The stars of A24’s “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” including Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Andy Le, Brian Le, and Daniel Mah, join the directing duo The Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) in this interview with CinemaBlend's Law Sharma. They discuss the chaos of filming, keeping track of continuity within the multiverse, Asian representation, dealing with generational trauma and more.
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00:00 You guys are so cool.
00:01 This might be one of my favorite films of all time.
00:04 No.
00:05 Yeah, no, it's up there.
00:07 Evelyn feels like so much like my own mother in a lot of ways.
00:21 Michelle, my first question is for you.
00:23 I wonder what does this role mean to you
00:25 in getting to work with geniuses like the Daniels?
00:28 I think I'm still coming to terms with it.
00:30 I think the first day when I received the script,
00:33 it was a little unbelievable.
00:37 It's like I've been waiting so long, my God, so long,
00:40 to actually have an aging Asian immigrant ordinary woman
00:45 turn into a superhero and a story all about her.
00:50 But the Daniels, like you say, are evil geniuses
00:53 because they put it in a sci-fi world
00:56 where all this craziness, this ordinary craziness,
01:00 can happen.
01:01 And I'm very proud.
01:04 I must say, I am very, very proud of not just myself,
01:09 but all my co-stars, like Jamie.
01:12 My God, all right, I don't have to tell you
01:14 what how brilliant she is.
01:17 But Kee Kwan, Stephanie Hsu, it's
01:20 like every single performance was crucial and tied up
01:24 to this bagel.
01:25 Honestly, I just showed up and they would say,
01:27 OK, now we're doing this.
01:28 And I'd be like, OK.
01:31 Because the truth of the matter is, as Michelle just
01:34 beautifully said, this is a movie about real people.
01:38 Like the performances have to be real.
01:41 And I know Deirdre's.
01:44 I just know them.
01:46 The world exists partially because of Deirdre's.
01:51 If there were no Deirdre's, it would be anarchy.
01:54 So she's a bit of a police officer in a way.
01:57 And she takes her job very seriously.
02:00 And I just knew women like her.
02:02 And so for me, it was just making sure
02:04 that I was being true to her.
02:06 I can see where this story is going.
02:08 It does not look good.
02:15 I was the daughter of an immigrant.
02:24 I am the daughter of an immigrant.
02:25 I never thought that I could even be in this industry.
02:30 I never saw myself on the screen,
02:32 maybe a little in the goonies.
02:35 And I just think so many people in our community
02:43 really relate to this story.
02:45 And it is something that they've never seen before, right?
02:48 And especially with everything that's going on in the world
02:51 right now and specifically in our country, in America,
02:55 with the violence against Asians.
02:58 People just need to know that we are so full of history
03:05 and messy and love.
03:08 And it's not a stereotype.
03:10 It's just life.
03:12 It's Michelle Yeoh as the owner of a laundromat.
03:16 And we never get to hear that in a way that is just honest.
03:20 I think this is maybe one of the most honest portrayals
03:23 of an Asian family that I've ever seen.
03:26 And I'm just excited and honored to be a part of it.
03:29 Who was in charge of continuity on this film
03:32 and keeping track of the narrative behind the scenes?
03:34 Because it had to be a logistical nightmare,
03:37 I would say.
03:39 Yeah, logistical nightmare is the right word.
03:41 So our wonderful script supervisor, Julia Sector,
03:44 she was sort of the one who had to protect the continuity
03:48 as much as possible.
03:49 But then with this movie, after a certain point,
03:53 the continuity doesn't matter.
03:55 It's like there are certain scenes where, yes, we
03:56 have to be really careful.
03:58 And then there's other scenes where
03:59 we knew how it was going to edit.
04:01 And as long as everyone trusted us,
04:03 we could kind of say, that matters, that doesn't matter.
04:06 Let's keep shooting.
04:09 And so Julia Sector kind of protected it all.
04:12 We threw away a lot of rules.
04:15 And then the rest of our key crew
04:17 kind of had to also hold on to just their own departments.
04:21 Because each department had a nightmare scenario when it
04:24 comes to keeping track of it all.
04:26 The thing that mattered most to us
04:28 was the emotional continuity and working with the actors
04:33 to make sure they knew where they were and why
04:34 and how they felt. And kind of like, as long as you have that,
04:38 you're 90% there.
04:40 We go onto the set every day, Michelle.
04:43 Michelle would be like, you know I don't know what's going on.
04:47 We're the same.
04:48 We're like, OK, how are we supposed to--
04:50 how are we supposed to choreograph the action when--
04:53 when we don't even know exactly what's going on.
04:56 And they're like, it's OK, just run wild and then we'll--
04:58 you know, we'll--
04:59 They will-- we'll put it together for you.
05:02 This is the first movie where I've cried back and forth
05:04 five times.
05:05 I cried.
05:06 I dried up and laughed my ass off.
05:08 Then I cried.
05:09 Then I laughed so I had a cramp on my cheek.
05:11 And I cried again.
05:12 I'm like, god damn, bro.
