In The Daniels’ visionary sophomore feature, “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang, a woman of a certain age struggling with keeping her laundromat business afloat. But Evelyn is also a pop superstar, a movie star, a hibachi chef, a Kung Fu master, and much more. See, thanks to a threat to the entire multiverse, Evelyn finds herself accessing hundreds, even thousands of different versions of herself. Evelyns who went on a dramatically different life path. Oh, and while she fights to save the universe, she also needs to settle things with a grumpy IRS agent (Jamie Lee Curtis).
One of the versions of Evelyn that will have moviegoers buzzing, lives in a world where humans evolved with hot dogs for fingers. No, we’re not joking. It makes zero sense, but Evelyn’s digits are hot dog franks instead of traditional fingers. Speaking to The Playlist this week, the legendary Yeoh admitted she didn’t initially think the concept would work.
Yeoh recalls, “When I first looked at it in the script, I remember thinking to myself, ‘Somehow, I’m going to talk to these two boys, it’s going out the window. What are hot dog fingers? They’re putting it in their mouths, and their mustard is coming out?’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m old generation. I’m old school, no way.’ I begin to understand where they’re going with this.”
It also didn’t hurt that Curtis, who plays a slightly different version of her character in the hot dog finger universe, was so gung-ho about it.
“I’m so blessed. The legendary Jamie Lee Curtis that I get to do this with her because she is the boldest beautiful human being, and being in a character that loves her is very easy,” Yeoh says. “So literally, we just took a look at each other and said, ‘Let’s go for it, baby.’ And we were flapping our hot dog fingers, but they are like little whips because they’re so fun to play with, but the next day Jamie showed me her thighs, they were all bruised because I guess she was getting a little carried away, flapping them on her thighs.”
Yes, they might look light as a feather on screen, but the silicon-created fingers were about as hard as the dildos that appear as weapons in other scenes in the picture. The Daniels are gutsy, and all their creativity pays off in a story that is really about a mother (Yeoh) trying to connect with her twentysomething daughter (Stephanie Hsu). A movie you won’t easily forget.
During our conversation, Yeoh discusses how the Daniels won her over (they had no other candidates to play the role), keeping track of all the different versions of Evelyn in a very complex screenplay and much more.
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The Playlist: When you read the script, did you need to talk to someone about it before you really considered even sitting down with them? Or was it, “No, let’s just see what happens”?
Michelle Yeoh: When I read the script, I held my breath because it’s been a while since I’ve read a script written for an older Asian woman in such an incredible, crazy way, action, science fiction, comedy, anything you could think of. And then I said, “I have to see what these two boys have done before, what the Daniels have done before,” then I watched [their first film] “Swiss Army Man,” and I was like, “I need to meet them.” The next time I’m in LA, I want to meet them, which I did. For me doing any movie is very important that it’s coming with passion. It’s a labor of love from them, and it’s not just a job or lip service that they’re going to impart to me. And I wanted to know, am I going to be meeting two insane people that deserve to be in an asylum or really insane geniuses that I have to work with? When I met with them within minutes, I felt I love these two boys. I love the passion that they’re bringing to it. I love that they have written about the strong women in their lives, their mothers, obviously, and because they’ve been inspired and been intimidated but have caused them to be so courageous and bold right now.
So I was really blown away because I finally felt I had a script that I think I’ve been waiting for for quite a few years. I played many amazing roles when I was working in Asia, in Hong Kong and China, where I was the lead, and it’s been a while since you’ve seen an Asian woman who is an older woman, not just a younger Asian kick ass girl. And to be given the opportunity to tell the story of a very ordinary woman, who’s old, a mother, a wife, who’s trying to keep her family together, not to be swallowed up by the horrible IRS. And this incredible Jamie Lee Curtis is that plays the scariest [agent]. Her single-mindedness of this character is so real because this person we meet when we go to the IRS or to the immigration or whatever, where they have the power to do and destroy you if necessary. And to tell this at the core of domestic family movie about love, compassion that we can only survive if we treat each other with kindness in this chaotic world.
From a technical standpoint, as an actor, I think you must play at least 12, 14 different versions of Evelyn. How hard was it to track even just the few with individual storylines? As an actor, how did you approach that every day going to set, looking at the call sheet?
