Another Life

Ke Huy Quan was a child star who built a career behind the camera. Now he’s returning to acting—and bringing all his past selves with him.

- Bilge Ebiri

KE HUY QUAN SWUNG that damn fanny pack everywhere. It hung from an unusually long strap, and for weeks Quan swung it in the kitchen, he swung it while watching TV, he swung it all over the house. “I broke so many things,” he says, laughing. “My wife was not too happy about it.” But Quan was determined to master his technique because that fanny pack plays the weapon in his big action scene in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Up to that point in the story, the film has mostly been a domestic drama, and Quan’s character, Waymond Wang, a meek, soft-voiced husband, father, and laundromat owner. When things suddenly go haywire, he tears off the fanny pack he’s been wearing and whips it around with breathtaking expertise, using it in the style of a wushu rope dart to subdue a group of IRS security goons.