MANILA, PHILIPPINES — It may be too early to name a movie of the year, but it seems like every film buff has decided that, at the moment, A24’s hit Everything Everywhere All At Once deserves the title. (Check out adobo Magazine‘s film review here.) What started like something that was just meant to be an arthouse hit became a box office star. It’s no surprise, seeing as The Daniels (directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) perfectly captured so many complex themes — nihilism, the Asian-American immigrant experience, generational trauma, and love to name a few — through a wonderfully bizarre adventure that spans the multiverse that’ll have you laughing, crying, and reflect on life and love.
While it always makes for a better first-watch experience to go in not knowing every detail that could affect your own opinion of a movie, when you inevitably go in for a second watch, the craftsmanship, stories, and details put into producing this film will just make you love the movie even more.
Here are six interesting facts about the making of this hit that’ll enrich your next rewatch:
ADHD is a vital part of this film
The entire film doesn’t shy away from what the very concept of the multiverse should feel like — an overwhelming and cathartic feast for senses that makes it difficult for both the characters and audience to decide what to focus on with so much going on all at once. And The Daniels evoked and explored that feeling so flawlessly that some people picked up on the fact that the film was also about ADHD. In fact, as The Daniels were researching about ADHD for the film, Daniel Kwan realized that he himself had undiagnosed ADHD and that that was a significant part of why he has a maximalist approach to filmmaking.
😭 Thank you for saying this. I've spent most of my career ashamed of the fact that I am a maximalist filmmaker (connected to my, until recently, undiagnosed ADHD). I admired and envied the minimalist masters (like kogonada) but knew I could never have the confidence to do it.🧵 https://t.co/u5KvNGnOUJ
— Daniel Kwan (@dunkwun) April 11, 2022
The VFX were done by a core team of 5 people
For such an ambitious and maximalist film, one would expect the VFX credits go on and on forever, but that’s not the case. In fact, only five people ended up doing more than 80% of the visual effects shots in the movie. What makes it even more impressive is that the team had to do the work remotely too because of the lockdown. Daniel Kwan described the situation as “500 visual effects done by five guys in their bedrooms during the pandemic.”
This is Ke Huy Quan’s cinematic comeback
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Waymond wouldn’t have been as effective and moving as a pivotal character if he wasn’t played by Ke Huy Quan, so it came as a surprise that this is his first major acting job in decades. Quan is best known for being in iconic blockbusters Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies in the 80s, and he was at peace with not getting major roles since. What changed his mind? Seeing another Michelle Yeoh film, Crazy Rich Asians, and feeling “FOMO” in this new age of Asian representation in cinema and its growing success.
The different Waymonds’ body languages are patterned after animals
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To help with the switching between the three Waymonds we meet in the film, Quan’s body movement coach assigned an animal for each Waymond. When Quan plays the original Waymond, he moves like a squirrel. For CEO Waymond, it’s a fox. And for Alpha Waymond, it’s an eagle. This makes it so much clearer how Quan was able to portray each Waymond so distinctly, even when in parts where there was little to no dialogue.
The rock scenes’ effective silence is all thanks to Michelle Yeoh
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In the universe where life was never able to form, Evelyn and Joy’s dialogue was just displayed in the text rather than heard via voiceover. “I love the rock universe, and I want to take credit for this,” Yeoh said in an interview. “Because I told the Daniels, ‘Don’t make us do voiceovers for the rocks.’ It has to be silent, right?” The decision made for such a poignant moment allows for a rare chance of tranquility for the characters, making the reflections in the scene pack more of an emotional punch and making the chaos and rapid pace of the other scenes more effective.
For one Evelyn and Waymond scene, Yeoh and Quan filmed remotely in different continents
Production was shut down just before the last day of filming because of the Covid-19 pandemic, so the cast and crew had to film the remaining scenes of the movie remotely. This includes the part where Evelyn jumps to the wrong universe and lands in a van with Waymond — a scene that Yeoh filmed in Paris while Quan did it in LA. Yeoh and The Daniels explained in a Vanity Fair scene breakdown that their parts were later combined into the same shots during post-production. With the seamless editing and Yeoh and Quan’s acting chops, the fact that these shots were filmed continents apart wasn’t obvious at all.
