Despite the bewildering notion of Everything On paper, Hsu immediately understood the tone and humor of the film. “That taste is so weird that I really get it,” she laughs. Her love of philosophical and high-concept art helped, but that is the heart of the film and the larger theme of the intergenerational gap between the younger generation and their parents and adults. First generation Asian Americans versus second generation Asian Americans actually came home to the actress. . A second-generation Asian-American herself (her mother immigrated from Taiwan), Tu Hy Vien is deeply involved in the complicated mother-daughter relationship that plays out in unremarkable fashion. on screen between the character Joy and her mother Evelyn (played by Michelle Yeoh). The strained relationship takes on a whole new shape when Evelyn is plunged into a dizzying multiverse, where she must face all her potential and defeat the villain Jobu Tupaki – an agent… of chaos, who has Joy’s arrival – in order to bring her family back together.
Working with Yeoh on such a creative project was a dream for Hsu. “I learned how powerful the power of fun and play is,” she said while working with the screen legend. “She is clearly a master, clearly a household name, a literal star, and she is the silliest, the most playful, and the most lovable. And especially when you’re number one on the calling board, the way you [show up] will change your entire surroundings and define your entire surroundings. She’s willing to do anything, I just see how it brings everyone so much joy and makes everyone feel so relieved. And she’s really generous. She works her hardest and even when she says she doesn’t know what she’s doing, she really puts her trust in her collaborators to the point where she just surrenders to the project. And I think she’s really surrendered to this, even as crazy as it is.”
Everything leans heavily towards madness — but in the best possible way. There is a “emotional” scene in the film, in which Yeoh and Curtis smear ketchup and mustard all over their faces and into their mouths. There is a shrine of worship, and Hsu’s character is dressed in white with Happiness– Beautiful pearl makeup and she braided her hair into a bagel shape. And of course, there’s the crowd-pleasing desolate canyon, where sentient rocks have heart-to-heart conversations. The latter is a personal favorite of Hsu, who loved the scene while reading the script and was quite pleased with how Daniels ended up executing it.
