one morning. I had a bite of a croissant, because fuck do I love a croissant, especially when you're on the other side of the pond.

I feel validated.

Oh, you do? Okay.

Yeah, I do, I do, I do.

I feel that you should have a little bit of Letterman's garlic bread.

Tell Dave I'll have a bite of a croissant if he makes it for me.

Oh, man. Okay, let me see your view.

Okay. I'm going to take you as far as I can. Let's see here. Hold on. I'll submit a picture, too, so the viewer knows what you're also seeing.

Oh, gorgeous.

Monica, that's a fjord.

Oh, wow.

That's beautiful. That's a real fjord.

Can you explain what a fjord is?

Yeah, so you could think of it as maybe a bay, but if a bay was super skinny and 100 or 200 miles long, so all of this glacial water comes down all these mountains and it fills up this bay. There's just so much water. As we're driving here, there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls.

They're everywhere. Oh, beautiful.

The fjords are these super steep cliffs, and it's this long channel that's maybe, I don't know, at some points it's three miles wide, maybe at some points it's 15 miles wide, and it ultimately goes to the ocean. But it's the most gorgeous. We took a ferry ride yesterday on that thing. Eric was telling you about, the tour of the nutshell, whatever it was called, and it was pretty impossible. It looked like a screensaver or AI-generated.

Wow, cool.

Now, I could do an hour and a half on my thoughts about being here, both in Iceland and here in Norway. I have so many thoughts. Number one thought probably is this is the nicest day of the year, and it's 58, and it was gray all day. It's a harsh, harsh environment.

Yeah.

It's really harsh. I was sitting on the side of the road today while the kids were running around these trails and playing in the snow and stuff, and I was like, you know, at some point in human history, people left Africa and they headed north and they went through Spain and they went through Italy and Greece, and then they got up into Germany, still very good fertile land. They were passing all these areas where tons of crops grew, and olives and tomatoes, and they were like, let's keep going north. And they got up here, and they were like, okay, it's dark half the year. It's cold 10 months of the year.

Maybe they got stuck.

I would say this place is more of a cultural shock than I've experienced in many other places. Like. I'm experiencing it maybe more here than I did in India.

No way.

Really? Yes, and I'm going to say this with tons and tons of respect to our Scandinavian friends. They're very stoic. They're very quiet. I think they can't stand us.

Joy.

Yeah, and I'm trying to compare. I was saying in the car today, it's like there's just this disjunction between what I know and then what I observe. And of course I'm observing it through my own cultural lens of how I define happiness. And I'm mildly aware of that, but also it's very confusing. Like when you hear happiest place on earth and you come and you've yet to see anyone smile.

That is so interesting.

And then I got it in my mind. I was like, could these tests really even mean anything? because you're asking people what their experience is. And I can already tell that culturally no one would ever complain here. That just culturally no one would ever say this sucks.

It's also all relative. Maybe they're happy. It might be different than what we think is happy.

And I think there's that. I think there's also, these are means, right? These are averages of all the countries. And I think, well, what they definitely don't have is 20% of their population suffering and abject poverty like we have. So then you're just wondering like, well, what would these stats look like?

Yeah, it does. It does. I think, I think more than that, though. It's, it's conditioning. Like we in America are very conditioned to want.

And so we don't have the just right saying here, whatever. What is it? Like a lagoon.

It's not lagoon, but it's something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. Not too much. Not too little. We're like, no, no, there's no such thing as too much.

Yeah. We, we are conditioned to, to want. So that's why I think most people say they're not happy or they're not content, but in some of these other places, they're very much taught that word.

Be content. Yeah.

Content. It doesn't mean super high highs or super low lows. It's just like middle.

Yeah.

But we like high highs here and they come with lows.

I'll give you the moment that is most has. And again, it's hard to know if this is in my head, but I feel very strongly about this. The funniest moment and it's repeated every few hours. When we all go in, all eight of us go into the gas station on the side of the road where we're driving and we get snacks. I'm positive.

Yes. I'm sure they are. Yeah.

That's fascinating. Yeah. Like Eric and I are both getting a couple of Coke zeros for the car ride and then some waters and whatever. I'm like, even the owner wants to go like, I don't want you to buy this much. I don't want to sell this much stuff to you.

No.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We were at a pizza place last night and the guy said, that's too much food. You ordered that. And then that's too much food.

