All of the film's visual effects were done by nine people, including both directors, and the majority of the shoot was handled by a core group of five. None of them had any formal training in the field; instead, they were all friends who had taught themselves using tutorials they found for free online.
Before the trailer was released, the IMDb summary included the following line to keep plot details secret: "It's about a 55-year-old Chinese woman trying to finish her taxes."
Michelle Yeoh said the film was completely outside her comfort zone: "Suddenly I started making a film that brought together every genre — comedy, physical comedy, action, horror — and I was moving in and out of them. It was a very satisfying experience. I waited a long time to get a script like this. Because as you get older, the box gets smaller."
The striking high-speed shot of Evelyn being pulled into the janitor's closet was done entirely in camera. The effect was achieved by significantly lowering the camera's frame rate and having Michelle Yeoh move in slow motion as she was pushed toward the closet. When the film is played at normal speed, it looks exactly as it does in the movie.
Evelyn speaks Cantonese with her father, but speaks Mandarin with Waymond, showing the cultural differences in how they were raised. Evelyn speaks Mandarin Chinese and English with Joy, while Joy answers in English and poor Chinese. Neither can find the words to express her thoughts clearly to the other, which keeps them divided.
In the reality where Evelyn is a movie star, real red-carpet footage of Michelle Yeoh is used, including the premiere of Crazy Rich Asians (2018).
This is Ke Huy Quan's first major role in 20 years, since Second Time (2002). He had a small role in Finding 'Ohana (2021). This marks the second-longest gap in an acting career before winning an Academy Award. The longest belongs to George Burns, who won for The Sunshine Boys (1975), his first major role after a 36-year gap since Honolulu (1939). The record for the longest gap before a nomination belongs to Gloria Stuart, nominated for Titanic (1997), her first major role after a 51-year gap since The Book Was Written (1946).
When Joy approaches Evelyn in the forest, her weapon has many forms. For a moment, she can be seen holding an Oscar.
The bagel and the googly eye are inverse colors; the bagel is a black ring around a white circle, and the googly eye is a white ring around a black circle. So when Evelyn turns the bullet into a googly eye and places it on her forehead, it is the exact opposite of all the Alphaverse attackers, who have a black ring on their foreheads. Since it was Waymond who put fake eyes on inanimate objects to try to ease the life around their home, this shows that Evelyn has accepted his plea to show love, which allows her to defeat the Alphaverse attackers by healing them and giving them what they need.
At the Austin, Texas premiere, Daniel Kwan explained: "The moment the film ended and we walked backstage, I felt something I had never felt before, a deep satisfaction, a deep contentment. Because we were backstage and Jamie Lee Curtis had never seen the film before, and she looked at me and she was crying out, there were just tears on her face, and she said, 'Okay, I finally understand the film.' It was incredible, that the first person I spoke to after this film was someone like her, a veteran who has done this so many times and seen this process so many times, to see her shaken was incredible."
In the scene where Evelyn and Jobu turn into rocks, the dialogue was initially planned to be voiced, but Michelle Yeoh suggested it be subtitled instead.
James Hong was 91 during filming and had five stand-ins to perform various action beats. One stand-in volunteered to shave his head just for the honor of doubling for Hong.
In a March 2022 interview with New York Magazine, Ke Huy Quan said his entertainment lawyer is Jeff Cohen, his Goonies co-star and former child actor friend. Cohen, who played Lawrence "Chunk" Cohen alongside Quan's Richard "Data" Wang in the 1980s childhood classic, graduated from UCLA law school in 2000 and founded the Beverly Hills entertainment firm Cohen & Gardner. In January 2023, at a Hollywood Reporter roundtable with the actors, Quan said it was Cohen who closed the deal for him to appear in this film: "He's all grown up now, he's an entertainment lawyer — he's my entertainment lawyer. So when our producer was trying to make my deal, he said he never imagined that we would have to talk to Chunk to get Data in the movie. Yeah, it was so sweet!"
Posters were made for the alternate universes: "Amour et Saucisses" (French for Love and Sausages) in the style of a French romantic film, "Pinky of Fury" as a Japanese martial arts film, "Rocks" as a documentary, "Fractured Personas" as a Chinese romance, and "Raccacoonie" as a Disney film. Both include references to Daniels and A24, but beyond that there is no hint of the actual film.
In an unusual move, most of the film's scenes were shot at a high frame rate. This was done to give the editors the flexibility to slow down different parts, something that was not initially planned.
The look of Jamie Lee Curtis's character Deirdre Beaubeirdre is based on a stock photo of an IRS employee. In Mike Simons's photo titled "Kathleen Malone works on tax returns at the Cincinnati Internal Revenue Service Center in Covington, Kentucky, on April 8, 2005," an IRS employee is seen with the same hairstyle, yellow turtleneck sweater, pale yellow knit vest, glasses and necklaces.
