Ke Huy Quan Recalls 'Incredible' Experience Filming The Goonies, Says 1985 Film Set 'Was Like a Kids Dream'

Everything Everywhere All at Once star Ke Huy Quan says filming The Goonies “was like a kid’s dream.”

On a July 15 episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, the Oscar winner talked about going from starring opposite Harrison Ford in 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when he was just 12 years old, to joining the ensemble cast of young actors in the 1985 adventure comedy.

“It was a very different experience going from Indy to The Goonies,” Quan explained. Because he was the only kid on the set of his film debut, “I got all the attention, all the love.”

Things were a little different when he began filming Goonies, however. “All of a sudden, I walk on The Goonies set and I was with six other kids,” the now-52-year-old Oscar winner recalled.

“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 Brolin grew up in a movie family. Jeff Cohen was so awesome and cute, and he was a ham. And Corey Feldman was a pro already. And they all knew how to look the best in front of the camera, how to say the lines, how to hit the marks.”

“This was only my second movie,” Quan added. “Now I have to fight for attention, which is something I was very familiar with because I grew up in a big family.”

Having so many kid actors sharing scenes made for what sounds like a pretty chaotic, albeit fun set. “We drove director Richard Donner crazy,” Quan fondly remembered. “We were, like, constantly jumping on him, screaming on set, overlapping each other all the time."

But Quan says the famed Superman director used his young cast’s energy to fuel the film’s vibe. “Back then, it is unheard of to do a movie where you have overlapping dialogue because of the editing,” he explained.

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“So, you always have one actor finish their dialogue before another actor says his. But we were kids, and we were just talking over one another. The sound guy said, ‘We can't have this.’ And Dick Darnell said, ‘Sh -

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ut up. Just let them be kids. Just let them enjoy themselves,’ and that's what we did. We were just being ourselves.”

As any fan of the beloved film will tell you, watching The Goonies is like watching a gaggle of kids get to have a free-for-all in the greatest waterpark ever, as the characters traverse underground tunnels to find a hidden pirate ship laden with treasure. And, according to Quan, that’s exactly what it was like making the film.

“Oh my gosh. It was incredible,” he told Shepard and co-host Monica Padman. “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.”

“We were like a big family,” Quan said of the film’s cast, which also included older teen actors Josh Brolin, Martha Plimpton and Kerri Green. “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.”

Quan described Brolin as “like the older brother” to the younger cast members and said he’s also remained close with Goonies co-star Jeff Cohen, who played Chunk in the film and went on to become an entertainment lawyer. “He's my lawyer. We're best friends. We see each other all the time,” Quan said.

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“Did you have a crush on Martha Plimpton?” Shepard asked.

“Not Martha. I was too young. I was 13 going on 14,” Quan replied — though Plimpton was just 14 herself at the time. “I think it was later on that I thought Kerri Green was really pretty.”

Quan has previously described the Goonies cast as "family." Ahead of his 2023 Academy Award win for his supporting role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, the actor said that Feldman, Astin, Brolin, Plimpton and Green had all reached out to congratulate him on his nomination.

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