Everything Everywhere All At Once Proves Stephanie Hsu Is A Star

Everything Everywhere All at Once truly has it all, including a star-making performance from actress Stephanie Hsu. The movie is the latest from surrealist filmmakers Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as Daniels, who previously wrote and directed the weird and wonderful Swiss Army Man. Their new movie is just as silly and strange, following a Chinese-American family through their adventures across the multiverse. Michelle Yeoh has the lead role as the matriarch, Evelyn, a laundromat owner who learns she’s just one of many versions of herself and the one who must save all of existence. Former child star Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies) co-stars as her husband, Waymond, and Hsu plays their daughter, Joy.

If Hsu is familiar to audiences watching Everything Everywhere All at Once, it is likely from her recurring role as Mei Lin in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The character was introduced in season 3 of the Amazon comedy series as the Chinatown girlfriend of Midge’s ex-husband, Joel, and she appears even more prominently in the recently released fourth season. If that relatively sensible role was all one knew of Hsu’s career, though, her outrageous scene-stealing work in the new movie might come as a surprise. But Hsu has been a dazzling comedic talent in television and on Broadway for years. She was a regular on the MTV show Girl Code, and on the stage, she originated the role of Karen Plankton in the SpongeBob Squarepants musical and played the lead in Be More Chill. She also had a small part in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

For her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, Hsu replaced her Shang-Chi co-star and real-life friend Awkwafina, who was originally cast in the movie before having to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. The opportunity to take over such a significant film role from someone as established and broadly prolific as Awkwafina certainly presented Hsu the chance to break out as a movie star. But it also could have been a daunting task trying to live up to any comparison. Hsu succeeds in overcoming the latter, delivering as complex and extravagant a performance as might have been seen from the star of The Farewell and Crazy Rich Asians, and now she deserves for the former to happen as well.

As Joy in Everything Everywhere All at Once, Hsu essentially plays two characters. There’s the real world version of Evelyn’s daughter, which called for a more emotional and dramatic performance, plus Jobu Tupaki, a potentially evil version of Joy from another universe. For this sort of movie, with its cartoonish action and out-there science fiction plot, over-the-top performances are what stick with viewers after they leave the theater. Hsu’s work as Jobu Tupaki, which consists of many extreme costume changes and other bizarre transformations as well as a good deal of villainous grandstanding, sometimes ridiculously wielding sex toys as weapons, is absolutely spectacular: flashy, funny, fabulous. The performance is all the more noteworthy because her excessive scene-chewing as Jobu Tupaki contrasts so strikingly against the grounded act she puts on as Joy.

So what comes next for Hsu? In addition to her expected return as Mei in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 5, the actress will continue her transition to movie stardom with a couple of film gigs. Last fall, she wrapped on a major role in the still-untitled directorial debut of Crazy Rich Asians and Raya and the Last Dragon screenwriter Adele Lim. The upcoming comedy follows four Asian-American women as they bond during a trip to find one of their birth mothers. She can also be heard voicing a character in the Netflix animated feature The Monkey King, due next year. Beyond that, well, as more people see Everything Everywhere All at Once and her impressive performance in it, Stephanie Hsu is sure to see a lot of big movie offers come through.