In separate interviews, both Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu explained that the rock universe was their favorite, even though none of the actors are seen or heard there.
When Ke Huy Quan shouts "snap out of it!" at Evelyn, it is a nod to his Indiana Jones character Short Round. The scene plays out in exactly the same way in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), in which Indy is put under a spell by Mola Ram.
Journalist John Nugent, in his interview with Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Empire Magazine in May 2022, writes: "The idea of a parent not understanding their child bled into what eventually became Everything Everywhere All at Once: a multiversal metaphor that turns into a generational divide." Kwan explains: "Our parents are constantly having to deal with the fact that we are their children. Like, 'I'm the parent of the guy who made the Fart Corpse Movie.' This film is strangely a reflection of that. The daughter is a strange creature, and for her mother to be able to connect with her, she actually has to go on a journey of becoming a monster herself. I hope it's a very elegant portrayal of our relationship with our parents."
Daniels initially wrote the script with Jackie Chan in mind for the lead role. In the end, Daniels changed the lead to a woman, thinking it made the husband-and-wife relationship more convincing. The lead ultimately went to Michelle Yeoh, who had co-starred with Chan in Police Story 3: Supercop (1992).
As Evelyn's acceptance of the multiverse grows, the aspect ratio between the worlds visibly changes.
(At around the 56th minute) Stephanie Hsu's laugh with the dildos came out after they said cut, but they liked it so much that they included it in the film.
Ke Huy Quan said that to prepare himself for his big return to the screen, he hired various coaches, one of them for dialogue ("I haven't spoken written dialogue in a long time"). A movement coach was also key to finding a way for viewers to determine which Waymond they are seeing at any given time. The actor said, "They kind of move a little differently. I hope the audience can just distinguish which version they are."
Writer-directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan initially intended for Evelyn to have undiagnosed ADHD, and Scheinert said: "It started as an almost insensitive idea, like, what if the main character could be that distracted, if she could access other universes?" Later, while researching the condition, Kwan discovered that he himself had undiagnosed ADHD.
It became the first film to win seven Oscars since Gravity (2013) and the Best Picture winner with the most awards since Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
In an unused universe in the film, Evelyn is a sentient piece of spaghetti cooked in a pot. She has a 'son' who is a piece of elbow macaroni eager to be the one thrown against the wall as a sticky doneness test, because that would prove he is a boy.
In addition to playing IRS District Manager Richard Long, Scheinert also played all of the hot-dog-fingered monkeys in the 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) sequence.
The film's budget is generally estimated at 25 million dollars, which is a surprisingly low amount. But even that estimate is still too high. In an interview at the SBIFF Cinema Society, producer Jonathan Wang revealed that the entire film was shot for a budget of only 14.3 million dollars. For comparison, that is about 1/14 of the estimated budget of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). The directors like to joke that they made the film for Marvel's catering budget.
In a removed scene set in an unseen universe, Evelyn played a talking vase containing her ashes. The scene was cut from the film, but a screaming image of the jar remained in a quick sequence (1:39:04), and another moment remained in Alpha Waymond's arms just before Jobu Tupaki kills him and everyone else in the trailer in the Alphaverse (1:23:03). The vase was first shown during Alpha Waymond's explanation of who Alpha Evelyn is in his own universe (34:50).
In various Chinese-speaking markets, the film is known by different names. In mainland China, the title ("shun4 xi1 quan2 yu3 zhou4") translates as "In an Instant, the Entire Universe." In Hong Kong, the title ("kei4 ji6 neoi5 haap6 waan4 gau3 jyu5 zau6") is a pun that can be translated as "Mystical Woman Warrior Saves the Universe(s)" and "Mystical Woman Warrior Fucks Up the Universe(s)." In Taiwan, the title ("ma1 de duo1 chong2 yu3 zhou4") is also a pun and can be translated as "Mom's Multiple Universes" or "So Fucking Many Universes." As seen on the film's title card and poster, the Chinese title is actually "tian1 ma3 xing2 kong1." It is an idiom that roughly means "wild and unrestrained imagination."
The lipstick Waymond eats was actually a prop made of chocolate.
The dialogue, story, cinematography, color grading and wavy slow-motion effects in the scenes where Evelyn chats with Waymond as a movie star reference the films of Wong Kar-Wai, especially In the Mood for Love (2000). Ke Huy Quan was Wong's assistant director on 2046 (2004), the follow-up to In the Mood for Love.
In a December 2022 Deadline interview with Damon Wise, Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert said they always intended the film to be about generations, to address this gap that occurs in every generation, because they felt it was a really perfect way to explore the multiverse and the way we try to use the multiverse as a proxy for the internet and how it really divides us and our parents. But then the fact that the film was about a mother came later. "Kwan added that the idea really started to gel when they hit on the concept of"putting my mom in The Matrix" and they started pitching it to themselves and others that way.
