Michelle Yeoh on “Everything Everywhere All At Once”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: What I literally just can’t believe and I wonder how you feel about, it is the first Hollywood movie where you have had top billing in a long and distinguished career. When you saw the script and you saw your role, what did you think?

MICHELLE YEOH, ACTRESS, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”: First of all, I prayed and said, please let these two boys not be certifiably insane.

AMANPOUR: OK. The two boys are?

YEOH: The Daniels.

AMANPOUR: Who?

YEOH: Who wrote — this is the original screenplay. It’s — came from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. And when I received it, you know, it’s like you receive scripts. And as the years get bigger, the numbers get bigger, the roles seem to shrink with that. As you know, as a woman, as an Asian woman or whatever it is, somehow, they start putting you in boxes. And it’s always the guy who gets to go on the adventure and save the world and, you know, rescue your daughter. And you, think why can’t I do that, too? So, it was so overwhelming at that point to get a script that said, you know, this is a very ordinary woman, Asian, immigrant woman, who is dealing with all the problems that we all can relate to — well, maybe not as a laundromat owner. But you know, the relationship with your husband, relationship with your father, relationship with your daughter. I mean, there’s the generational gap. That miscommunication between mothers and daughters especially, it’s always been more complicated. And what I loved about it, it was like this is an ordinary woman who is being seen, who’s given a role to play as a superhero. And that’s what we are. Women, mothers, daughters, sisters are superheroes because we have a certain superpower, which is kindness, love, compassion. And the core of this crazy, wacky, messy, you know, frenetic story on the surface, the core is authentic, genuine love for family and never giving up on each other.