I have my own system. I mark it all out. Sometimes the script was easier in previous TV series or movies. Still, this one was one of the most challenging because I’m literally in every scene, and sometimes, on one page, there are eight different universes that we’re jumping to. The first time after I’ve mapped up this journey, I looked at this script, and I went, “Oh my God, maybe this is a little bit more challenging than I thought of at first.” But then, you know what? I love challenges, and I love my directors. I love the Daniels, and I know they know exactly what they are doing. And they’ve spent two to three years writing the script, working it out, so that was clarity. And together with Jonathan [Wang], our producer, they prepped the movie really, really well. Because once we got into the shooting schedule, that was very little room to maneuver or script changes. We had to know what we had to do because 38 days to shoot a movie like this is not enough time. And you’re talking about comedy; you’re talking, especially action pieces, which are not just simple action pieces. But as a character, it was one of the most beautiful, challenging, crazy opportunities to play all these different roles, but all centered on Evelyn Wall, the worst failure of herself, the Jack of nothing, the master of none. I found the beauty was that she [takes] the audiences with her into each universe and are like, “What the hell are we doing here? What the heck is this?” You’re a hibachi chef, and you’re going like, “Why am I a hibachi chef, and I don’t even know how to spin the egg?” But I but the body of that hibachi Evelyn knew exactly what to do. So it was a beautiful transition that went from one to the other, and we couldn’t have done it if they were not so well prepped. The crew from our DP, the production designer, the prop master, the costumes, everything had their own [specific] use. There was nothing random; it was all plotted out and planned from how Evelyn Wall is dressed; we designed all of it meticulously.
Was there time for rehearsals?
We didn’t really have that much because I only arrived in January, we started filming [the same month]. So we had a week to prep into costume and to get the look right and all that. So I had to do a lot of my prep away from the [other actors and the directors], but we constantly communicated with each other. It was really when we were on set, the first time we met each other, Jamie, it was on set. When she was prepping for her look, and in two days’ time, we were going to shoot. But I came in well prepared, knowing all my lines, all the different characters, and things like that, but I was ready to be thrown in the deep end and go, like, swim. Now you’re this, and now you’re that, but that’s also, I think the spontaneity of it was organic in a way. For me, it was not improv. The whole picture was there. In the script, she has to say, “I love you” to [Jamie’s character] and mean it. All right. And then when you are shooting it, it’s “How the hell am I going to come up with eight I love you and make it work?” Then you are like, “O.K., you better get your act together, sister, because everybody is watching you now.” So yes, it was challenging. But I think the beauty of the craziness of that brought a sense of realism to it all and made it bond together because every single character was so invested, and so understood the path that they were taking, but it goes without saying the Daniels held our hands all throughout.
Did they tell you that you were their only choice to play the character? That there was no backup plan?
Yes, they did. After we met, they said, “O.K., no pressure, now that we’ve gotten to know each other, we just want you to know that if you’re not going to do this movie, I think we will have to scrap our script and write again.” But they were brilliant; by then, I had already fallen in love with them, so they had an easy way out.
Considering how complex the script was and the 38-day shoot, what surprised you the most about the finished movie?
I think as an actor; I’m really useless. I am a coward. I am so insecure about how the audience will respond because this is the first time I’m really doing physical comedy and comedy without doing comedy. And it was terrifying because when I read it was like, you can do this, you can do this, you’ve always wanted to test it out, now you have your chance, just go ahead and do it, be brave. You have Jamie there; you have Ke [Huy Quan] there; you have Stephanie [Hsu], who is so brilliant that now you have to show them that you deserve to be here. You know, that doubt of self-worth? I think so many of us are crazy actors; we do that to ourselves. We just beat ourselves up. It must have been at South by Southwest at the premiere. And when you hear the audience react and you go, “Oh my god. They get it.” So, which is the part that impressed me? I think the whole movie as a whole, how people have reacted to it. I think it just draws so hard on the fact that we make movies for the cinemas, and we are so blessed that our film and A24 had held on that we deserve to have a real screening and have a real audience, share that experience that crazy ride with us and when they were enjoying it, and they were laughing and clapping and crying and all that, that was a dream come true.
My last question is the silliest of them all. So the hot dog fingers, were they fun? Was it uncomfortable? Was it bizarre?
When I first looked at it in the script, I remember thinking to myself, “Somehow, I’m going to talk to these two boys; it’s going out the window. What are hot dog fingers? They’re putting it in their mouths, and their mustard is coming out.” I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m old generation. I’m old school, no way.” I begin to understand where they’re going with this. But the most beautiful thing was I’m so blessed. The legendary Jamie Lee Curtis that I get to do this with her because she is the boldest beautiful human being, and being in a character that loves her is very easy. So literally, we just took a look at each other and said, “Let’s go for it, baby.” And we were flapping our hot dog fingers, but they are like little whips because they’re so fun to play with, but the next day Jamie showed me her thighs, they were all bruised because I guess she was getting a little carried away, flapping them on her thighs.
Oh, they were heavy. I would not have guessed that.
Oh my God. They were solid. They were like those big dildos that Stephanie was throwing around.
They looked so light on screen. You would never have guessed that.
Oh my God. No, no, no. [Laughs.]
“Everything Everywhere All At Once” opens in limited release on Friday. It expands nationwide on April 8.
