Interview: Stephanie Hsu. The year's breakout star on her insane year, stage history, and working with legends.

by Nathaniel R

Stephanie Hsu as "Jobu Tupaki" in Everything Everywhere All At Once2022's wildest film was also it's most unlikely mainstream success. For sheer invention it Everything Everywhere All At Once, outdid the animated Spider-Verse and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the suddenly flourishing subgenre of multi-verse hopping. At the center of its chaotic maelstorm, is Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), the nihilistic variant of depressed Joy Wang, a young queer woman with a tense relationship to her overly critical mother Evelyn(Michelle Yeoh). Stephanie Hsu, 32, is not an overnight sensation but she is a sensation. 2022 essentially served as a mainstream coming out party for the gifted actress after years treading the boards in experimental theater and musical comedy, as well as season-long or guest episode TV gigs.

Back in October I had the change to moderate a Q&A for Everything Everywhere All At Once at which Hsu received a "Rising Star Award". Over the course of the day we met three times and talked Broadway theater, being dramaturgy nerds, forgetting your lines, wild costumes, and various movies that are competing with hers at awards shows (off the record of course!). What follows is the conversation we had as we met, shortly before we went on stage [edited for length and clarity]...

Nathaniel and Stephanie at the Middleburg Film Festival earlier this year.

NATHANIEL: First of all I want to say that I have seen you twice on Broadway!

STEPHANIE HSU: Oh my gosh. What?

NATHANIEL: When I was watching you in Everything Everywhere, I didn't connect it. People on stage are thisbig you know. Once you started getting attention I thought 'Have I really never seen her before?' so I'm looking it up and I'm like 'ohmygod it's Christine from Be More Chill and Karen from Spongebob!' 

STEPHANIE HSU: In your defense, I have been told by many directors and photographers that my face looks different all the time. Which I guess is helpful for an actor. Even with The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, people are always like, 'I can't believe you're the same person.' So yeah. That's something I'm even learning about myself along the way. 

That brings me right to Joy Wang, your character. She's one character but she's also many characters. Did you approach it like that or I think 'one person  / many shades'?

A ittle bit of both actually! It was really important to me that both Joy and Jobu, the daughter and villain, hold the same core, the same emotional and philosophical core of nihilism. So I always say that they're two very different expressions of the concept 'Nothing matters'.

Mm-hmm.

If nothing matters, that can really send someone, like Joy, down a very depressive path where they don't see a way forward. Jobu is 'if nothing matters, then I'm gonna smash this chair against the wall - watch me -- and then eat a pie!'. Something I really explored with both of them was just an experience of hyper empathy. What does it mean when you can feel it all, right? For Joy that's very overwhelming. It's like you read the news and you're like, 'How do I continue even going about my day when I know everything that's happening out there?' And Jobu feeling everything gives her the space to transport, distract, float to different tangents, and kind of ride every impulse.

You worked with the Daniels once before this on Nora From Queens. Since you already knew them, did you see a finished script or just hear the concept?

There were a lot of changes once I came on board but the bones of the script were completely there. We work really well together. We like to explore. We like to improv. We like to throw paint on the wall and if it doesn't stick, we'll pick it up and try it again from behind.

People always ask 'When you read the script, did it make any sense?' And I'm like, yeah, it really did. It's because they're incredible and they worked really hard. Something big can actually be quite simple at its core.

Which helps it "play". Because otherwise it would be like 'What is happening?'

Exactly. 

You're a "breakthrough" this year but it's never an overnight thing, success. Did you see this big year coming or was it 2018 when you started to get the parts that you felt the shift? 

On Broadway in "Be More Chill". Photo by Maria Baranova

Yeah yeah yeah. In 2018 I was doing Be More Chill and shooting Maisel at the same time. I don't think about fame or success in this way, so it's all been a shock. The way I've been describing this year of my life is this: I've known that I exist every day of my life. And suddenly people are so surprised that I exist!  People are like, 'oh my God, why are you here?' And I'm like, 'I'm here every morning when I wake up!' It's so wild to see someone perceive you and feel surprised.

