Rafu Wire Service and Staff Reports
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” won seven Oscars, including the coveted best picture, at the 95th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
In addition to capturing the top prize, the multiverse-spanning tale took home trophies for best actress (Michelle Yeoh), best supporting actress (Jamie Lee Curtis), best supporting actor (Ke Huy Quan), best directing and best original screenplay (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), and best editing (Paul Rogers).
Only two other films in Oscar history, “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Network,” won three acting Academy Awards.
“Everything” had 11 nominations but could have won only 10 awards at most, as Stephanie Hsu was also nominated along with her castmate Curtis in the same category. Supporting actress nominees also included Hong Chau for “The Whale.”
The first Asian actress to win in that category was Miyoshi Umeki in 1958 for “Sayonara.”
With the “Everything” cast and crew gathered on the stage for the last award of the evening, co-producer Jonathan Wang dedicated the Oscar to his late father, who came to the U.S. as an immigrant from Taiwan.
Among the cast members on the stage was 94-year-old James Hong, who played Yeoh’s father. His career goes back to the mid-1950s in such films as “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” but he won his first Screen Actors Guild award as part of the “Everything” ensemble. He has also won voice acting awards for playing Mr. Ping in the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise. Hong will appear in “Patsy Lee and the Keepers of the 5 Kingdoms,” which he also co-wrote and co-produced.
Yeoh, whose family was watching the broadcast in Malaysia, made Oscar history by becoming the first Asian to win as best actress. She was not the first to be nominated; that distinction belongs to Merle Oberon, who was nominated in 1935 for “The Dark Angel,” but she hid her South Asian and Maori ancestry throughout her career.
During her acceptance speech, Yeoh — whose other credits include “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” — said, “Thank you, for all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight. This is a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof — dream big, and dreams do come true.”
The 60-year-old added, “Ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime.”
Yeoh is only the second actress of color to win the award, after Halle Berry — who was one of the presenters — won for “Monster’s Ball” (2001).
Quan, who played Yeoh’s husband in “Everything,” is experiencing a revival of his acting career, which began when he was the child star of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984) and “The Goonies” (1985). He gave up acting for decades due to the lack of roles available to him.
“Oh, my God! My mom is 84 years old, and she’s at home watching,” he said. “Mom, I just won an Oscar!”
Quan, who was born in Vietnam in 1971, recalled his life as a refugee. “My journey started on a boat after a year in a refugee camp, and somehow I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage. They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I cannot believe it’s happening to me. This is the American dream!”
After Harrison Ford announced the best picture winner, Quan embraced his former “Temple of Doom” castmate.
The audience — including Quan’s “Temple of Doom” director, Steven Spielberg, a nominee this year for “The Fabelmans” — gave him a standing ovation as he fought back tears.
Quan is only the second Asian to win in the supporting actor category after Haing S. Ngor for “The Killing Fields” in 1985. Pat Morita was nominated the same year for “The Karate Kid.” Sessue Hayakawa was nominated in 1957 for “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”
Host Jimmy Kimmel noted that both Quan and Brendan Fraser, who won the best actor Oscar for “The Whale,” made it to the Academy Awards after starring with Pauly Shore in the critically panned 1992 comedy “Encino Man.”
Curtis, in accepting her award, said, “I know it looks like I’m standing up here by myself, but I am not. I am hundreds of people … The entire group of artists who made this movie — WE just won an Oscar.”
She acknowledged her late parents, actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, and recalled her long film career, which was launched in 1978 with “Halloween.”
“To all of the people who have supported the genre movies that I have made for all these years, the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, WE just won an Oscar together!” Curtis declared.
Scheinert and Kwan, who are billed simply as “Daniels,” also saluted the collective forces that brought “Everything” to fruition, bringing the film best picture wins from the Screen Actors Guild, the Producers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America and at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. The film also received Writers Guild of America, Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice awards.
“The world is opening up to the fact that genius does not stem from individuals like us, but rather genius emerges from the collective,” said Scheinert.
“There is greatness in every single person,” Kwan added. “It doesn’t matter who they are. If you have a genius that is waiting to erupt, you just need to find the right people to unlock that.”
Kwan dedicated the movie to his Taiwanese mother, saying that she encouraged his creativity when he was growing up.
The Daniels — both 35 years old — are just the third pair to win the directing award, following Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (“West Side Story”) and Joel and Ethan Coen (“No Country for Old Men”).
The South Korean film “Parasite,” directed by Bong Joon-ho, had a similar night in 2020, winning four Oscars — for best picture, best director, best original screenplay and best international feature film — out of six nominations.
The Oscar for best adapted screenplay went to Sarah Polley for “Women Talking.” Nominees included Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro for “Living,” which he adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classic “Ikiru.” The film, set in post-war London, stars Bill Nighy, who was nominated for best actor.
In the animated feature category, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” won for best animated feature film. The nominees included Domee Shi’s Disney/Pixar film “Turning Red,” whose main character is a Chinese Canadian teenager. Shi won an Oscar in 2019 for her animated short “Bao.”
The best original song Oscar went to “Naatu Naatu,” with music by M.M. Keeravaani and lyrics by Chandrabose, from “RRR,” a drama set during India’s struggle for independence from Britain. It beat out a couple of favorites — Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick,” and Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
“This Is a Life” from “Everything” was also nominated and was performed at the Oscars by David Byrne and Son Lux with Hsu filling in for Mitski, who co-performed the original. Talking Heads frontman Byrne won an Oscar for co-composing the score for the 1988 best picture winner, “The Last Emperor,” with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su.
Another Indian film, Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga’s “The Elephant Whisperers,” won for best documentary-short subject.