By JAKE COYLE
Michelle Yeoh, left, reacts in the audience with excitement as she accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The metaphysical multiverse comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” wrapped its hot dog fingers around Hollywood’s top prize Sunday, winning best picture at the 95th Academy Awards, along with awards for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
The film—nominated for a whopping 11 Oscars—won seven in all.
Daniel Scheinert, left, and Daniel Kwan accept the award for best original screenplay for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Though worlds away from Oscar bait, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s anarchic ballet of everything bagels, googly-eyed rocks, and one messy tax audit emerged as an improbable Academy Awards heavyweight.
The indie hit, A24’s second best-picture winner following “Moonlight,” has a predominantly Asian cast and tells the kooky story of an immigrant family at the center of a potential multiverse collapse. It was just the second feature by the Daniels, as the filmmaking duo is known—which blended science fiction and alternate realities in the story of an ordinary woman and laundromat owner.
Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win best actress, taking the award for her lauded performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The 60-year-old Malaysian-born Yeoh won her first Oscar for a performance that relied as much on her comic and dramatic chops as it did her kung fu skills. She’s the first best actress win for a non-white actress in 20 years.
“Ladies, don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re past your prime,” said Yeoh, who received a raucous standing ovation.
The Daniels—both 35 years old and first-time nominees—won best director.
Ke Huy Quan accepts the award for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
The former child star Quan capped his own extraordinary comeback with the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance in the indie hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
His win, among the most expected of the night, was nevertheless one of the ceremony’s most moving moments. The audience—including his “Temple of Doom” director, Steven Spielberg—gave Quan a standing ovation as he fought back tears.
“Mom, I just won an Oscar!” said Quan, 51, whose family fled Vietnam in the war when he was a child.
“They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I can’t believe it’s happening,” said Quan. “This is the American dream.”
Minutes later, Quan’s castmate Jamie Lee Curtis won for best supporting actress. Curtis competed in that category with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-star Stephanie Hsu, and
Hong Chao, who played the best friend of Brendan Fraser’s title character in “The Whale.”
A performance of the song “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR” at the Oscars on Sunday, March 12, 2023, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
In addition, the hit song “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR” took the Oscar for best original song, marking a huge victory for South Indian cinema on the global stage. It’s the first song from an Indian film to win in the category.
“The Elephant Whisperers,” a documentary short film about an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu, became the first-ever Indian-produced film to win an Oscar. Director Kartiki Gonsalves, who accepted the award, dedicated it to “my motherland, India.”