But yes it's been absolutely crazy. 

What's so beautiful about it is that [the movie] makes me feel less cagey about it. I am so proud of this movie and that it has offered so much healing to so many people, or just really touched their hearts. It's been both beautiful and overwhelming because I've seen so many strangers cry.  Like in the middle of the street, they'll say hi to me and they'll just start talking about the movie and weeping.

Oh, wow.

It's also very healing for me to remember and witness and trust what I've always known, which is that art has a huge impact. But to see it actually work is really insane. You've seen me on Broadway but before that I was romping around La Mama and Dixon Place. I come from the experimental theater scene so I never signed onto this project so that I could garner success. I signed onto the project because I knew it in my 'art heart.'

I love that.

All of this now? We are a total freak accident. Just as much as everyone in the industry is surprised and questioning 'how did this happen?' we are also doing that on the inside. Since this movie I've worked on more films and projects and now I truly understand how insane it is that we were able to make this movie on that budget in 28 days. 

With her award-winning screen parents Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh

I hear about the process and schedule on many movies but usually I don't feel disbelief about it like this.

Such a testament to the Daniels. Honestly, they are incredible filmmakers. I'll tell you a story. This might be boring for you, but I'm just gonna tell it. This was the day that I fell in love with them. One day on set with Harry Shum Jr....

Already not bored. We're talking Nora from Queens, right?

Yeah yeah. He was also in that. They had to shoot a scene where a piano falls from an apartment building and topples Harry. You're like, 'How do you do that?' Like with a Comedy Central budget on a guest episode that they're directing. How are you gonna smash a real live actor with a piano? Lots of questions. What they did was they built a tiny puppet of a piano and attached it to a stick. And they worked with depth perception. So they had the camera on the other side of the street and they dropped the tiny piano puppet really close to the lens so that it looked like it was far away. And they used that to time out when it collapsed on top of Harry.

That's like squishing people's heads with your fingers from far away!

Exactly. That exactly the example that they used. It's so brilliant. That's making something small go a very long way. That was the moment where I was like, 'These people are nuts! But they also really understand filmmaking'

That episode was hilarious and you were great in it, too.

Thank you so much. That's how we met, can you believe that? But even with that episode, you can see them, you can feel them, you know, in hindsight.

So let's talk next projects. Your next movie is a comedy with Adele Lim  about four Asian women?

Yes.

And you get to work with Ashley Park, who is also from musical comedy theater. How has that  experience been?

Oh, it's always wild to continue to rise and see all your friends alongside with you. It was so fun to work with her. I'm so excited for her. It's so surreal. And yet it feels very normal. We were on Broadway at the same time, I think it was SpongeBob and Mean Girls. You know, we talk about how much change has happened in the industry, but even then like SpongeBob was the most diverse cast on Broadway at that time. That was maybe five or six years ago. I am so happy for Ashley and so grateful to be on this journey with her. When both of us started, this just wasn't happening. So it's quite a big deal.

You mean the industry making space for both of you?

We're so different but yeah. I think we were both really lucky that we came up at just this hinge point.  Since then so much has happened. I mean, even with Be More Chill. That was such a -- I never saw myself as a female lead period. That project gave me so much permission to step into myself AND really show up for people who were in the audiences who I knew needed me to be there.

I feel like I've been healing myself along the way of my career because when I was growing up, my mom would say, 'How can you be an actor? There's no one who looks like you' And somehow I'm insane enough to continue trying. 

Yeah.

Every single time I've been like, 'I can't, there's no females in movies that look like me. I couldn't do that.' But then I could do it!

Stephanie on "The Marvelous Mrs Maisel"

And then with Maisel, Everybody was like, there's this role on Maisel and it has to be you. They want it to be you.' I'm like 'I'm in tech and we're about to open a Broadway musical. How do you think this is gonna happen?' The  first thought I had was 'They would never have a Chinese woman in a period piece that was not offensive'. And then I read the script and I was like, "Oh, I can do this.'

Yeah. So I feel like I've been having those moments. I get to be the person who gets to be the person that I never saw. And that's been incredibly healing in a very deep way. 

