Actor Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) made a beeline for his old friend, fellow actor Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”), the moment he saw him enter the winners’ lounge at Sunday evening’s Critics Choice Awards.
Cameras captured Quan as he quite literally ran across the room to greet Fraser — and video of the moment circulated on Twitter after the event.
“There is SO much love for #BrendanFraser in the house tonight,” the Critics Choice Awards account tweeted, sharing the video. “Here’s the moment Ke Huy Quan spotted him in the Winners Lounge and sprinted over to congratulate him.”
There is SO much love for #BrendanFraser in the house tonight.
Here’s the moment Ke Huy Quan spotted him in the Winners Lounge and sprinted over to congratulate him. pic.twitter.com/QWhdX3BiU1
— Critics Choice Awards (@CriticsChoice) January 16, 2023
Fraser and Quan worked together in the early 90s on “Encino Man” — a teen comedy also starring Pauly Shore and Sean Astin — in which Fraser played a prehistoric man who wakes up after the glacier in which he was frozen thaws in Astin’s backyard.
While “Encino Man” effectively launched Fraser’s career, Quan was not so lucky. But then Fraser disappeared from the Hollywood scene as well — at least in part because he believed he was blacklisted. In 2018 he gave an interview with GQ revealing that nearly 15 years earlier, Philip Berk, a former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, had groped him at a luncheon. Berk has denied the allegation, but Fraser has never backed down from his initial claim — and he said that for a time after it happened, he just wanted to “retreat.”
But when he and Quan were reunited after three decades — with Quan generating buzz for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Fraser earning rave reviews for “The Whale” — Quan said Fraser stunned him with just three words.
WATCH:
“We’re still here.”
Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan reunite 30 years after starring together in ‘Encino Man.’
See Brendan Fraser’s incredible performance in The Whale in Australian cinemas February 2. pic.twitter.com/zJRmkf9ney
— Madman Films (@MadmanFilms) January 13, 2023
“It was great to see him again. I love him in ‘The Whale,'” Quan reflected. “What a powerful performance.”
“He put his hand on my shoulder and he said this, he was still here. I will never forget those three words and it’s actually right,” Quan added.
Fraser took home the award for Best Actor on Sunday, breaking down in tears as he gave his acceptance speech.
“If you, like a guy like Charlie, who I played in this movie, in any way struggle with obesity,” Fraser said, his voice wavering. “Or you just feel like you’re in a dark sea, I want you to know that if you too can have the strength to just get to your feet and go to the light, good things will happen!”
