Addressing Josh Horowitz on Happy Sad Confused, Ke Huy Quan looked back at the surprise meeting that most kids at that time could only dream of experiencing themselves:
“One day two grown-ups came to visit us, and I didn’t even know who they were at that time. And it was Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, and we just spent an entire afternoon together. It was not until after the movie when they showed me, when George Lucas screened ‘Star Wars’ to me that I realized ‘Oh my God, that one afternoon I was having so much fun with Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia!'”
I have so many questions. Had Quan never seen “Star Wars” before? Saying that George Lucas screened “Star Wars” for him after they shot “Temple of Doom” seems to suggest that it was Quan’s first time watching any of the original trilogy. Quan was around 12-years-old when the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” prequel was filming, literally the perfect age to be obsessed with Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2-D2, and C-3PO. Surely, Quan had seen “Star Wars” before but just didn’t realize the “two grown-ups” were actually Luke and Leia until he watched “A New Hope” (presumably) again during a personal screening with Lucas (an amazing small detail all by itself). But there’s no follow up by Horowitz to confirm this! If Quan hadn’t seen any “Star Wars” until 1984 or thereabouts, that’s the real story here.
Regardless, it’s still incredible to think of Quan as a kid just starting out in the business having that kind of relationship with three legends, all in the span of one afternoon. “You know, those memories that I had of that shoot was that, and it was just so wonderful and amazing, and joyful.”