Are you getting, are you getting testy with them or no? No,

no, no. By the way, I want to be clear. They're so nice. Everyone here is nice. It's good folk.

Oh, wow. Really?

Yeah. Like, well, in Iceland, we learned the number. It was preposterous. There's like seven tourists to every one inhabitant of my God. There's only like four or 500,000 people that live in Iceland.

Yeah, that is really interesting. And also, because I've talked to Jess about it, because he grew up, you know, he spent 11 years in Sweden when he was young.

Yeah.

And he has a specific take on Sweden that most people don't. And it is, to him, one note kind of, yes, there's like a little bit of a bleak, like a darkness, a gray.

Yeah.

And I was like, would you, would you want to go back there? And he said, I'm good.

Yeah. It's just different. I'm not at all saying one's better or worse. It's just, it's, it's impossible not to notice.

Well, also, within one year, you've been to basically the opposite, like the opposite. You've been to India and you've been to Norway.

Yeah. There's like one person per hundred square mile here.

Yes.

And then, when we were in India, it's like, it's on. Life is on. Yes. And it's, and there's a fervor and a noise.

There's a vibrancy. Yeah. It's, it's really interesting. When we were in old Delhi, you know, there's poverty everywhere. It's poor.

But people are having a great time. Yeah, they are.

And that, that is an interesting juxtaposition to what you're saying. There's like no poverty, but it's, it doesn't have that energy.

Yeah. So then, of course, it's like, I think it's tempting to go back in history to wonder when this divergence happened. And you're thinking of the Vikings and you're thinking of their different forms of royalty that they had. But really, I think you need to go back to the first migration here. I think, like what I'm saying, the fact that someone preferred to be up here than to be down South, where everyone had come from, it, says a lot.

yeah.

And, of course, in Italy, those people got there and they're like, yeah, this, let's go. This is a party. This is fucking hundreds of miles from Africa. They didn't go very far. They're like, these olives are growing everywhere.

Oh, my God. What? What happened?

Okay. So remember, you were a little bit worried. I got to stop. We should have done this at the very beginning. I think it would have been announced by now.

Yeah. So we're going to have video on Thursdays, videos on both of our fact checks. You can still just listen. If you want, that'll be available as well.

Yeah. Not one thing will be taken away. We'll just be adding some things.

And you can still listen everywhere. This is not, you don't have to download anything or you can listen wherever you are. You listen.

And what is very exciting. Cause I've had a hunch. Some of the listeners would have preferred not to listen. to pay, to listen to us ad free. That's also going to be an option now for you.

Yeah, it's very special. We're very grateful.

Okay. And now onto something not so special. So, uh, very long. We, we were on, as you pointed out, on Thursday's fact check, Eric booked us on a tour. It started on a train ride at 10 AM.

Cause it's not, it's illegal.

Well, yeah, especially bathroom. So I go, do you think that's Eric? And she goes, Oh my God, he, do you think he's in there vaping? And right when we're like debating this, they opened the door and oh, so much.

Oh, no.

Pouring out of the bathroom. Like if you were direct, if you were directing the scene in a movie, you'd go, that's guys, it's way over the top. No, there's no way someone could have created that much. And the second we saw him, I saw all of that smoke billow out. We both ran, we got out of there.

Oh,

God. I go to Eric, I go back to our seat. Eric's sitting there like no big deal. He's on his phone. I go, Eric, did you just fucking hot box the bathroom?

To camouflage?

Yes. All he had on was this tie dye shirt. Like he was so identifiable.

Oh.

Monica, this is not the most Eric story you've ever heard.

Oh my God. You know, this also happened to him on an airplane. Like he vaped on an airplane, almost got kicked off.

Molly brought that up and she was saying, Eric, you, you have to now admit you can't smoke in these bathrooms. There are detectors in there.

Yeah.

So now Eric is like in full disguise. Like he's in a movie, and he's crouched down and we have another hour and 15 minutes on this ferry and he is truly panicked.

He's like,

they'll arrest you for that here. Right. And we're all thinking like, Oh my God, what happens when Eric gets arrested in the middle of this tour? And we're on all these, like catch a ferry, then catch a train. Like if we're dealing with an, I don't even know.

Yeah.

