Stephanie Hsu was inspired by complex characters like the Joker for her role in Everything Everywhere All At Once. PHOTOGRAPHED BY IRVIN RIVERA
AFTER TACKLING THE BROADWAY STAGE AND TELEVISION, THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL’S STEPHANIE HSU HAS LANDED ON HER FAVORITE MEDIUM—THE BIG SCREEN. THE ACTRESS DISCUSSES TAKING ON THE COMPLEX DUAL ROLE OF JOY AND JOBU IN ONE OF THIS YEAR’S AWARDS-CONTENDING FILMS, EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE.
What first drew you to the Daniels’ (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) film Everything Everywhere All At Once?
I had the great fortune of working with the Daniels right before we started filming Everything Everywhere. We worked on an episode of Nora from Queens and fell in love artistically and friendship-wise. They're weird and I'm weird, and we not only love strange humor, but we also all have had so many conversations late at night about existentialist philosophy, so, in many ways, the script made complete sense. I had no idea Michelle Yeoh or Jamie Lee Curtis were attached to it, I just wanted to work with [the Daniels]. I felt so excited that I was surrounding myself with artists who are super collaborative and feel like they're making things for the right reasons.
What was it like working with Michelle Yeoh, who plays your mother in the film?
She is a true legend. The thing about Michelle is that she is so effortlessly graceful and poised, but she's actually so silly. She loves to have fun and is hilarious and makes everyone feel so welcome. I grew up watching her and my whole family is obsessed with Michelle. I think a lot of Asian families have that experience where we don't have a huge footprint in the world of cinema in America, but Michelle is like the bridge of East and West. She's just so adored by so many generations of people.
You play the dual role of Joy Wang and Jobu Tupaki, who are both variations of the same person. What was the biggest challenge for you? The character of Joy and Jobu is very complex, in the sense that, ultimately, they're the same person, but on different sides of the coin and they’re responding to a darkness (or nihilism and the spirit of nothing matters) in very opposite ways. It was really important for me that Jobu, at her very core, was still the same as Joy, which is someone who has lost her way and is feeling at the end of her rope. I did a lot of research on different roles that Jim Carrey has played, and the Joker—not as to mimic, but as inspirations of villains who carry this type of complexity. … I think the hardest thing was to make sure that the craziness and the chaos was still coming from a very rooted place and also [from] playing a character that I knew not everybody would like. People want to be likable or the hero, and it’s hard to be the antihero—but a version of the hero also.
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