And that totally ties into Everything Everywhere's message, too. Because that movie is so much about people seeing each other and healing.

Completely. I remember growing up and seeing Sandra Oh in Sideways. She was acting. It wasn't about her race. She wasn't surrounded by Asian people. It wasn't like Joy Luck Club. I love Joy Luck Club, but  Sandra in Sideways was such a pivotal moment in my upbringing where I was like, 'I wanna do that!'

Everything Everywhere All At Once has identity tied to it, but it's about so many other things. And I feel like I really got the opportunity to show up as an actor and collaborator and make choices.

Before we go people would totally kill me if I didn't ask you about working with Michelle Yeoh. I've loved her since Heroic Trio. And Jamie Lee Curtis!!! These long iconic careers. Were you intimidated your first day on set? 

In hindsight, pre pandemic Stephanie was coming off of doing eight shows a week while shooting a TV show and had no concept of the world of film. I just was thrown into it. But I had worked with the Daniels before. If I had let in any room for fear, I don't think I wouldn't gotten through it. I was just gonna show up and be really prepared to play.

However, I do remember, the first scene I shot with Michelle was the hallway scene. Otherwise known as the introduction of Jobu, otherwise known as Elvis Pig. That whole scene was our first scene together.

Oh wow.

I had rehearsed with the Daniels and we knew we wanted Jobu to be chaotic improvisitorial and unexpected. And I was like, 'Oh my God, now I have to do this to legend Michelle Yeoh?  Swing a bat? Are you kidding me? Pause! Pause!' [Laughs]  I made the Daniels announce to the room when I would get weird. I was like 'Everyone must know that I'm actually good at my job and that you forced me to do this and this is what we agreed upon. Just make sure everybody knows I'm not just an insane person.'

They wanted you to get crazy and surprise them.

Yeah. Yeah. So  they gave Michelle a heads up, but the beautiful thing about her is that she's such a generous scene partner. I really can recognize now as I go deeper into the fold of Hollywood and people of different statuses  -- she really could have treated me like I was nobody! Instead she opened herself so fully to me and what I had to offer as a scene partner. She was right there with me. We really like felt like we were building it together. That parking lot scene at the end, I just... I will never forget it. 

You're so moving together.

I felt so supported by her. And Jamie, too. It's absolutely insane. I have been so spoiled rotten. After SXSW, our first time seeing the movie, I was about to squeeze in a tiny trip to go watch whales or something. Jamie pulled me aside and said 'I'm so happy you're going back to nature. I am so happy that you exist the way you do because this is about to be a really crazy ride for you. So hang on tight and continue to surround yourself with people that you love and ground yourself in things that matter to you.'

What did that advice mean to you?

Because I've been working a long time, I was like, 'yeah, yeah, Jamie, like I'm grown, you know, I'm fine. I'm humble'. But I had no idea what she meant. And now I get it.

She sensed the movie was going to explode.

She did and she's been around. I have felt the palm of her hand on the small of my back throughout this whole ride. And I think that has been such a grounding gift. She's the real deal. She, Michelle, Ke, they're all the best of the best. Not only in their talent but in their heart. And I do think that that's in the subliminal ether of why this movie works. 

Everything Everywhere All At Once has won Best Picture and Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards and Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes. Next stop: Oscar nominations. Are you rooting for it?

Comments

[Philip H.]

I so hope she can manage a Supporting Actress nod alongside JLC!

[Ryan Steinke]

Such a great interview. Excited for her after such a big year!

[Ryan T.]

Was already a fan of hers when I saw her in BE MORE CHILL (2nd row center!) so I was happy to see here in EEAAO and she killed it. Loved this interview. I am BEYOND excited for her film with Adele Lim.

[Mr Ripley79]

Hope she makes it,As much as I love JLC,Yeoh and Quan I thought Hsu was the real heart of the film

[Greg F]

Great interview, she is such a talent! Love love JLC but I do think Hsu deserves it more, I so hope they both pull off the nom

[Michael R]

Really rooting for her!