Begin to get home. Anywho, he kept the disguise on and he kept his low profile. And then we got off the boat successfully. Everything blew over and he kept his disguise on, on the,

It's not a disguise when you're wearing a bright purple hat.

But anyways, he kept it on, on the bus. And then he kept it on the, the final train ride. And I said to Eric, are you going to keep this on till we get to Denmark? Like, do you think there's an APB out for you nationwide? Oh my God.

That is so funny.

Oh, Eric. I know. So if they're, if they're mad at us, they have a right to be, I guess.

Yeah. Stupid Americans breaking the law.

Vaping in the, in the can. Um,

is it illegal here? I mean, I don't pay much attention cause I don't vape, but is it illegal to do in a public?

Well, it certainly is in the airplane bathroom and, like a commercial airline. It is. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, it might be definitely probably there, but I mean, even here, cause obviously smoking in a bathroom would be illegal. Yeah. It's a non-smoking,

but even though there's a song, smoking in the boys room.

No, it's still legal.

You know that song, don't you smoking in the boys room? I think it's Motley Crue. What have, what's been happening on your side of town?

Oh, I'm reading a very sexy book. It's called all fours.

Oh, five, better be sexy with that title.

It is. It's by Miranda July, incredible author. And it's kind of the book of the summer. Like everyone's reading it.

Everyone's going to be horny this summer.

Yes, it is.

Great summer to be a single dude.

Definitely.

Or you can mostly about doggy style or no,

it's about a woman who she's 45 and she is going to meet her friends in New York. Her husband suggested she drive there and, like, you know, take a road trip and, and she doesn't make it there. She stops like an hour away and days. Oh, wow. Stuff happens.

Pulls the eject button on her life. Well,

I'm like a hundred pages in, so I don't know how this will end, but she stops in basically an hour outside her home, get a hotel room and is, is planning on going back after the quote trip is over.

Yeah. But she meets someone in the lobby.

She meets someone at a gas station and yeah, trouble ensues.

Whoa.

It's so good.

If people love that book and they've already read, that reminds me of a couple other books that are great, that are older, that are like that. But, Erica Yong, fear of flying. You ever read that?

No.

Supposed to be one of the most seminal feminist works. And it introduces the concept. I've brought this up on here before of the zip list. Fuck.

This is her.

Yeah. Yeah. You should really read fear of flying when you're done with this. If you're on, if you want it to be a horny summer,

horny summer. Yeah. I also, I started following the New York times book review, Instagram. Yeah. There was a, a book that I'm really excited to read also after this, that's also sounds horny.

Hmm.

I, I definitely recommend it. I'm enjoying it.

Okay. Dallas cowboy cheerleaders. There is something I wanted to add to our previous conversation. Cause. last night, Delta and I watched, well, the last two nights, Delta and I watched two more episodes.

I've completed it.

You're all done.

Yeah.

I think the thing we left out of our first conversation about it, which is really important, is they love it. I think it's so important. Like they love it so much. Like when that girl who's been injured is like, it's the best five years of my life. And I'm afraid the rest of my life's not even going to live up to it.

Yeah. I mean, that's why I said, I think it's a very interesting depiction of being attached to an identity, because they do love it, but there are real, there are issues, you know, one being that like they're 23 and have to have hip surgeries. Yeah. That's rough.

Yeah.

And some of them, as you keep watching, you know, they like, they like it, but they know it's not good for them, like mentally even. But they can't put it down, because who are they if they put it down?

Yeah. I guess what I'm saying is like, I have to, I have to be fair and make it equivalent to any other sport where people are really deciding like, yeah, I mean, I could get CTE. That's very common. Or I'm a wrestler and I have to fucking lose 12 pounds in a week, or I'm a boxer and I have to destroy my body. You know, I think people want to write it off as something frivolous, but if you're going to write that off as frivolous, then I think you have to write off all sports as frivolous.

Yeah.

Of course, I can't relate at all. You know, I'm like, oh my God, I wouldn't, you know, to be judged. And it's God, they're like in the military. It's like your kick sucked. Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am. Ooh, is so triggering.

I mean,

I can relate. I can relate to, to it more than probably most people can. And in the last episode, the end of the season, and it's so sad it's over and they're going to have a new team next year. And some of these people won't be there. And I just was like, yeah, it's, it's a testament to identity, but also community.

