Ke Huy Quan won the first Golden Globe award of the evening, for best supporting actor in a motion picture for his role in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The 51-year-old actor, who starred as a child alongside Harrison Ford in the Steven Spielberg-directed Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was overcome with emotion as he accepted the award.
"I was raised to never forget where I came from, and to always remember who gave me my first opportunity. I am so happy to see Steven Spielberg here tonight," he tearfully said.
"As I grew older, I started to wonder if that was it. If that was just luck for so many years, I was afraid I had nothing more to offer.
"That no matter what I did I would I would never surpass what I achieved as a kid.
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This is Quan's first acting nomination and win at the Globes.
He is the second actor of Asian descent to win the Globe for supporting actor, the first being Haing S. Ngor for his role in The Killing Fields.
The star became a child actor at the age of 12, starring as Harrison Ford's sidekick Short Round in Indiana Jones. He also went on to co-star in The Goonies as the inventor Richard 'Data' Wang.
His last acting role was in the 1996 Hong Kong/Vietnam co-production Red Pirate.
Quan found it difficult to find acting work in the United States and eventually left the profession to enrol in a film program at University of Southern California.
He went on to help choreograph fighting sequences in X-Men (2000) and spent the next decade working on various productions in Asia and the United States.
Quan's co-stars Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis are also nominated for Golden Globes.
Everything Everywhere All At Once directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan were triple-nominated for directing, screenplay and best picture.