Fun, fizzy dispatches from the city and beyondAfter arriving in the United States, Quan’s family reunited in Los Angeles’s Chinatown. One day in 1983, while he and his younger brother, David, were in E.S.L. class, they saw kids heading to an open-call movie audition at their school. David wanted to go, too, and Quan accompanied him, coaching him in Cantonese (“Bigger! Look at me—like this!”) and charming casting directors. Soon, Quan himself was at the Warner Bros. lot, auditioning before Harrison Ford, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg, who cast him as the impishly heroic Short Round in “Temple of Doom.” (David was happy for him, Quan said.) “I didn’t know who they were,” Quan recalled, sitting on a wall. “I hadn’t seen ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ In fact, I’d never been to a movie theatre. The first time I went to a theatre and watched a movie with a live audience, I was in it.” In the memoir, he recalls the nurturing and kindness of Spielberg, and of Ford, who taught him how to swim. “ ‘Temple of Doom’ helped me kind of reshape what I went through as a kid in a positive way,” he said. “I was having fun and playing a character who was courageous and funny and really enjoying the ride, versus terrified and worried about surviving.” Behind him, tourists took photos with the statue; one happy teen posed like Lady Liberty, her arm raised, holding a novelty torch-shaped lemonade cup.“I’ll help you bury your acorns, then you help me with my thing.”Cartoon by Ellis RosenCopy link to cartoonCopy link to cartoonLink copiedShopShopSeeing Quan, a young blond guy did a double take. “I literally was, like, Oh, my God, my favorite actor from ‘The Goonies’!” he said. Quan posed for some fan pictures, then headed to the lemonade stand. As a kid, he said, he’d loved being recognized, “but when my career went south”—subsequent roles were smaller, and he eventually worked as a creative consultant for Wong Kar-wai—he didn’t: “I thought I’d peaked at twelve.” (He did, however, meet his wife while working for Wong.) Since the release of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” in 2022, for which he won the Oscar, “I am no longer uncomfortable,” he said. More good roles followed, including in last year’s “Zootopia 2.” “I play Gary De’Snake, a pit viper,” he said. “He may look intimidating, but he’s actually a kind and funny guy with a big heart.”After a second ferry ride, Quan, sipping from his own torch-shaped lemonade cup, walked through the Ellis Island museum. “So this is the building where all the immigrants came through!” he said, in the sunny hall. He admired sepia-toned photos of immigrant kids holding American flags (“What an incredible thing America did”) and took in exhibits about restrictions and bigotry. He peered at some cartoons from 1882. “The first group of Chinese immigrants to this country were lied to—they ended up doing hard labor,” he said. “I would love to do a movie about that one day.” ?