Sisterhood,

deep kinship and idea that only this group knows what this is like. I still feel that when I was watching and I was like, oh God, I was thinking about my squads. I still feel that, like only those people on earth, those like 20 people will know what that feeling was in that moment.

36.

I mean, for me, my squad was,

oh yeah. Yeah. Still,

when I think about all those people, we all had a shared experience. I don't know what most of those people are doing right now anymore, but we had this very special thing, and it's, it's beautiful. Yeah.

I think the craziest thing, there's. the two craziest things are first, the flying up in the air, down into the splits, landing straight in the splits is insane. I cannot believe it. It's like they're trying to break their hips. But I think even crazier than that for me was the notion that they all have to report to a hair salon.

I know. Not to mention this, is before they've made the team.

Yes. They could still get caught. Yeah.

They do. And it's just like,

oh my.

Yeah.

But fuck, did they love it? Oh my God. I was watching it with Delta. And I said, um, you know, when someone gets cut, they all, all the gals come around, they hug the person and they're all crying. And I, of course, it was like, oh, I was panicked.

I think that they're not all crying. They're all, you can, you can be sad and not cry.

I think they're being really nice, but I, I don't know that they're, well, Delta, and I think only about half were actually crying.

I think you'd be surprised what happens when you're in that, that much of a pressure cooker. Everyone's emotions are just like ready to brim for anything. And so, true,

heightened, heightened, heightened.

Whether or not you actually are that sad, anything off kilter is going to make you cry. It's such an intense environment.

Yeah. Okay. The other crazy moment, and I don't know, and people will probably not like that. I asked this, but there's a storyline where you're, a girl goes back home and you're meeting her parents, and the parents are being very honest about the fact that they only stayed together for the kids. And then, the second the kids moved away, they got divorced.

I don't want to say that she is, she is very emotionally stable, but I don't want to say that if somebody had another opinion, that that means they're not emotionally stable, because I think both are very valid opinions.

Yes. Lincoln. I, I didn't have an, I didn't ask her. We didn't watch it together, but I know Lincoln would have said she would want us to stay together. No matter what.

exactly. And that's fair and correct too.

Yeah. There's not a writer or a wrong answer. It was just kind of shocking to hear her say,

especially to their dad. Like it's one thing if you're just like having a philosophical debate about it, but like telling your dad, like, oh, it's okay. Like if you want to go,

Blow this joint.

I, a hundred thousand percent, would have said, stay together. Yeah. Stay together.

I think that's most miserable. Yeah. For me. Cause I need you and I need you guys. Yeah.

I still kind of feel that. Sure. Sure. Like I rather you guys just be together.

Yeah. Even if you don't like it, I want to come home. And I'm not even there.

I want to come home three times a year and you better be there.

You better be there as a unit. One unit.

I know it's really selfish. as someone who wants to overcome those like feelings. I would now say, yes, of course, everyone should be happy. Yeah. But innately.

It was kind of cool too, because it almost felt like by the parents divulging this whole history of theirs, what I was initially interpreting was that, like, that was hard that she had to do that. But, but the final message the mom says is she's like, I'm so glad I did that. And I do it a thousand more times. Like. the mom has zero regret that she did that.

Yeah. But Delta is wired. Interestingly. And in that way, like you said, when you watch parenthood during like the cause, we Jasmine thing.

Yeah. Like, yeah, slit my throat.

She's so nice.

Of course he cheated on her.

I know. I wonder, I really wonder like how she's going to be. As an adult.

Like in a relationship, if she's going to be so laissez-faire or not. Yeah. Yeah. And then you wonder, is like, is there a genetic component, you know? I mean, this is definitely, it's kind of my position.

I know, which is weird, but I wonder if that's learned also from you in some way. I mean, not that you say anything.

I don't. That's the thing is like, I don't, I'm not ever talking about having been in an open relationship. I mean, the only thing that I have said to them, which is, naturally, they see TV shows, a parent cheats, and then the family gets divorced. And when I've told them numerous times when they bring that up is like, I would never divorce your mom for cheating on me. Yeah.

I know, but I don't think she's like, Oh no, my dad thinks this. So, but, but sometimes there's a vibe and an essence you can pick up on from people that I, I wonder, I don't know.

Well, there's no jealousy being displayed. Right. We're not very jealous people. So they're not really witnessing that. Like you, better not wear that out.