It's Been A Long Road To Oscar Gold For Ke Huy Quan And Jamie Lee Curtis

There is no ceiling. You can launch your career as a bookish teenager running and screaming for your life from the white-masked embodiment of pure evil, or an adolescent piloting a getaway car with blocks tied to your feet, and, four decades later, find yourself accepting an Academy Award on the stage of the Dolby Theatre.

Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan won their first Academy Awards tonight for their exquisite supporting performances in "Everything Everywhere All at Once." Curtis, the daughter of movie stars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, had a clearer road ahead of her, but she was typecast early in her career as the apotheosized scream queen spawn of Marion Crane. She followed her portrayal of Laurie Strode in John Carpenter's pioneering slasher flick "Halloween" with more of the victimized same in "Prom Night," "Terror Train" and "Halloween" (though she was quite good as a headstrong hitchhiker in Richard Franklin's underseen, Hitchcock-esque Aussie thriller "Roadgames"). Curtis rightfully earned acclaim as the femme fatale co-lead of Charles Crichton's hilarious "A Fish Called Wanda," but Kevin Kline won the Oscar as her dim-witted paramour. 16 years later, she gave a virtuosic comedic performance as Lindsay Lohan's mother in the body-swapping remake of "Freaky Friday," but it was too broad for the Academy's liking.

Quan's path to the Dolby wasn't nearly as twisted, if only because there was barely a path. Quan popped as Harrison Ford's plucky sidekick in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," and was equally charming as the ever-resourceful Data in Richard Donner's "The Goonies." Then the roles dried up. Quan wasn't a leading man, and, even if he had been, Hollywood wasn't looking for Asian-American leads. So he quit acting and found work as a stunt coordinator.

These are two very different triumphs. Curtis is Hollywood royalty. Her father earned a Best Actor nomination early in his career as an escaped convict chained to Sidney Poitier in Stanley Kramer's heavy-handed "The Defiant Ones," and was a walking caricature of himself by the 1970s. Her mother was brilliant in "The Naked Spur," "Touch of Evil" and "Psycho," but she could never quite shake the stigmatic fame of being the shower victim in "Psycho." Jamie Lee Curtis has found the late-career respect that was denied her parents, which must be bittersweet for her. "I just won an Oscar!" People like to bag on so-called "nepo babies" nowadays, but Curtis is a fabulous performer who slugged it out in dreck for most of her career before she landed the uncharacteristic role that got her to the Dolby.

Quan has been this awards season's Cinderella story, particularly for folks of my age who grew up wishing they could be him. He saved Indiana Jones and, the following year, saved himself with his "pinchers of power!" He possessed a natural screen presence at a young age, which doesn't always guarantee career longevity. But for him to drop off the face of the map after "The Goonies" (save for a thankless role in "Encino Man") says exactly what you think it does about Hollywood's casting practices.

Quan is a hugely appealing performer. He could've been Sean Astin in "Encino Man." He could've been the underdog hero of hundreds of teen comedies. He never got his shot, but now he has what almost all of his peers lack: an Oscar. But please let this be more than atonement. Let this be a career rebirth.