One of the year’s sleeper hits is Everything Everywhere All At Once, in which Michelle Yeoh plays a Chinese American laundromat owner in southern California who finds herself sucked into alternate universes and, in the process, gets a hair-raising chance to save the world.
The film is an intricate roller coaster ride, as well as a flat-out enjoyable popcorn movie, and as a result of it being such a crowd-pleaser, it’s amassed over $70 million at the domestic box office so far. One of the best elements of the film is that Stephanie Hsu (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Path) plays Joy Wang, Yeoh’s daughter, who just happens to be a lesbian with a girlfriend (and an alter ego, too). At a reception for the film at the Crosby Street Hotel, I talked to Hsu about the positive outcome of that plot element.
QUEERTY: Hello, Stephanie. You are a queer icon now.
HSU: I know! To be any icon is very sweaty in the armpits!
What I love is the matter-of-fact way the movie deals with your character’s lesbianism. She just happens to have a girlfriend, and it’s dealt with.
How about we take this to the next level?
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This movie is about so many things, and it has somehow surpassed identity politics and managed to tell a story about a family that happens to be Asian American and someone who happens to be queer.
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Have queer people come up to you and said the movie has affected them?
So many. I’ve heard many stories about how the movie helped them come out to their parents. People who hadn’t had that conversation have used it as a tool for amping up the conversation. My dream for art is to be able to heal people and make the world a better place.
The film is a smash. How did it feel when it started taking off at the box office?
It’s wild. It feels very abstract to me. Behind those numbers are hundreds of thousands of people. Even this room [the reception]! It’s helped inspire people to re-immerse in cinema. One of the Daniels [the writer/director team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert] said the best way to see the movie is either in a theater with other people or on an airplane because the lack of oxygen there massages your tear ducts and makes you cry. You can watch SpongeBob and get emotional! It’s a very private experience.
The film is not only a wild LSD trip, but it makes great points. It’s everything… everywhere.
The Daniels are excellent filmmakers and editors, and with a small budget, they can make a lot! We never felt rushed. I always say to the Daniels, “It’s important for this film to be recognized because it will help influence future leaps of faith.”
That’s why I wanted Billy Eichner’s film Bros to do better than it has. I want it to encourage future such films.
It shows that you can’t put all the eggs in one basket. Every time, it’s a gamble. We think we can predict what audiences want, but we don’t know what art is capable of.
RELATED: Watch Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane on the ‘Bros’ scene they were most nervous about
Author’s note: After talking to Stephanie, I sat in a side room, transcribing our interview, when Jamie Lee Curtis (who plays eccentric IRS lady Deirdre Beaubeirdre) walked in, fully masked. I recognized her since she’s been in enough horror films with masks.
“Are you writing mean notes?” Jamie Lee laughed.
“Not at all,” I said. “I loved the movie. And you were great. I’ve been audited and you nailed it!”
Her eyes suggested that she was smiling as she said, “But I love her.” “So do I,” I replied enthusiastically.
Jamie Lee then chatted with her publicist, Heidi, and there was some business about signing something, upon which Jamie Lee laughingly told her, “You stole this pen from a London hotel.” At this point, Jamie Lee leaned into me and deadpanned, “Heidi Schaeffer stole that pen!”
“Got it!” I declared, then she scurried back into the main room. This zaniness was almost as fun as the movie itself.
Enough is never enough
I go to everything, everywhere, so I also went to celebrate the late Paul Jabara, the songwriter known for Donna Summer disco hits like “The Last Dance” (which won the Academy Award for Best Song in 1978) and “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),” Donna’s fiery 1979 duet with Barbra Streisand. Well, at a recent tribute to Jabara at the Renaissance hotel on the 30-year anniversary of his death from AIDS complications, I got to talk to Paul Shaffer, David Letterman’s longtime musical director and resident hipster, and learn about another Jabara smash.
“You wrote ‘It’s Raining Men’ with Paul Jabara,” I shrieked, meaning the 1979 camp classic performed by the Weather Girls. “Who did you two write the song for?”
“Donna Summer,” Shaffer replied. (I should have guessed.) “But Donna absolutely hated the song,” he went on. “She thought the part where it says ‘Hallelujah’ was blasphemous.”
“What?” I yelped. “So, ‘Uhhh [orgasmic sound], love to love you, baby’ was OK with her religion, but not this?”
“She became religious after that,” Shaffer swore. (And I imagine she had more control over her career by ’79 than at the outset.) “Anyway, Paul Jabara thought of getting the two women who sang behind [gay icon] Sylvester…,” said Shaffer.
“They were called ‘the Two Tons of Fun,” I knowledgeably interjected.
“And make them the Weather Girls,” continued Shaffer, “and they loved becoming the Weather Girls with this song!” Cheers to those Girls — Martha Wash and the late Izora Armstead — and Donna had enough hits anyway!
Tales of Hoffman
Meanwhile, it’s obviously raining character actresses these days, which may be why people are continually mixing them up. Jackie Hoffman (from theater, Feud, and Glass Onion) posted a hilarious Instagram video talking about this subject, aimed at a lukewarm mess of a person.
Looking perturbed, Jackie said, “So I come out of the synagogue, and this woman says to me, ‘Are you who I think you are?’ I was like, ‘I’m afraid so.’ She keeps staring at me and staring at me, and other people circle around. ‘Who is she? Who is she?’ She said, ‘You were so good in [the Broadway comedy] POTUS.’ I said, ‘No, that’s Rachel Dratch… you dumb b*tch’.” I doubt the woman will ever make that mistake again.
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bachy
Donna Summer’s spirituality had her music boomeranging all over the place. I remember it being very confusing…