Were you surprised by the film’s success?
Daniel Kwan: I feel like every independent film that is successful is a surprise at this point. The independent film world is going through some major growing pains. We had very low expectations – we hoped for the best, but also we were trying to be realistic.
Daniel Scheinert: There was a little part of me that was like, “We convinced Michelle Yeoh to star in our movie, she did really exciting kung fu fight scenes; I think this is gonna go OK.” People have responded to the rocks and the tears more than the fights.
Why do you think it has resonated so deeply?
DK: Because y’all are weirdos!
DS: And because Michelle Yeoh did so good, and everybody’s like, “I love her.”
DK: I think this film was released at the perfect time. The world was ready. We all just went through this collective trauma; in a lot of ways we’re still moving through it. For certain people this film felt like a reflection of that chaos but also, hopefully, something cathartic as well.
Someone told us that their father stopped talking to them after he came out. Years had gone by. After the father saw our film, he called his son for the first time and apologised. They’ve now reconnected. As a film-maker, it’s the last thing you expect, but it’s everything you hope for – that your film will actually make a true impact on someone else’s life.
It’s so hard to say things out loud. To be able to have someone else say it for you is a really powerful tool. We underestimated our film in a lot of ways. Now we’re learning about our power and responsibility. We’re just very grateful for our audience members’ vulnerability, and being able to share those kinds of things with us.
Awards season is in full swing. How does it feel to be a frontrunner?
DS: Flattering because the movie is bigger than us. I’m so happy our fans believe in it. And we’re scared. It feels like there’s a nice big target on our back. We’re just ready for people to make fun of it. That’s OK. It’s not for everybody.
DK: We’re trying to enjoy it and take this opportunity as a moment to celebrate the people around us, but it’s also not good for our mental health.
DS: It’s been a very destabilising year – to have your life change and put something so personal out there …
Have you started drafting your Oscars speech?
DS: My friend Billy Chew is a screenwriter – he wrote The Death of Dick Long, and he’s been workshopping speeches with me that will get me cancelled. That way, I’ll have some privacy. [Laughs]
DK: Until [the Gothams] none of us expected to win anything. We felt really caught off guard. So now our brains are going, “Oh, we have to rise to this moment.” We haven’t drafted anything yet.
DS: It’s mostly just a roast of Steven Spielberg. I want to point at my heroes and say: “I win, not you!”
Would you consider doing a sequel to Everything Everywhere All at Once?
DS: No way, man, but we have a lot of spiritual sequel ideas. This movie is filled with ideas that mean a lot to us, and we’re not done talking about mental health or about family. Maybe when we’re deep in debt and desperate, in like 30 years, we’ll Top Gun: Maverick it and do a sequel.
How about a TV spin-off with one of the characters?
DK: OK, here’s the one spin-off I want to do. A fan created an animation, in the style of anime, of our movie. I was like, “This is amazing.” I want to do what the Wachowskis did with The Matrix and make an Animatrix kind of thing because we both love anime a lot. We could do a mini series of short films set in the world of Everything Everywhere, but all anime style.
You turned down the chance to direct Disney+’s Loki to shoot Everything Everywhere All at Once. Are you keen to do something else with Marvel?
DS: We want to do an NC-17 X-Men movie about this character named Doop [who] is a non-binary, bisexual, extremely horny [creature], that teaches sex ed to all of the X-Men. If Kevin Feige is listening …
DK: [Doop] has part of his brain stored in his butt, so if he gets his head shot, he’ll survive. It sounds like we’re making this up, but this is actually canon in the Marvel world. I think we might be the only ones who can pull off Doop.
I’ve read that you keep an Excel document of film ideas.
DK: There’s a shot-for-shot remake of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. We’ve pitched it to Paramount two or three times, we’ll see if it comes to fruition.
DS: We have a Terminator sequel called Terminator Forever and Ever, Amen. But it’s more like a gay performance art piece than an action movie.
DK: They keep going back in time trying to kill John Connor’s ancestors until they go so far, there’s no more humans. There’s pre-man. Two robots have to figure out how to love and write poetry. They’re stuck in 10,000 BC or whatever. They can’t kill each other, so they learn to cope with arts and singing and love.