The directors deliberately kept rehearsals to a minimum so as not to overwhelm and confuse the cast, but some rehearsal was necessary to ensure that the switches from English dialogue to Cantonese and Mandarin happened seamlessly.
In an interview with Empire, Daniel Radcliffe said that Daniels, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, approached him to appear in the film but that he turned the offer down due to scheduling conflicts. It would have been their second collaboration after Swiss Army Man (2016). He stated that Daniels are "probably the only people in the world I would say yes to doing their film without even seeing the script."
The voice of Raccacoonie was provided by singer/songwriter Randy Newman (uncredited). This casting is one of the many references to the Pixar film Ratatouille (2007); although Newman did not actually work on Ratatouille, he has written songs and/or music for many other Pixar films (including the four Toy Story (1995) films, both Monsters, Inc. (2001) films, the two Cars (2006) series and A Bug's Life (1998)), which makes Newman a kind of Pixar good-luck charm. He was, however, credited on the digital and home video releases.
While Alpha Waymond explains to Evelyn why she feels something is "wrong" in her life, he quotes word for word from Nine Days' song "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)": "Your clothes never wear as well the next day. Your hair never falls in quite the same way." Custom covers of the song, written by Nine Days' frontman John Hampson, then appear three different times in the film in different universes. The first is a country version in a trailer in a near-parallel universe. Then, in the background of the hibachi restaurant scene, a version plays with diegetic music singing, "This is the story of a chef," completed with mildly spoiler-y lyrics. The last custom cover plays on the radio while Evelyn works in a BDSM club and includes the words "this is the story of a dom."
(At the 39th minute) Tape was stuck to the edges of the paper so that Ke Huy Quan would not cut himself.
Daniel Kwan based the opening scene of Evelyn Wang on the complicated lives of his many aunts and uncles. The Chinese phone book and the "weird glowing butterfly display" are straight from his childhood. "I've had some Asian American audience members come up to me and say that this apartment triggers them," he stated.
In the film's first frame, where the Wang family's karaoke singing can be seen reflected in a mirror, a small raccoon figure can be seen in the lower right part of the mirror, foreshadowing the "Raccaccoonie" universe.
On the day the rock scenes were shot, the weather was 47.8°C (118°F). It was so hot that director Daniel Scheinert's shoes were melting.
The cover of the book Jobu Tupaki shows Evelyn evokes Dr. Seuss's "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" while the interior art is in the style of Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood."
Ke Huy Quan did most of his own stunts during the fanny pack fight, but Andy Le doubled for him in a few instances. Face-replacement technology places Quan's face on Le's body.
Throughout the film, different kinds of circles are a recurring motif in tribute to the "Everything Bagel": for example, before signing the divorce papers, Evelyn describes her relationship with Waymond as "going around in circles"; Deirdre draws a chaotic black circle on the karaoke machine's receipt; and in a repeated shot in the "movie star" universe, a manhole cover with a black ring around it comes to the foreground. As noted in other trivia, we also see actual bagels and the inverse of the bagel, the white "google eye" with a black pupil.
After Evelyn gains extremely powerful pinkies, she hits one of the attackers and causes him to fly upward. The sound effect used when a critical hit is landed, like Jigglypuff falling asleep and causing victims to fly far off the game map, is from the game 'Super Smash Brothers'.
The trumpet-playing scene in the 'blue monkeys' scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was played by director Daniel Kwan, who is not a professional but played the instrument in his childhood. This is also a nod to the Portsmouth Sinfonia's version of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, in which the orchestra swaps instruments with each other despite having no idea how to play them.
Daniel Scheinert plays an IRS employee who has a secret BDSM room in his office. The name "Richard Long" is engraved on the nameplate on the desk. Scheinert also played the lead character in The Death of Dick Long (2019), which he also directed.
At the IRS office, Deirdre wears a carpal tunnel brace on her left wrist. In the 'hot dog universe,' while playing the piano with her feet, she wears the brace on her left ankle.
In the hot dog finger universe, instruments that require fingers are heard being played badly. This is especially noticeable in classical pieces (also Sprach Zarathustra and Clair de Lune).
James Hong admitted that he did not understand the script but believed in the release: "You really shouldn't know what the film is about because you have to experience that film. This is not a so-called story film where you can go in and watch a movie. You have to sit there and let yourself go with the flow and let yourself be carried away by the mood of the two Daniels directors."
(At about 45 minutes) the shot in which Evelyn zooms backward contains footage Daniel Kwan shot over the course of a year.
In the opening scene, while the family sings karaoke together, Evelyn briefly covers Joy's mouth. The reason is that, although the audience cannot hear it, the song being sung is Aqua's "Barbie Girl," and as a mother she does not want Joy to sing the lyrics "you can comb my hair / undress me anywhere." In the Q&A session for audiences, the original intention was to make the song stand out more prominently in the film and to end with a larger group singing the song together at karaoke. Although it appeared prominently in earlier versions of the film, all obvious references to the song were removed in the final edit.
