Michelle Yeoh teased Jackie Chan for turning down lead role in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Chan was asked first by the Daniels to lead the sci-fi flick
Aux News Michelle Yeoh
Though it seems like no one else would be fit for the lead role of Evelyn Wang in Everything Everywhere All At Once besides the inimitable Michelle Yeoh, director duo the Daniels originally wanted Jackie Chan as the star of the film. The two even flew to China in pursuit of the martial arts master, but when he was unavailable, the film became something else entirely.
“We were having trouble figuring out the casting for the father figure, and one of us started wondering what happens if we take Michelle’s character and flop it and she becomes the protagonist,” director Daniel Kwan recently said, per IndieWire. “And the film just opened up in a completely different way.”
Yeoh stars in the multiverse traversing action flick as Evelyn, a burnt out laundry shop owner who’s struggling with her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, and her taxes. With all the success of the A24 feature, Yeoh got her opportunity to rub it in her old friend Chan’s face.
“Jackie actually texted me,” she told The Guardian in recent interview. “And he says: ‘Wow, I hear amazing things about your movie. Did you know that the boys came to see me in China?’ And I said: ‘Yes, your loss, my bro!’”
Though Chan would have been more than capable for the original role, the overhauled role came for Yeoh at just the right time.
“You know what, I did. I waited a long time for this, and luckily it came,” Yeoh told Independent in another interview. “Some people wait their whole life and the opportunity might never come. I was patient. I was resilient. I never stopped learning. And so I was ready when the opportunity did present itself.”
Everything Everywhere All At Once is currently available to watch in theaters.
23 Comments
This is the kind of burn Chan normally only experiences when sliding down a three-story pole covered with lights, then falling through a glass roof into a mall kiosk.
I’m not convinced that this would cause a burn (definitely a lot of pain though) but still, I laughed.You deserve that star
I wasn’t making up the stunt. It was a real one, from Police Story, and he suffered serious burns:
…and of course Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh teamed up in Police Story III: Supercop.
They needed the additional description in the title. It tells you that, yes, this is a movie about the same cop who slid down a three-story pole, then fell through a glass ceiling and into a mall kiosk in Police Story. But this time, he’s super.
That movie is amazing.
Yikes! I sit corrected.
The ironic twist- Jackie Chan does not send his own texts.
(Jackie Chan pain face)
Honestly, if they gave the Jackie role to Michelle Yeoh, then they very much did the right thing. Any version of this movie I want to see with Jackie Chan in it should be a Daniels film first and a Jackie Chan film second, and I’d say that essentially I would want him to be the Ke Huy Quan character. Except Ke Huy Quan did a far better job with everything than I’d expect Jackie Chan to do, so……maybe Jackie Chan could have been one of the butt-plug warriors?
…maybe Jackie Chan could have been one of the butt-plug warriors?Surely he’d be a Butt-Plug Master.
I think that scene was perfect with Andy and Brian Le.
I’m well aware of the range Jackie Chan has but I don’t think the film would’ve worked as well if it were Jackie Chan in the Evelyn role (and assuming you flipped most of the cast accordingly). I think the conflict between Evelyn and Joy works best as a mother-daughter thing, and the conflicts with Joy/Jobu and with Dierdre play out in parallel with the hot dog verse romance. And I know Jackie has dramatic chops and I’ve seen The Foreigner, but I don’t think there’s a way you could sell Jackie as completely unassuming the way Evelyn is at the start of this film.
Probably no room in the story for it but Jackie Chan as an alternate universe equivalent of Michelle Yeoh would have been mad!
Yeah, it’s hard to imagine what that original concept with Jackie Chan would be like because it changes the emotional context and subtext quite a bit. Like you said, it’d be hard for Jackie Chan to play unassuming, especially given his action stardom, but also a middle-aged woman works better as a more surprising, unlikely hero. And the conflict with Evelyn’s father pushing her around makes more sense imo, though of course parents can be domineering no matter the gender. I’m curious also if/how it would’ve taken on different meanings if the main conflict was based on a father-daughter or father-son relationship. Also, Jackie Chan has had his time in the sun. We were long overdue for Michelle Yeoh to get a juicy starring role and recognition on a massive scale.
I also don’t know how the “husband being bored of his nice wife” would’ve played if he had been cast. The way it played out with Yeoh and Quan felt very original and a little subversive. Not saying that it couldn’t be done well, but that’s tip toeing into every dude standup that complains about their wife
Great point, and having a supporting character be a devoted but under-appreciated wife is too much of a trope. It was refreshing to have a man’s caring “soft side” celebrated.
Right, I think western audiences are way more familiar with what Jackie Chan can do than they are with what Michelle Yeoh can do. Supercop got some attention in the states, she was in Tomorrow Never Dies and CTHD but that was all so long ago. To paraphrase Yeoh, as much as Crazy Rich Asians changed everything for her, so many of the parts that she’s been getting lately have been the mother, the auntie, the mentor. A part like this, where she could play this average person, the kind of middle-aged woman we pass by on the street every day, that turns out to be a superhero, an action lead, that was just what the doctor ordered.
He didn’t belong in that movie anyway.
A Police Story III: Supercop reunion would have been nice but from the sounds of things, it was an either/or proposition.
I would love to see this,same plot and retain yeoh as the main, but cast Jackie as the husband.
Go see this movie!
I wouldn’t have seen it if Jackie Chan, an outspoken supporter of the Chinese government, had been in it.