Consider This from NPR - Michelle Yeoh is a subversive superhero in 'Everything Everywhere All At Once'

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

Michelle Yeoh has been a star for decades. American audiences will know her as a warrior in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or an icy matriarch in Crazy Rich Asians. Now, in Everything Everywhere All At Once, she's playing Chinese immigrant Evelyn Wang who is both a failure and possibly the key to saving the multiverse from a great chaos-spreading evil. Michelle Yeoh talks with NPR's Ailsa Chang about her journey through the multiverse, with all its wackiness, wonder and wisdom.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. Michelle Yeoh has been a star for decades. She was a warrior in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a mentor in Memoirs of a geisha, and of course, she was the icy matriarch of a family of crazy rich Asians. Now Yeo is finally getting her turn at the leading role in a Hollywood film. In the new movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once, written and directed by the duo known as the Daniels. I am paying attention.

In it, Yeo plays Evelyn Wong, a laundromat owner. When you meet Evelyn at the beginning of the movie, she is totally stressed out and distracted. I have to finish all this before I pass. You see, she's going to steam the tablecloth for tonight. Her marriage to her husband, Waymond, has stagnated. Her relationship with her queer daughter, Joy, is fraught with tension and frustration. Mom, just wait.

Wait? Wait? No time to wait. Just stay. And on top of all that, her laundromat is about to go under. Oh wait, there's more. Her judgmental father's in town, and she's being audited too. Need I remind you that there's already a lien on your property? Repossession is well within our rights. I know.

It's probably easier to say what is going right in her life the minute you meet Evelyn Wong. That's Michelle Yeoh. To her, Evelyn represents a kind of every woman. For me, she's the woman, the mother, the auntie, the grandmother that you pass by, you know, when you go to the supermarket. The almost unseen woman who has got the weight of the world on her shoulders. Consider this. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a zany science fiction adventure that travels through multiple universes,

including the universe of one ordinary Chinese immigrant woman, frizzy hair, puffy red vest and all, who turns out to be a superhero. Confused yet? I talked with Michelle Yeoh about her journey through the multiverse with all its wackiness, wonder, and wisdom. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Friday, April 8th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today, or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply.

Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. Okay, everything, everywhere, all at once throws a lot at you. All at once. In the middle of her IRS audit, Evelyn Wong's husband, Waymond, drops some pretty mind-boggling news. I'm not your husband, and he's not the one you know.

I'm another version of him from another life path, another universe. In fact, there are many other universes out there, he says. Universes where Evelyn made different choices along the way that led to different Evelyn lives. I'm here because we need your help. Very busy today. I'm all tied to help you. Oh, and there's a great evil spreading chaos throughout all of these universes. I've spent years searching for the one who might be able to match this great evil with an even greater good and bring back

balance. And that greater good might just be this Evelyn Wong, as in the failing laundromat owner, Evelyn Wong. So it's a good thing. She has been given a device that allows her to access all the other Evelyns and all their other skills. And that's just the beginning. It is a very different kind of movie than Michelle Yeoh is used to. I swear, I was on the floor laughing so hard.

Especially when it came to filming scenes that used adult toys as weapons. I remember lying there thinking, oh God, what have you put me into? What did I do to deserve this? Still, Yeo told me she trusted directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. You have to understand what these, I call them evil geniuses, what's going on in those heads. They are bold and courageous and not afraid to make you laugh or feel. And that required Yo to be bold and courageous herself, stretching beyond the martial arts master she's so good at playing

to, well, someone who doesn't really know what she's doing. I think I had it easy in the past where I just look cool, you know, right? I know exactly what I'm doing, that kind of thing. Oh my God, martial arts is simple. It's easy compared to physical comedy. Physical comedy is like timing, it's precision, it's so many things coming together at the right time. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I never did it before

because it was so hard. No, and I think it was so challenging that I really, really enjoyed it very much because you had to literally fracture your mind into knowing the moves and doing them like you're a master, but your face is completely registering shock and then wonder and like, oh my God, how the hell am I doing this? Like all at the same time. I love that point because it was new for me to see you in a role where you did not look glamorous

or intimidatingly beautiful or regal. I mean, how did it feel to look so intensely ordinary for this movie? Ah, but that was it. You know, I felt that this was such a perfect opportunity to give a voice to the very ordinary mothers and housewife who are out there, you know, doing the most mundane things and get so taken for granted. Yes. And then let her discover that, oh my God, she is a superhero. you know, doing the most mundane things and get so taken for granted. Yes.

And then let her discover that, oh my God, she is a superhero. Exactly. What was so cool for me was to see an unglamorous Chinese woman, the kind of woman who might be invisible to people on the bus or in Chinatown, to see that Chinese immigrant woman play a superhero felt so different to me, right? It was like almost subversive. I loved that. Yes, yes.

