Michelle Yeoh’s “Everything Everywhere All At Once” role was initially supposed to go to Jackie Chan. Yeoh confirmed it last night on the Graham Norton Show.
The story goes that Chan jokingly sent Yeoh a text after seeing the success of “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” the message said “Congratulations on your movie, but did you know your boys [The Daniels] came to see me first?”
I did some more research on this and Yeoh had mentioned this story last year as well. In an interview with The Guardian, Yeoh shared how her longtime friend reacted to the movie's acclaim.
"Jackie actually texted me," she said. "And he says: 'Wow, I hear amazing things about your movie. Did you know that the boys came to see me in China?' And I said: 'Yes, your loss, my bro!'"
Chan was originally in talks to play the leading role, which then got switched to a female one after Yeoh joined the cast. This would seemingly mean that Ke Huy Quan’s character was initially a female one.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published last March, the Daniels confirmed that they initially pictured Yeoh as Chan's wife. Obviously, now, we just can’t picture that since the lead role suited Yeoh so well in the film.
It all worked out in the end. Plenty of movie fans are madly in love with EEAO and it garnered the most Oscar nominations out of any movie this year. Some are even saying it’ll win the Best Picture Oscar in March. I digress, but we can tackle that another time.