‘Everything Everywhere At Once’ Star Stephanie Hsu Enjoys Success She’s Achieved “Following the People I Enjoy Working With”

Stephanie Hsu faces many challenges in Daniels’ hit Everything always at once. Last but not least, there are the infinite versions of her character that she must keep from scene to scene, from Joy, the deprived daughter of Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn, to Jobu Tupaki, an all-seeing, all-knowing supervillain who is to destroy her everything. . the world because she does not care to take care of it. Released in the spring, the film became his rarest hit: it attracted both mainstream and independent audiences and is arguably the most likely “popular film” to win the biggest Oscars.

MEETING: Everything, everywhere, all at once appears to be at the forefront of a new kind of mainstream filmmaking. How did it feel to see this connection like this?

STEPHANIE HSU: Absolutely – I feel like our film was a launch for everyone to say, ‘Wait, films are back. OK let’s go. Let’s go back to editing and keep pushing each other.” I feel like it defines something new and I think I’ve been waiting for mainstream movies to change people again, to get people excited to go back to the cinema. The fact that experiencing this renaissance with a project that I love so much is incredible for me and I feel really encouraged.

One of the things about the film is that there is a wonderful spirit of togetherness and being with the ones you love. Knowing how difficult it is to even walk out the door of a theater, to share the film felt like holding someone’s hand and saying, “I want to show you a little bit of something which reached me.” , and I want you to understand . “

I’ll tell you a story, the Daniels and I went to the Hamptons Film Festival together and we were on the same plane. Daniel Scheinert sat next to a man who was watching the film, but he said nothing. Then this man talked to another man and he started watching the film. So they finished the film immediately, then gathered in the booth, hugged and talked about it. And then Daniel said something to me and I walked down the hall. The boys said, “Wait. Are you… is it… is she…” It must be intense to watch this film and then find yourself in close quarters with Jobu Tapaki. [laughs] But it was so special to see her witness it right next to us.

DEADLINE: Where does your journey begin?

HSU: I was born in South Bay and then lived in New York for 11 years. That. I think that was the big thing that shaped me. I used to think I was by the coast, and I went to work all the time, but I don’t have to live there as often anymore. But I worked on a farm when I was in college. I really enjoy farming and being able to appreciate something outside of this industry just keeps me sane and healthy.

I started with experimental theater and comedy. I never wanted an agent, never wanted to do commercial things. To be honest, I think I was really afraid of the sell-out because there weren’t any at the time Crazy rich Asians. I was one of two Asians in my acting class, then one of maybe less than 10 blacks in the entire department. We didn’t have the conversations we’re having now. So I think the experimental theater scene was much more international and it felt like we were crossing borders. Now I can see it’s also limited in scope and elitist in a way, but it was fun doing shit you were really passionate about.

I always say that people have opened doors for me that I didn’t know existed. Someone reads a table from a Spongebob Musical and they asked me to do some extra voices. I ended up working on this project for six years. Then one day I got a call: “Do you want to come to Broadway?” I mean, yeah, I’ve never been. And then another musical I did in New Jersey that ended up being a weird internet cult sensation. We made an album and it became such a sensation on the dark web of musical theater that it hit Broadway five years later, all powered by the power of the people.

Long story short, just before this movie I did this show, be cooleron Broadway, played the female lead and directed the third season The wonderful Mrs. Maisel at the same time. Rachel Brosnahan and I went to college together, and although we didn’t know each other, we had mutual friends. I kept getting friends saying to me, ‘There’s a character on it Maisel who everyone thinks you should be. Make sure you’re there.” I was in tech doing eight shows a week, but they said, “You want it to work.” So I got this job and I was still doing eight shows a week, but on Mondays I shot Maisel.

When this was done, Bowen Yang before he expired SNL, called me because he was doing a show with Awkwafina that had an all Asian cast. So, after my musical and Maisel packed, I have an episode of Nora from Queens, and my directors were the Daniels. We fell madly in love with each other. The first day we worked together, they blew a leaf blower in my face, quickly rapped me to a green screen, and then Daniel Scheinert climbed a ladder to dump mud on me. I said, “These are my boys” and followed them to LA. Within a week of arriving, they called me and said, ‘Hey, we’re working on this film. No pressure, but we think you’ll be perfect for it.

I think the biggest thing I’m thankful for is mostly the success Everything everywhere, is that I can do all this just by following people I enjoy working with. Since I haven’t seen many people like me and can’t see a way for myself, I just played to want to do things that I’m really passionate about.

DEADLINE: You play an infinite number of characters, but for the sake of simplicity we decide that there are two of them: Joy and Jobu Tapaki, two sides of the same coin. You can find the dark side of Joy and the vulnerable side of Jobu Tapaki; how much work did it take to figure it out?

HSU: You are right that Jobu is everything and so is Joy, and Joy has Jobu inside her. The Daniels and I talked about the concept of this particular character number because it is so important to make sense of the film even in the midst of chaos. We tried to weave that into the fabric of the film and one of my favorite abbreviations for it was “joybu”. A combination of Joy and Jobu. It wasn’t real, but we knew what it meant. Sometimes, when the stitching started to unravel a little bit, we’d do something in a scene that was clearly Jobu, like the hallway scene, but then we’d be like, “Okay, we’ll do it again, but this time we’ll Joybu let it be done.” It made sense for the meta, because if someone could jump and be everywhere at once, they might as well be the daughter.

I loved Joybu because I think we got the scene here. One of my favorite scenes is where Jobu is describing the bagel and it’s that ultra close up and I think it’s a perfect Joybu moment because you can tell there’s something underneath the villain. It’s the window.

I’m such a craft nerd, and you never get roles that ask that much of a thinker, so making room for that little window was so satisfying.

DEADLINE: It must have been intricately laid out, but was there room for you to embellish it?

HSU: I think a lot of it happened beforehand while we were in pre-production. When we were on our way to the races, the shoot lasted 30 days. We spent a lot of time, especially with Jobu, delving into the idea that she’s so omniscient that it doesn’t even phase her. It was about creating a villain who also has a superior philosophy and heart and thinks everything is stupid.

The hallway scene was the first I shot in the first week of shooting with Michelle Yeoh. The Daniels and I are good with paint on the wall and I have a lot of confidence in them. It’ll be like, “OK, the camera’s here, now go wild.” So we worked together on Jobu and loved her very much. But in that moment before Michelle it was like, “Oh my god, wait, what?” Little did I know it would ever become public. It suddenly dawned on me, “I’m about to wave that nunchaku at Michelle Yeoh.” I was so nervous because I was about to become a freak.

But the thing about Michelle is that she’s actually pretty stupid too. And while the Daniels may feel like dumb guys giving everyone else the go-ahead to create, they’re also exceptional craftsmen. I want the world to be there for them because I want more people in the industry to know that it is possible to appreciate the people you work with and give them that space, and that great art comes from Trust and love can develop and by not taking yourself too seriously. but always practice the profession responsibly.