Ke Huy Quan admitted that although he felt very good about the audition, it took two months to receive the news that he had been cast, and he had prepared himself for rejection.
Evelyn and Waymond's family minivan is the same minivan used by Alpha Waymond and his team in the Alphaverse.
During the finale, the hair on Jobu Tupaki's forehead reflects Jobu in the script.
There is a small hidden reference on the film's Letterboxd page: the usually eye-shaped "Watched" button is replaced by a bulging eye.
Stephanie Hsu sees the film's ongoing success not only as a gain for the cast and crew or a gain for A24, but also as a gain for theatrical screenings in general. "I just want films to never die. I just want us to keep doing things that will bring us closer to each other and help us get through what remains a very complex, confusing existence," said the actress. "And I hope what our film has done has shaken up the industry a little, so that no one can ever again say that an independent film cannot succeed at the box office or have a big impact. People still want to go to movie theaters. People still want to be together and feel something."
The Big Nose character played by Jenny Slate received some criticism for playing on Jewish stereotypes. According to the film's directors, this was a reference to the fact that in Chinese culture white people are sometimes referred to as 'Big Nose,' but they later realized how this could be misinterpreted. In response, the producers changed the character's name to "Dog Mom" for the digital and home video releases.
The fake "end title sequence" scene showing a theater full of people watching the ending is a reference to Satoshi Kon's Paprika (2006).
The name Jobu Tupaki was deliberately chosen by the Daniels to be a completely random collection of syllables with no meaning whatsoever, which naturally makes it fit the film's theme perfectly: nothing has meaning, yet you can still find Joy.
In an interview with Screen Rant, editor Paul Rogers broke down the editing process and revealed an entire universe that was cut from the film: "The first cut was two hours and forty-five minutes, I think, so we cut about half an hour of the film. Some of the characters who appear early in the film, or the fight scenes, ended up reappearing and their stories were wrapped up very cleanly and beautifully. We realized our ending was forty-five minutes long, it was just trying to get to that standing up." Probably exaggerating, but it was very long and people didn't need to see Jenny Slate's character at a birthday party on a Zoom call. Right now all of that was really great, funny and wonderful, but when you put it all together, the cup was overflowing. There was a universe called Spaghetti Baby Noodle Boy; we just cut that entire universe from the film."
Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Inárritu praised the film and called it this generation's Trainspotting (1996). "When I watch a film like Everything Everywhere All at Once and I realize how much it has affected my children's generation and how they have embraced this film the way I embraced The Graduate when I was their age, I love it," said Del Toro. "Even if the older generation doesn't understand it, I love that people can be so passionate about a film that reflects something back to them. This film has become a milestone so that a generation can forever say, 'This was my voice at that time.'" Added Cuarón: "I think the same thing happened with Tarantino films in the 90s or with Trainspotting; it felt like there was a new and big injection of energy into cinema, and the same thing happened with Everything Everywhere for this generation."
"This throwaway gag just got more and more elaborate as we went," Daniel Kwan said about the hot dog fingers sequence.
It is the third film in Oscar history to win three acting Oscars (no film has ever won all four acting categories). The first two films to achieve this were A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Network (1976).
Joy gets a pig tattoo that is "supposed to represent her family." The reason is that in Chinese the character for family (or home) is made up of the characters for 'pig' and 'roof.'
The first scene to be shot was the IRS meeting with Jamie Lee Curtis.
The official Chinese title shown on screen is the idiomatic expression "a heavenly steed soaring across the sky," regarded as a symbol of an extraordinary, boundless imagination unbound by the laws of nature.
Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win the Best Actress Oscar. Merle Oberon had been nominated before, but she deliberately concealed her Asian identity.
Alpha Gong Gong uses a super-powered wheelchair powered by a Braun coffee maker; this is a reference to the DeLorean in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and its flying version, whose Mr. Fusion generator was built from a Braun coffee grinder.
Cat food was used to help create the sound heard when Evelyn's hands first turn into hot dogs.
The directors describe it as an action film about empathy.
At the start of the film, Jenny Slate's dog mom character has to show her ticket to collect her laundry. The ticket number is 42, a number famous as the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The universe-jumping process also resembles the "Infinite Improbability Drive" from that book.
Stephanie Hsu said that playing Jobu was sometimes difficult because the Daniels thought Jobu considered the film itself stupid and was "trying to ruin it." She said it was hard for her because she really loved the film and did not like the fact that she had to be the one ruining some beautiful moments. "We were thinking, that means you're onto something, because Jobu is the postmodern voice in the back of our heads that can't take anything seriously."
The entire shoot lasted 38 days.
According to cinematographer Larkin Seiple, the bar where Joy and Becky sit together is the bar from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005).
The two enemies who fight Evelyn by shoving objects into their buttocks are listed in the credits as "Alpha Jumper - Trophy" and "Alpha Jumper - Bigger Trophy."
