The best movies always have a dose of indefinable magic. A moment or coincidence that comes together on the set or in editing that just brings a scene to a whole other level. And with a film as dynamic and original as Everything Everywhere All at Once, you’d guess that happened more often than not. It would have to for a movie so audacious to work. And that’s exactly what happened in arguably the film’s most ludicrous scene: magic.
We’re talking, of course, about the hot dog universe. Yes, that one shining multiverse where humans evolved to have hot dogs for fingers — and, in that universe, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) and Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) are a couple who go through a painful breakup. In a new interview with Variety, Curtis revealed she and Yeoh didn’t quite get the hot dog thing and ended up improvising the whole scene with the focus on a very peculiar inanimate object.
“I didn’t understand much of it and I was trying to figure it out,” Curtis said. “Then we went to this set and what happened, which was so beautiful, was Michelle and I just found this gorgeous emotional place with each other. And there was no dialogue and it was written that we were breaking up in this universe, that we had hot dogs for hands … and this scene ended up becoming an improvisation about a luffa.”
Yup, a luffa, or loofah as it’s also spelled: the soft poofy thing you might use in the shower. Curtis explained they picked it because it was an object that didn’t have an emotion attached to it and that became the driving force. “The whole scene became about a luffa that Deirdre was saying to Evelyn that although she bought the luffa in the relationship, she was leaving it because Evelyn has used it more,” she said.
So next time you watch Everything Everywhere All At Once and see hot dog Evelyn and Deirdre break up, realise that beautiful, weird, heartbreaking scene was created on the day, out of nowhere, by two incredible performers.
The revelation was part of a larger interview between Curtis and Colin Farrell for Variety, and here’s the full thing. The hot dog talk starts around 20 minutes in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enpn0GnmbUEWant more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.