Stephanie Hsu needed a weirdo disclaimer on set of Everything Everywhere All At Once
Stephanie Hsu had Everything Everywhere All At Once directors Daniels make a special announcement before her first scene
Aux News Stephanie Hsu
Everything Everywhere All At Once has to be one of the more unusual Best Picture nominees in Academy Awards history. There’s a whole lot of weirdness going on in the film’s multiverse, a lot due to Stephanie Hsu’s Oscar-nominated performance as the villain Jobu. Hsu was a natural in the outrageous role, but she was concerned that the unique demands of the character might be judged harshly by the rest of the cast and crew.
“We’re all very weird, and I have no fear of being weird with them, and in fact they kind of bring out more weird in me,” Hsu explains about her relationship with directors Daniels on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “So when we were kind of working on the role, we would really start to like, you know, get into it, and they would give me the direction a lot: ‘Okay, now break the movie. Destroy the movie.’ And so… I would do a scene as Jobu, as written, and sometimes I would just stop. Or sometimes I would just like, leave frame. But this is when we were working just the three of us.”
“And then, the first day I got onto set, it was the hallway scene, the introduction of Jobu,” the actor continues. “And I all of a sudden got so nervous, because it was my first scene with Michelle Yeoh. And I had never worked with any of the crew. And so I was like, ‘They’re gonna think I’m the worst actor on earth. They’re gonna think that I’m just being weird and completely unhinged for no reason. So I made them make an announcement.”
According to Hsu, the filmmakers prefaced her performance by telling the crew: “Hey everybody, this is Stephanie, she’s gonna be kinda weird. But we told her to do that!”
Did they know then they were witnessing awards-caliber work? Hsu says she knew at the time of filming “that it was the most special experience I’ve ever had, creatively, in my life,” but she revisited it again immediately before the Oscar noms were announced. “I wanted to do a ritual for myself. Things have gotten shinier and shinier. And I wanted to have a moment where I got to watch the movie one more time to look back on that moment, of that seed of making, the heartbeat, this special thing we made together. And I hadn’t watched it on a plane,” said Hsu.
Watching the film on a tiny screen while commuting from Sydney, “I felt like one of those superfans of our own movie where they always say, ‘The movie starts and I start weeping.’ And that was me, I was so embarrassed. I was like, I hope no one’s seeing me cry at our own movie.” Watch her full Tonight Show interview above.
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I thought all your stories involved rodents.
I’m like the James Patterson of rodent shit posters – I’m stretching out into every conceivable genre.
yeah sure… “their” stories
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Have you tried knitting? Or joining the Masons?
I hold a single Cheerio and it’s like a giganto donut. How the fuck am I supposed to hold those massive knitting needles?
Take it easy, Mr. Gere.
Er hm.. lol
The funny thing is, if you turned this into a graphic novel, it would be banned in FloridaDid I say ‘funny’? I meant ‘super depressing’
Are you using chatGPT to write comments?
If I were an actor I’d be really self-conscious and would have to do that. Like before we roll for a sad scene I’d have to announce “all right everyone: I’m gonna get really REALLY sad!”
Because it’s very hard to see the difference between a basic emotion and potentially walking out of a frame or stopping your dialogue entirely.
Oh, I understand that. I’m saying I’d take it too far and be constantly reminding people between takes “I swear I’m not that guy”
Respect to this talented weirdo
Jobu’s entrance into the movie is so good, I had to rewind immediately and watch it again.
You no help me now? I say “Fuck you Jobu;” I do it myself.
But what an entrance, right?
“I like Jesus very much…but He no help with curveball.”
Thank you, this made my day!
Hey bartender! Jobu needs a refill!
Me too! It really irritated everyone else in the theater though.
What did you think of the alternate version of that scene? I think they did the right thing with changing it.
The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon continues to be an incredibly insufferable name.
As does Jimmy Fallon
“Watch her full Tonight Show interview above.”Nice try, Jimmy, but you’re going to have to do better than that to get me to watch you interview anyone ever again.
(Awkward, wild eyed laughter)We’ll be back with a lip sync battle after this!
Yeah but maybe he’ll tousle her hair.
I fucking hate Jimmy Fallon, but I have to admit that milquetoast late night host is the job he was born to have.
Hey, I don’t care for Hitler, but he makes one hell of a fascist dictator.
She was acting how I’ve always enjoyed seeing the it most, leaving convention behind, and using their own unique creative flow, beautiful to see, and EEAO is full of it.. what a glorious set it must have been..
More polite than Jared Leto anyway.
Did this movie also get nominated for costume/makeup design? It was all I could think about seeing Hsu in a million amazing, fanciful, far-fetched outfits and makeup styles that her variations on Jobu would make for great Halloween costumes
This did not happen and it’s silly anyone familiar with the industry would believe it did.