When a bulging eye forms on Evelyn's forehead during the final fight, it symbolizes her ability to open her "mind's eye," through which she can now see the real world and truly connect with her soul. It also serves as a direct reference to her husband's kindness, allowing her to see the meaning of a world in which "nothing matters."
Evelyn's downloaded skills include: "Powerful self-confidence, Stronger imagination, No stage fright, Proud father, Enhanced hearing, Enhanced mobility, Increased lung capacity."
Daniel Scheinert shared that when they entered the premiere at SXSW, he knew the film would have a "fun" period, and that only a certain audience knew what they had embraced in the past. Daniel Kwan also said that the first question they received after the screening was about intergenerational trauma directed at them, and that he realized people connected with what the film's heart was about rather than the action and comedy.
According to Daniel Kwan, the whole everything bagel idea "started as just a throwaway joke." Daniel Scheinert noted that they spent time developing the religion of the bagelists but ran into difficulties: "Jobu Topaki is a nihilist; should there be a dogma? Should there be a book? What should its practices be as a religion? The bagel became such a useful, simple symbol that we could point to as filmmakers that we got stuck. And you don't need to explain it beyond the joke."
(At about 2 hours 6 minutes) Michelle Yeoh's tear fell while they were wondering why she did not break character after they called cut. Because she knew the tear was coming.
Near the end of the film, as Joy helps her parents prepare their receipts to take to the IRS, a calculator with an LCD screen showing the number 55378008 is briefly visible. Turned upside down, this number becomes the word "BOOBLESS."
The scene in which Joy turns into Jobu was not in the script, but it was suggested that the audience needed to see this transition.
Soyguncu (at about 45 minutes).
Cinematographer Larkin Seiple wanted to shoot the Rock Universe scenes in 15/70mm IMAX, but that was not within their budget. The remote shooting location turned out to be so troublesome in the end that Seiple was ultimately glad the complex IMAX cameras were not added to the mix. Director Dan Kwan later said that not shooting this scene in IMAX was his only regret. There were even discussions about making a special IMAX version of the film in which the only shot filling the entire IMAX frame would be from this universe.
Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan became two of the ten actors who have won an Oscar for playing characters who speak a language other than English. The other winners are Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro, Roberto Benigni, Benicio Del Toro, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Christoph Waltz and Youn Yuh-jung. Yeoh's and Quan's wins are the first for Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin dialects) rather than a European language (French, German, Italian, Spanish, etc.).
When Alpha Waymond and Evelyn hide in the IRS conference room, the camera lingers for a few seconds on the black poppy-seed bagel.
In the early scripts, the entire title sequence played out, while Evelyn reviews her various lives over the following eight minutes.
When Evelyn is caught between two realities in the janitor's closet, the film's subtitles also appear fragmented.
The film was shot before the pandemic, but it features characters wearing face masks and using hand sanitizer, generally because they are part of Asian communities.
Harry Shum Jr.'s introduction as the chef includes mimed vegetable slicing and dicing; all the vegetables were painted in After Effects and added in post-production.
The scene in which Deidre, in bad wrestler mode, chases Evelyn between the cubicles was inspired by the Velociraptor kitchen scene in Jurassic Park (1993).
Gong Gong is used across much of China to describe a maternal grandfather, as in this film. The more formal title would be "Way Gong," and it refers to a grandfather outside the family (a paternal grandfather is called Ye Ye and is "within the family").
The Matrix (1999) is referenced frequently throughout the film. Just as Neo (Keanu Reeves) downloads skills in The Matrix, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) can learn skills by switching universes. An Alpha team coordinates Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) and Evelyn from a central universe using reclining chairs. During a fight, Waymond calls the team through his earpiece and asks them to find "a new exit." Alpha Waymond offers Evelyn two options: when she comes out of the elevator, she can turn right and go to the janitor's closet, or turn left to attend the IRS meeting (Red pill or blue pill?). There are also more direct and overt references, such as Evelyn stopping bullets in midair, being guided through the cubicles by someone threatening her on the phone, and finally symbolically refusing to be called by her name.
While Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis won their Oscars for this film, Brendan Fraser's win for The Whale (2022) means that for the first time since 2016, none of the four acting awards went to a portrayal of a real person. By contrast, 2016 was the first time that had happened since 1997.
In the scene where Deidre chases Evelyn, she crouches and talks on the phone while moving from one cubicle to another. This scene is almost identical to the scene in The Matrix (1999) where Neo hides from the agents in the office building.
As of 2023, it is the most acclaimed film from the production company A24; it won 7 Oscars out of 11 nominations. The company's other Oscar-nominated films include The Whale (2022) (3), Causeway (2022) (1), Aftersun (2022) (1), Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021) (1) and Close (2022) (1), for a total of 18 nominations across six films.
