‘Everything Everywhere’ duo win directing, writing Oscars

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Writing and directing duo Daniels won a double Oscar on a major night for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

In a victory that was entirely expected on Sunday but might have seemed like a sci-fi fantasy a year ago, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, two out of seven Lived its own multiversal dramedy. Daniels tops a field of geniuses that includes Hollywood royalty Steven Spielberg in both categories.

“There is greatness in every single person,” Kwan said while accepting Best Director. “It doesn’t matter who we are. There is a genius in every human being, you just have to find it. Thank you to the people who unlocked my genius.

But Quan reassured his young son that he would not impose similar expectations on him.

“It’s not normal, it’s kind of crazy,” he said. “I will love you no matter what.”

Daniels became the favorite for the directing Oscar on the night, and “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the top nominee with 11, had immense awards season momentum. It also won Best Picture, Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh, Best Supporting Actor for Ke Hui Quan and Best Supporting Actress for Jamie Lee Curtis.

Shenert dedicated the director’s Oscar to “all the mothers in the world” and to his own parents.

“When I was making really disturbing horror movies or really perverse comedy movies or dressing up in drag as a kid who isn’t a threat to anybody, that didn’t drain my creativity.” Thank You for.”

When he won for the screenplay, Scheinert rattled off the names of his favorite school teachers, saying, “You all inspired me and taught me to be less butthead.”

And Kwan said “My impostor syndrome is at an all-time high.” He called Sheinert “my faith”. He’s the person who told me before I believed I was a storyteller.

Each 35 years old, Daniels was the youngest and least experienced filmmaker in the directing group of nominees, which also included 76-year-old Spielberg (“The Fabbelmans”), 48-year-old Ruben Ostlund (“Triangle of Sorrows”) were involved. Todd Field (“Tar”), 59, and Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inishrin”), 52.

His win comes almost a year after the film’s release. Daniels’ previous feature was the oddball dead-body comedy “Swiss Army Man”. Quentin Tarantino.

But “Everything Everywhere,” which mixed the same weirdness with elements of Hollywood sci-fi and action epics, stirred up — and inspired memes — from its inception and in recent months became a magnet for awards .

Kwan became the third winner of Asian descent to win a directing Oscar. Chloe Zhao and Bong Joon also won the award. The film was a boon for Asian actors who were cast in most of the lead roles, including Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu and Ke Hui Kwan, all of whom received Oscar nominations, with Kwan and Yeoh winning and Hsu castmates lost to Curtis.

Daniels is the third directing duo to win an Oscar. Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise won in 1962 for the original “West Side Story,” and brothers Joel and Ethan Coen won in 2008 for “No Country for Old Men.”

He is also among the youngest people to win the award. “La La Land” director Damien Chazelle was the youngest in 2017 at 32.

Last month, he won a Directors Guild of America award, which has proven to be a strong predictor of Oscar wins.

Spielberg was once expected to cruise through awards season with his autobiography “The Fabelmans,” but the late surge in affection for “Everything Everyone at Once” proved too much.

Scheinert from Birmingham, Alabama and Kwan from Westboro, Massachusetts, met while studying film at Emerson College in Boston.

He began his career making music videos, directing occasional episodes of television, before moving on to feature.

There was no female director nominated in the category. After trend-bucking two years with back-to-back wins for women in the category, the Academy returned to its historical norm of nominating only male directors.

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