05:13 And then-- and then we still don't know what the hell's
05:16 going on.
05:16 Growing up, Hong Kong action movies were all I watched.
05:19 And that's because my father comes from Hong Kong.
05:22 And so he showed me all of his favorite movies growing up.
05:25 And to-- to us, if we were going to do an action movie,
05:28 we-- that was the only way we could imagine doing it.
05:31 And so even though a lot of Hollywood
05:33 isn't doing that these days, we-- we searched high and low
05:36 for the right partners and collaborators.
05:38 And the Marshall Club, who we found from YouTube,
05:41 were perfect.
05:42 They blew us away.
05:43 And we were like, these people can do the--
05:46 they do the fight choreography.
05:47 They understand the camera work.
05:48 And then on top of that, they're funny.
05:50 They understand that it can be funny when you fight too.
05:53 So I'm so excited that the movie has really good action
05:58 sequences in it, which is something that we weren't
06:00 sure we could pull off.
06:01 My favorite genre right now might be generational trauma.
06:04 I wonder why you think that this movie or this story
06:09 is so important to tell right now.
06:12 It is true because it is happening right now, right?
06:15 The world-- because your generation is a generation that
06:19 lives with over--
06:21 overwhelming information and constant and nonstop.
06:25 And for us, we look at you and go like, can you just hold on?
06:30 I can't even do one task.
06:31 And you guys are multitasking and pulling things out
06:34 of everywhere.
06:36 And it is hard to communicate when you--
06:39 you're not on the same page.
06:41 And I think that is one of the things.
06:42 It's like-- it's like the Daniels.
06:44 They grew up with very strong women around them.
06:48 And I think this is their story.
06:50 This is their sort of like therapy as well,
06:53 getting it out there, you know, and then working it through.
06:56 Because at the end of the day, this generational trauma
06:59 just needs to sit down and have a real conversation
07:03 without judging each other on both sides,
07:07 not just on one side.
07:08 I think sometimes parents, because they have lived
07:12 the experiences, and what they are trying to say is like,
07:16 don't make the mistakes that I did.
07:18 Don't go down that path.
07:19 And I think that is always the biggest miscommunication.
07:23 It's like, you know, don't force me to be who you are,
07:26 because I am me.
07:28 And this is a conversation to be had.
07:31 Of all the places I could be.
07:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:35 I just want to just share with you.
07:38 What has happened in the last few years,
07:40 you know, with Asian representation,
07:42 you know, with Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-Chi
07:45 and the farewell.
07:46 I mean, here we are.
07:47 I mean, I know, you know, things haven't
07:50 moved as fast as we want.
07:52 But with all sustainable improvements,
07:54 you know, they happen gradually.
07:55 And I'm just so hopeful that Hollywood is allowing us
08:02 to tell stories like this.
08:05 And that's why it's so important.
08:07 And it's a testament to how, you know, why not just Asians,
08:10 but all groups of people to be represented in entertainment.
08:13 In my 70 years, you know, I've gone from--
08:17 when I started, it was not long after that the exclusion
08:22 was still active.
08:23 So I come from that era.
08:26 And now there's that feeling.
08:28 And we transcend into more of the part of the American
08:34 society, you know, as being artists and accepted.
08:37 And all of a sudden, right now, we're
08:39 back into the other side when I started.
08:43 And there's this kind of discrimination, you know.
08:46 And I hate to see that.
08:48 I've given my whole life to do films and TV,
08:52 500 or more of them.
08:53 And you know, and you've accepted me
08:56 as a part of your family.
08:58 And these people, you know, they show you in this film,
09:02 especially, what their expression can
09:04 mean to the community and to society and to the world.
09:09 Early drafts of this, our producers rightfully
09:12 were like, this is an unproducible script
09:14 for the budget that we could, you know, possibly get.
09:18 And so we did a lot of planning to try to make it manageable.
09:23 So we shot six of eight weeks in one Simi Valley location
09:30 and tried to use it in as many different ways as possible.
09:33 We turned the cafeteria of that building
09:34 into like a mini soundstage.
09:36 And we built the apartment set there.
09:38 We built the inside of the sci-fi RV in there.
09:42 And so we tried to do our best to just be
09:46 really resourceful with the one location that we had.
09:49 Yeah, and then our last week of the shoot,
09:51 we ran around like crazy to get as many short locations
09:54 as we could.
09:56 My favorite day was we rented this space in LA
10:00 that just has like 30 very poorly built sets just
10:06 pre-built in there.
10:07 It looks like a high school theater production.
10:10 Yeah, but with the right lighting,
10:12 we could just run from room to room to room.
10:14 And so we probably did like 20 or 30--
10:17 Universes in that one day.
10:18 Yeah, in just one day.
10:19 Amazing.
10:19 I can't wait to show this to my own parents.
10:21 I already have a date blocked out for all of us.
10:24 Oh, wow.
10:25 Thank you.
10:26 Biggest compliment.
10:26 Thank you.
10:27 Thank you.
10:27 Thank you.
10:28 Thank you for your time.
10:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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