When co-director Daniel Scheinert attended the Oscars for this film, he was wearing a second-hand tuxedo he had bought from Unclaimed Baggage, an unusual second-hand store in his home state of Alabama. The store in the northeastern Alabama town of Scottsboro sells the contents of abandoned luggage that airlines sell to them.
When Waymond and Evelyn first park their van in the IRS parking lot, they pass a sign spinner wearing the same costume Evelyn will later wear.
The working title/pre-production name for this film was "Bubbles." On the Letterboxd podcast, Daniels explained that this became the way they referred to the film because they had a huge mural with references to all the universes inside bubbles and to how "everything bubbles up" comes together.
With her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, Jamie Lee Curtis became the third person, after Laura Dern and Liza Minnelli, whose parents had both been Oscar nominees. Her father, Tony Curtis, was nominated for The Defiant Ones (1958), and her mother, Janet Leigh, was nominated for Psycho (1960).
All the cars parked in front of the laundromat were unpopular "loser" cars that were quickly withdrawn from the market.
The film touches on nearly every film genre: romance, horror, thriller, science fiction, action, drama, coming of age, etc. — a nod to its title, "Everything, Everywhere All at Once."
During Jobu Tupaki's introduction, one of the extras took a photo and posted it on Instagram. They were not invited back for more work.
It is one of six films to rank number 1 on the official Letterboxd Top 250 Narrative Feature Films list; the other five are Harakiri (1962), The Godfather (1972), Come and See (1985), Parasite (2019) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023).
When Waymond begs Evelyn, "It's not too late," Evelyn glimpses the happy moments of her life, and near the end of these moments a voice from his voice says, "That's very funny," a line made famous when his character Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) laughs at Willie Scott after she falls into the lake during the elephant journey.
In the scene where Joy invites her mother Evelyn to sit on the couch, the rhythm of the invitation is intended to broadly recall John McClane's line "Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs…" from Die Hard (1988).
In Telugu, the name 'Jobu Tupaki' means 'Pocket Pistol'.
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert became the ninth and tenth people to win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay with the same film: * Billy Wilder - The Apartment (1960) * Francis Ford Coppola - The Godfather Part II (1974) * James L. Brooks - Terms of Endearment (1983) * Sir Peter Jackson - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) * Coen brothers - No Country for Old Men (2007) * Alejandro G. Iñárritu - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) * Bong Joon Ho - Parasite (2019).
Evelyn's Chinese name is Shu Lien. Shu Lien is also the name of Michelle Yeoh's character in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016).
In an article published in the Hollywood Reporter on 30 August 2018, Mia Galuppo wrote that after Michelle Yeoh and Awkwafina had recently appeared together in Crazy Rich Asians (2018), they were "in talks" for roles in this film. Awkwafina, who is not in this film, most likely was to take on the role of Joy, which Stephanie Hsu ultimately played.
The final scene in the parking lot ended with everyone singing Aqua's "Barbie Girl".
When Big Nose / Dog Mom swings her dog by its leash, this is not a VFX shot. She is swinging a stuffed animal.
Joy's car window shot was a pickup filmed after production was completed, because they had realized they needed more to emphasize her pain.
Body Count: 21 (if you count the monkey killed by the primate with hot dog fingers).
Next to Evelyn's security monitor, in the lower left corner, a toy of Rico from The Penguins of Madagascar (2014) can be seen. The toy was available in McDonald's Happy Meals in 2014 and fired a fish from its mouth. One of the running jokes in the Madagascar series is that Rico apparently carries everything in his stomach and can cough up whatever the script requires. This parallels the film's plan of bringing out any item/skill needed for a given situation. At the end of the film, the mouth of the Rico toy is wide open, symbolizing the opening of the multiverse.
This is Daniels' second major film collaboration (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert); the first was Swiss Army Man (2016).
In their interview for "IMDb's Burning Questions", Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert said the films that influenced this film the most were anime such as The Matrix (1999), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Groundhog Day (1993), Paprika (2006) and Mind Game (2004); Hong Kong action films such as Once Upon a Time in China (1991); Jackie Chan's Police Story 2 (1988); Michelle Yeoh's work in films—"everything that she's ever done"; and music such as Kanye West's Runaway and The Beatles' A Day in the Life (both of which, according to Scheinert and Kwan, are "pop albums that implode,").
The opening dinner scene was partly here because there was originally also going to be a spaghetti universe.
In keeping with the film's theme of generational differences and relationships between mothers and children, when the Hammer Museum at UCLA hosted directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for a Q&A after a screening of the film, the moderator was not a film scholar or museum expert but Scheinert's mother, Becky Hallman Scheinert from Guntersville, Alabama.
The film has numerous kung fu fight scenes. The Daniels normally explain that filming a scene takes two to three weeks; however, they managed to finish filming the fanny pack fight scene in a day and a half.
