Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), focused for the fight; Fanny-pack ready;
HALF AN HOUR into Everything Everywhere All At Once, everything changes, all at once, a quiet drama about an ageing Asian-American laundromat owner trying to do her taxes suddenly morphing into a full-blown Hong Kong-style action spectacular. Quiet dad Waymond — played by Ke Huy Quan, in his first major role in decades — chows down on some lip-balm, ‘verse-jumps’ his brain into the multiverse, and swiftly kicks serious butt, armed with only a humble fanny-pack. Daniels — writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — left all other 2022 action sequences scrambling in the dust. We asked Quan to reveal the secrets of the best fight scene in the multiverse.
MAKE AN UNCOOL OBJECT COOL
The fanny-pack was baked into the script from the start, to turn a nerdy stereotype on its head (it is in part a tribute to Daniel Kwan’s Chinese father, an unironic user of the somewhat unfashionable waist-pouch). Quan responded to it immediately. “I was famished for a script like this,” he says. “I was so hungry for it. That fanny-pack fight sequence was just so beautifully written. It's genius.” A long-time action fan, Quan was thrilled to see such an original approach: “Nobody would think to use a fanny-pack as a lethal weapon. Jackie Chan uses anything as a weapon — achair, a table — but none of his movies use fanny-packs! Fanny-packs are cool now!”