— Sunwoo? I can’t date him. We can never ever break up. If we don’t want to ever break up, we have to remain as friends forever. If we date and break up, how am I ever supposed to live? I can’t.
there’s something that makes me very very emotional about the fact that the main asian actors in everything everywhere all at once came to the movie on very different trajectories - michelle yeoh is an internationally recognized legend of hk action cinema, ke huy quan starred in two blockbusters as a kid before being forced to step away from acting for 20 years, james hong is probably THE single most prolific actor in hollywood, and stephanie hsu has been on broadway and tv but never starred in a major film - and yet when all of them read the script they thought to themselves “yes, this is all i’ve ever wanted”
it’s about james hong being in a triumphantly empathetic film with asian leads after 70 years of watching the landscape for asian actors change with his own eyes, it’s michelle yeoh being taken seriously as a leading actress who can anchor a movie with both humor and heart, it’s ke huy quan getting to play all the roles he never got to play over the last two decades, it’s stephanie hsu bursting onto the scene as a rising star next to all these established actors by walking the path that they helped pave
and it’s not just the actors either! andy and brian le, the film’s fight choreographers (and ahem trophy fight scene duo), learned martial arts by watching michelle yeoh’s movies growing up. when ke huy quan’s stunt double first came to america, he learned english by watching ke huy quan in indiana jones. echo quan (the film’s on-set translator) couldn’t get work in hollywood for years despite having worked extensively in hong kong cinema and eeaao was her first job in the industry. the importance of the connections we form and the thrill of new possibilities and new lives are woven into the very fabric of this movie’s creation