After watching Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Ke Huy Quan was inspired to return to acting, and it convinced him that there were more roles for Asian actors. A week after seeing the film, he was invited to audition for this film. Michelle Yeoh also appeared in Crazy Rich Asians.
The film is frequently compared to Rick and Morty (2013) for its heavy use of the multiverse, crude humor, extreme violence and existential anxiety. The Daniels even admitted that they felt really insecure about making this film when they saw that Rick and Morty had already realized many of their ideas.
"Bagel" is also a slang term meaning zero or nothing, which makes it the perfect symbol of Joy's nihilistic worldview.
The film was not released in various parts of the Middle East due to its LGBTQ representation.
Stephanie Hsu auditioned with the bagel monologue.
(At the 42nd minute) Michelle Yeoh is not actually in the trailer. This was a reshoot, and she was in Paris when Covid began to emerge, so they shot the film on a green screen and included her that way.
This is Sunita Mani's third collaboration with Daniels, the directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. She first appeared in the music video he directed, DJ Snake and Lil Jon: Turn Down for What (2014), where she danced on screen with Kwan. She later appeared in Scheinert's only solo directorial feature, The Death of Dick Long (2019), playing the lead character.
The sign on the janitor's closet at the tax office reads 10-99. 1099 is a form for information returns.
(At about the 29th minute) During Waymond's fight with the security guards, the fanny pack belt attachments were inspired by The Grandmaster (2013).
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert are the first Americans to win the Best Director Oscar since Damien Chazelle for La La Land (2016).
The "Auditor of the year" awards all look like rectal plugs, perhaps showing what it feels like to deal with the IRS.
The laundromat in this film was used for the standout scene between David Addison (Bruce Willis) and Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) in A Trip to the Moon (1987), a fourth-season episode of Moonlighting (1985).
The directors like to sit in on auditions for real stunt personnel for smaller roles that involve action, so they don't have to double them.
This is the third collaboration between Michelle Yeoh and Harry Shum Jr. after they appeared together in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016) and Crazy Rich Asians (2018).
It is the third film with only the relevant team (that is, more than one person) (in this case Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) to win the Oscar for Best Director. The first two teams and their films are Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins with West Side Story (1961) and Ethan Coen and Joel Coen with No Country for Old Men (2007).
Cate Blanchett, a big fan of the film, makes a reference to Carol (2015) while commenting on the universe where sausages replace fingers.
When Michelle Yeoh first read the script, she didn't believe the hot-dog-finger sequence would actually be shot.
Although much has been made of this being Ke Huy Quan's return to the screen after 20 years, he had in fact appeared in Finding 'Ohana (2021) a year earlier.
Jobu Tupaki appears many times in the background at the climax of the laundromat scene.
The directors mentioned Home Alone (1990) as a reference for the film's opening; as the film moves through the house, it introduces viewers to numerous places and objects that will return later in the film. They were also inspired by the opening of Punch-Drunk Love (2002), which is ultimately a callback to Citizen Kane (1941).
Deirdre Beaubeirdre's surname appears to be taken from "The Name Game." According to the rules of the game, Deirdre's name would come out as: "Dierdre, Dierdre, bo-beirdre (Beaubeirdre), Bonana-fanna fo-feirdre, Fee fi mo-meirdre, Deirdre!"
In an interview with Interview magazine, Jodie Foster was asked which film she thought everyone should see at least once. She actually picked two; this film and Team America: World Police (2004).
Evelyn's climb up the stairs during the final fight features the same music as the earlier scene in which she looks up at the top of the theater stairs to see the Wai version of Waymond.
Jamie Lee Curtis chose all the props in Deirdre's office herself.
It was released in theaters at the same time as Turning Red (2022); both deal with a generational conflict between a Chinese immigrant mother and her daughter growing up in North America, in which a supernatural transformation complicates matters. Unlike Turning Red, the hero/antagonist roles are reversed. Both films also feature the actor James Hong.
Daniel Kwan's nomination for Best Director represents the fourth consecutive year an Asian person has been selected in this category, following Ryūsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car (2021)), Chloé Zhao (Nomadland (2020)), Lee Isaac Chung (Minari (2020)) and Bong Joon Ho (Parasite (2019)).
Waymond Lee plays one of the Chinese chorus members/filmmakers who shares a name with the character of Evelyn's husband. According to Cinematographer Larkin Seiple, Evelyn's husband was named Waymond after him.
When James Hong first read the script's title, he thought: "They'll never get that on the marquee. It's too long."
Gray streaks were added to Michelle Yeoh's hair to play Evelyn Wang. Yeoh admitted she was initially surprised by this look.
It won 7 Oscars, the most among all science fiction films, beating Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and Dune: Part One (2021), each with 6 wins.
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert had explored the concept of the multiverse as early as 2010.
The film's Oscar wins were notable in that five of the multiple nominees (The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), Elvis (2022), The Fabelmans (2022), Tár (2022) and Triangle of Sadness (2022)) left the ceremony empty-handed.
