‘Everything’ wins best picture, is everywhere at Oscars
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,” won seven Oscars in all.
“The world is changing rapidly and I fear our stories are not keeping pace,” said Kwan, who shared best director and best original screenplay with Scheinert. “Sometimes it’s a little scary knowing that movies move at the rate of years and the world on the internet is moving at the rate of milliseconds. But I have great faith in our stories.”
Yeoh became the first Asian woman to be 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. It’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.
“Everything Everywhere,” released all the way back in March 2022, helped revive arthouse cinemas after two years of pandemic, racking up more than $100 million in ticket sales with scant initial expectations of Oscar glory. In winning best director, the Daniels—both 35 years old—are just the third directing pair to win the award.
Best actor went to Brendan Fraser, culminating the former action star’s return to center stage for his physical transformation as a 600-lb. reclusive professor in “The Whale.” The best-actor race had been one of the closest contests of the night, but Fraser in the end edged out Austin Butler.
“So this is what the multiverse looks like,” said a clearly moved Fraser, pointing to the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” crew.
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.” Quan, beloved for his roles as Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and Data in “Goonies,” had all but given up acting before being cast in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
“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. Her win, in one of the most competitive categories this year, denied a victory for comic-book fans. Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) would have been the first performer to win an Oscar for a Marvel movie. Curtis is the rare Oscar winner whose parents were both Oscar nominees: Tony Curtis was nominated for “The Defiant Ones” in 1959 and Janet Leigh was nominated in 1961 for “Psycho.” (AP)