Everything Everywhere All at Once originally ended with Michelle Yeoh singing a gay anthem
Michelle Yeoh is nominated for an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All At Once. (A24)
Everything Everywhere All at Once was supposed to end with a karaoke cover of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”.
The comedy-sci-fi epic is nominated for a staggering 10 Oscars on Sunday (12 March), including Best Film Editing for editor Paul Rogers.
Speaking to Newsweek, Rogers explained that a lot of the film’s content ended up on the cutting room floor.
In its final form, Everything Everywhere All at Once ends with queer protagonist Joy Wang (Stephanie Hsu) and her mother Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) accepting their differences and mending their relationship – after Joy’s alter ego almost ends reality itself – with Evelyn also reuniting with husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan).
But originally, the scene was followed with an impromptu karaoke number.
Rogers explained: “After they reunite in the parking lot and Waymond rips up the divorce papers, [he and Evelyn] walk over, find the karaoke machine on the ground that Evelyn threw through the window and then they turn it on and start singing ‘Barbie Girl’.
“Then everyone in the party comes out of the parking lot and they all sing ‘Barbie Girl’ together,” he continued.
The film was originally around two hours and 45 minutes, and Rogers had to cut half an hour of footage.
This included a scene earlier in the film where the characters sung “Barbie Girl” – without it, the original ending made no sense.
Rogers also revealed that, among the many other multiverses in Everything Everywhere All at Once, one particular alternate universe revolved entirely around noodles.
“There was a whole universe called ‘Spaghetti Baby Noodle Boy’,” Rogers said.
“It was Evelyn as a piece of spaghetti and she had a little baby that was a noodle, like a macaroni noodle with a hole in it, voiced by Jenny Slate.”
Jenny Slate ended up playing the dog owner in one of the film’s more chaotic scenes.
Rogers said that the team tried desperately to keep the noodle universe in the film, but they couldn’t get it to work.
In another heavily edited scene, the one in which Joy’s alter-ego Jobu arrives and turns a policeman into confetti, Jamie Lee Curtis’s character Deidre was supposed to have a big monologue.
Curtis didn’t seem to mind it being cut though, as she apparently told the film’s creators Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert that she “never understood” the monologue anyway.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu are both up for the Best Supporting Actress gong at the Oscars for their roles in the film, while Michelle Yeoh is nominated for Best Actress.
Ke Huy Quan is up for Best Supporting Actor, while the Daniels are up for Best Director.
The 2023 Oscars airs on Sunday (12 March) in the US and Monday (13 March) in the UK.