In the film's opening scene, a box of Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa, a Chinese herbal syrup used for all kinds of ailments, is shown above the round mirror.
The directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert are fans of the YouTube channel MartialClub, made up of Andy Le, Brian Le and Daniel Mah, and hired them to serve as fight choreographers on this film.
Because the low budget did not allow for multiple locations, the entire film was shot in and around Los Angeles. All the IRS scenes were shot in a single building in Simi Valley, and the laundromat scenes were shot in San Fernando. Various other exteriors were also shot in Los Angeles and Simi Valley.
Spagetti Baby Noodle Boy is the protagonist of a nonexistent A24 film that Evelyn will play shortly after the Fake-Out Fade-Out. In the final film, it briefly shows him in a shot where some noodles fly through the air, but he says nothing.
With this film, Daniel Kwan became the sixth person to win the Best Director Oscar with his second directing effort: * Mike Nichols - The Graduate (1967) * Bob Fosse - Cabaret (1972) * Michael Cimino - The Deer Hunter (1978) * Warren Beatty - Reds (1981) * Mel Gibson - Braveheart (1995).
For this film, Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis became the fourth, fifth and sixth actors to win an Oscar for a science fiction film, after the following films: * Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) * Cliff Robertson - Charly (1968) * Don Ameche - Cocoon (1985).
During the "Pinky of Fury" sequence, the sound heard when Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) hits the soldier is the Home Run Bat sound from Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001).
Director Daniel Kwan first conceived the film after watching a double feature of Fight Club (1999) and The Matrix (1999).
This is the first A24 film to gross over $100 million worldwide.
The maneki neko "beckoning cat" figurine seen next to the video monitor in the apartment, although ubiquitous in many shops and markets across Asia, is actually of Japanese, not Chinese, origin.
At the beginning of the film, a calendar with a large "24" is seen in the Wangs' apartment; this is not the same font as the "A24" logo, but it is very similar.
As of 2024, this film contains the only Oscar-nominated performances of Jamie Lee Curtis (who won Best Supporting Actress), Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan (who won Best Supporting Actor) and Michelle Yeoh (who won Best Actress).
The Chinese names (in traditional Chinese) of every cast and crew member who is Chinese are displayed in the end title sequence.
After Backrooms (2026) and Marty Supreme (2025), it is the third highest-grossing A24 film.
Although the draft of the film's screenplay was written in 2016 and the film's concept was developed in 2010, many viewers who saw its trailers and promotional materials believed it to be a multiverse film due to the growing number of films and series such as Loki, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The Flash. Because of the multiverse trend, and because they were tired of it, they refused to see it.
Just as in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), the cobblestone interdimensional vehicle travels across a desert and heads straight toward a rock wall in a single shot.
There is a frame in a YouTube video that references the film itself.
After A Clockwork Orange (1971), Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Avatar (2009), District 9 (2009), Inception (2010), Gravity (2013), Her (2013), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), The Martian (2015), Arrival (2016), The Shape of Water (2017), Black Panther (2018), Don't Look Up (2021), Dune: Part One (2021) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), it is the 17th science fiction film to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Of these 17, only The Shape of Water and Everything Everywhere All at Once won.
At the climax of the second act ("Everywhere"), there is a frozen frame of Evelyn in deep space. This may be a reference to another reality-hopping role played by Michelle Yeoh: Philippa Georgiou in Star Trek: Discovery (2017).
The film is divided into three parts with names that match the film's title.
The reactions to the film winning the Best Picture Oscar were not without criticism; Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times said that the Academy "chose the wrong best picture" and that it now "risks falling by the wayside" as "a group of films in the running - not just The Fabelmans (2022), but also two earlier Spielberg films, The Post (2017) and West Side Story (2021) - smell so clearly of traditional Oscar quality," and compared its win to the victory of CODA (2021) at the previous ceremony. Cannes Film Festival president Thierry Frémaux was also pleased with the result but had mixed feelings, saying: "I thought the ceremony was very good and I was happy to see Michelle Yeoh rewarded. I was also disappointed that Steven Spielberg did not win an award, because his film is a love letter to cinema."
Stephanie Hsu and Tallie Medel knew each other before appearing in the film.
It won seven Oscars, tied with Gravity (2013) for the most won by any science fiction film.
The note Waymond gives Evelyn in the IRS elevator reads: "1) Switch your shoes to the wrong feet. 2) Close your eyes, imagine you're in the janitor's closet. 3) Keep this thought in your mind and press the green button. Note: Don't forget to breathe."
The first Best Picture Oscar winner to be released in March since The Godfather (1972). Chariots of Fire (1981) was released in the United Kingdom in March, but it was not released in the United States until September.
Jamie Lee Curtis and James Hong worked with John Carpenter - Curtis on Halloween (1978) and The Fog (1980), and Hong on Big Trouble in Little China (1986).