I think that was a whole, that was one of the main points that we were trying to bring to the surface. It's like, not just her, but all of us have superpowers. And one of the biggest superpower that we often and should use more of is kindness. That's an incredible superpower that's inherently there in all of us. And that's what we are trying to do here. It's like this ordinary Evelyn Wong, you know, at the end of the day, finding what she really, really, she will never give up. That's her family. That's her love for her family, her daughter. I think today we find that so relatable because communication is one of the most difficult things

I find with the different generations, especially with a Chinese immigrant, any immigrant family. You're here for the American dream and that's not an easy dream, is it? It's so tough. And some don't ever get it right. But they don't give up trying.

I think that's one of the messages for me. Whatever you do, if you give up, you've already failed. And you can't give up on family and love and kindness. You just have to keep trying. Well, you know, this movie, it doesn't just shift who we see as superheroes in the universe. It also kind of shifts who we see leading a Hollywood movie. Like you have spent almost four decades in film and now at age 59, this is the first time that you have ever gotten top billing in a Hollywood movie. What does that feel like at this moment in your career? It's like, finally, finally, we have our moment. And thank God it

didn't come a moment too soon. No, I think I've waited. And I think not just me, there's so many of us that looks like me, like you, who are waiting, who are still waiting for the opportunities. I think the tide has turned, but we also need to be responsible, good storytellers, and seize the opportunities that are presented now for women, for diversity, but don't let it just be lip service. It has to mean something. So this particular, this movie in particular, it's about an Asian immigrant woman, an aging Asian immigrant woman. When was the last time you saw that? Right? Right. Exactly. Not only being a lead role, but to be the superhero. Yeah. So, but you know that it took us a long time. I think in the older days, you know how Asians put their heads down and say, okay, let's just get on with it. Let's work hard.

Our hard work will pay off. Sorry. Amen. You know, sometimes we have to rock the boat. We just have to rock the boat and say, look at us, give us a chance. Because guess what? We exist in your society. We are part of the society and very, very much an intricate part of this whole community. But we also have to make it that we have to stand up for our rights. You know, we can't just, it's not just for us, but for our children and their children. And this is the only way we will get more opportunities if we fight for it and no longer

be able to say, okay, I'll turn the other cheek. Dang, no more turning the other cheek. Absolutely. Well, speaking of taking a stand, making decisions, making choices in life. You know, your character, Evelyn, she travels back and forth between alternate universes in this story where she catches glimpses of what her life would have been like had she made different choices. And it made me wonder if you have ever imagined what other universes would have opened up had you made different choices in life. You know, I think what we all do is we, especially when we've made a mistake, and we all make mistakes. We're human, right? I'm sure we do that.

Some really bad ones. And if you're smart, you'll never make them again. And that's what we hope to do is every time we do make a mistake is to know what the mistake is, accept it and move on and move forwards. And do I want to say, oh, I wish, of course, there are things in life I wish I did, which would have made me smarter, healthier, wiser when I was younger. But do I sit there and go, I wish I took another path, because then I wouldn't have all the amazing things I have today and the career that I've forged over the last 30 something years. So I don't really spend time doing that. But I think in everything, everywhere, all at once, it does make you ponder because what it

tells you here is like every choice that you make splinters into a full-blown universe of its own with a real life, irregardless of whether you have hot dog fingers, whether you're a rock, what you have evolved to. I think the core spirit, the core emotion is very, very real in whatever universe you are in. And for Evelyn, yes, because her life at that moment in time was so desperate

and feeling like such a failure, she almost wants to go to the glam universe where she's successful. She's a movie star. Yeah, she's a star yeah she's frankly those scenes look like your real life daniel's tried very hard okay they tried to call the the character michelle at the beginning of the when we started our journey and i shot that down like right away. It's like, no. So watch my lips. N-O. No Michelle calling in the movie. Um, because I think it's, it's, it's like, yes, we do have moments of regrets,

but we also have to remember if you go like what Evelyn is told, if you go into that universe, it destroys all the other universes. It destroys your universe. And what is most precious to you now, you would lose. Yeah. I felt like this movie was telling us ultimately it's not useful in life to wonder what if, because no matter what path you choose will involve some loss, but also some gain. Yes. And I think you have to be present. This life is yours. But if you're not present, it's wasted. It goes by. As you know, time waits for no one. You know, when we're born, we age and then we die. And God forbid we die before we have lived our lives. So we have to be present in whatever universe, in whatever life.

Because if you give up on being present, then you give up on your life. That was Michelle Yeoh talking about her new movie, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.