The Daniels’ multiversal masterpiece Everything Everywhere All at Once is a lot of different movies all at once: it’s a mind-bending sci-fi epic, an intimate family drama, a martial arts actioner, a slapstick comedy, and an arthouse meditation on existentialism all rolled into one. One of the reasons this genre-bending mayhem works so well is that it’s all grounded in a relatable reality by the incredible work of the cast.
The legendary Michelle Yeoh anchors the movie with possibly the greatest performance of her prolific career, and she’s backed up by such phenomenal co-stars as Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis, and James Hong.
Randy Newman As The Voice Of Raccacoonie
One of the most bizarre – and hilarious – sequences in Everything Everywhere All at Once introduces a universe where raccoons have culinary talents. This universe hysterically pays off Evelyn’s erroneous description of Ratatouille.
The voice of “Raccacoonie,” the raccoon under Chad’s hat, is provided by the great Randy Newman, who famously composed the scores for nine Pixar movies (but not Ratatouille; that was scored by Michael Giacchino).
Biff Wiff As Rick
Biff Wiff gives a small but memorable turn in Everything Everywhere All at Once as Rick, one of Evelyn and Waymond’s regular laundromat customers. He’s a widower who combats loneliness by hanging around with the couple that owns the laundromat.
Wiff scores one of the movie’s earliest laughs when he dances around the laundromat with Waymond. Evelyn defeats the Jobu-controlled Rick in the final battle by spraying perfume in his face to remind him of his late wife.
Jenny Slate As Debbie The Dog Mom
Jenny Slate similarly appears as a laundromat customer, dubbed “Debbie the Dog Mom,” but she’s not as friendly as Rick. Slate hilariously taps into Mona-Lisa Saperstein-style confident rudeness as she argues with somebody down the phone while she talks to Evelyn in person.
Slate’s most memorable moment as Debbie the Dog Mom is a multiversal fight scene in which she swings the dog around by its leash and uses it as a meteor hammer-style weapon.
Harry Shum, Jr. As Chad
Harry Shum, Jr. plays Chad, a teppanyaki chef who works with Evelyn in an alternate universe. He turns out to have a raccoon under his hat, pulling his hair so he’ll make great food. True to the notion that everything is possible in the multiverse, there’s a whole world that brings Evelyn’s misunderstood concept of a Pixar movie to life.
Shum brings much more pathos to a Ratatouille parody than audiences would expect. It’s a hilarious sight gag, but Chad’s love for his raccoon is real.
Tallie Medel As Becky Sregor
Everything Everywhere All at Once is an intimate portrait of the Wang family. Joy’s girlfriend Becky is a big part of rounding out that portrait, as she’s the outsider looking in, trying to gain acceptance.
Tallie Medel shares palpable chemistry with Stephanie Hsu and plays into the awkwardness of meeting a new romantic partner’s family for both comedic and dramatic effect.
James Hong As Gong Gong
Screen legend James Hong gives an unforgettable turn as Evelyn’s overbearing father, Gong Gong, who abandoned her when she married Waymond and now has a strained relationship with her.
It would’ve just been fun to see Hong as a grumpy grandpa, but he also plays “Alpha Gong Gong,” a multiversal soldier with a gadget-laden, nitro-boosted wheelchair and an Aliens-style exosuit.
Jamie Lee Curtis As Deirdre Beaubeirdre
Jamie Lee Curtis gives a hysterical turn as stuffy IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Several wildly different variants of Deirdre appear in the film, from a remorseless villain who uses brute force to do Jobu Tupaki’s bidding to Evelyn’s lover in the hot dog finger universe.
Curtis plays every single one of them as a distinctive character. She nails all the physical comedy, whether she’s slurping up a yogurt drink or playing the piano with her toes.
Ke Huy Quan As Waymond Wang
Evelyn’s google-eye-loving husband Waymond Wang was the perfect comeback role for Ke Huy Quan. Waymond is a sweet, naive, friendly optimist in stark contrast with the cold-hearted cynic he married. Much like Yeoh’s role as Evelyn, Quan’s role as Waymond allowed him to demonstrate his entire range.
Quan shows off pitch-perfect comic timing with hilarious lines like “I think we should have a family discussion!” He also captures the melancholic heartache of dramatic moments like serving Evelyn with divorce papers, and he switches into action hero mode at the drop of a dime for Alpha Waymond scenes like the fanny pack beatdown.
Stephanie Hsu As Joy Wang / Jobu Tupaki
Stephanie Hsu gives two completely separate performances in the same movie. Almost everybody in Everything Everywhere plays at least a few different variants of their characters, but Hsu plays a variant who was transformed into something else entirely. An alternate Evelyn’s multiversal experiments turned Joy into the omnipotent monster “Jobu Tupaki.”
Hsu switches seamlessly between a relatably jaded Generation Z-er and a sociopathic supervillain with unimaginable cosmic abilities. She ultimately makes Jobu surprisingly sympathetic as her “everything bagel” evolves into a metaphor for self-destruction.
Michelle Yeoh As Evelyn Quan Wang
Michelle Yeoh gives the performance of several lifetimes as a few variants of Evelyn Quan Wang, the flawed yet lovable protagonist of Everything Everywhere All at Once. Yeoh gives arguably the best performance of her storied career as Evelyn, because Evelyn is all of Yeoh’s most iconic characters crammed into a single role. She’s a romantic lead, a slapstick comedian, and a badass action hero all rolled into one.
Evelyn is also a poignant, deeply human dramatic role, which Yeoh handles with plenty of pathos. She doesn’t appreciate her husband’s affections enough or give her daughter enough freedom. She takes the audience on an existential journey to discover the key to happiness and become a better person.
