ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How does one get summoned to be in a Spielberg movie?
I’m guessing it must be a little bit surreal.
But they of course were also so well known and documented.
Michelle Williams in ‘The Fabelmans’.Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
How much was Steven looking for a total embodiment of his mother versus forging your own path with it?
Otherwise, why make it?
It’s already been made.
Gabriel LaBelle and Michelle Williams in ‘The Fabelmans’.Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
So it’s as close as it can be, but it also isn’t a documentary.
And I think that’s what the great things make us feel.
They put all of the archives onto an iPad for me, and that just became my companion.
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And for every movie that I do, I always keep a notebook.
It’s the same notebook, and every woman gets a new one.
Binders full of women!
Adrien Morot working on a digital sculpture of Brendan Fraser’s prosthetics for ‘The Whale’.A24
Did you see all that on the page right away?
It’s a feast, and they laid this table for her.
“My father and his technical prowess made me an artist, my mother and her creative liberty.”
Makeup artist Adrien Morot (right) gets ‘The Whale’ star Brendan Fraser into his prosthetic makeup.A24
And those two things can actually go hand in hand.
Because her heart is in the right place, and her heart can be in multiple places.
You definitely break the classic rule about never working with dogs and children here.
Brendan Fraser in full prosthetic makeup for ‘The Whale’.A24
There are kids all over the place, and even a monkey.
I love that monkey, she’s amazing.
Oh, he was fine.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’.Allyson Riggs/A24
He didn’t need it.
There’s this announcer who’s obsessed with him.
You have to watch him just to increase the joy in your life.
Directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert on the set of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’.Allyson Riggs/A24
Gabriel is so confident, he really trusts himself.
So the kid’s all right.
That seems like a lot to inhabit with your one small body within the space of a few years.
Austin Butler in ‘Elvis’.Hugh Stewart/Warner Bros.
It’s amazing because we all do it.
That’s how every human gets here, is a woman giving of herself.
[Babies] have to arrive, and they have to be sustained, all of it.
Stephanie Hsu in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’.Allyson Riggs/A24
So I’m continuously searching, because balance isn’t a stable place.
Balance means that you’re always adjusting.
My heart obviously belongs to my children; they tug at it the most.
Stephanie Hsu in ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’.Allyson Riggs/A24
But I really want to be able to have both.
[Laughs]That’s a big one for me.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
These are unlikely words from an Oscar nominee.
“That means the makeup was not a distraction,” he says.
“That’s great.
That’s exactly what I wanted.”
(He’ll hate this article.)
Morot’s contribution toThe Whale, the creation of a believable 600-pound man, is the opposite of cartoonish.
Those conditions needed to be more prominent than his physical ones.
“He was like, ‘You’re the expert I trust you.
The only thing that I want is to check that that it’s accurate and respectful.
I don’t want this to be a joke.
I don’t want this to be a punchline.'”
That’s his tool.
I want him to be in full control.'"
(He used them to create a believable substructure.)
There were even legs and lower-body adornments for specific shots that would test the limits of the illusion.
Sometimes the additional weight crept over 200 pounds.
“Nobody else would’ve went through that,” Morot recalls of Fraser’s commitment.
“Everybody would’ve run away and called me crazy and gotten me fired.
But Brendan used that to actually find his character.
I’m going to go with the heavy one.
This is not Charlie.'”
For Morot, it’s always been about emotion.
“I’m trying to do stuff that remains tasteful and non-distracting.
I see myself more as a tool in the palettes of the director and the actors.
I’m there to support them.
Unless I’m being asked to do something that’s over the top.”
So how might those results affect the major Academy Award races?
Here are some updated predictions.
I’m sticking withEEAAOfor the win.
They feel like 21st-century winners to me.
Best Actor: Austin Butler, Elvis
Before this weekend, I had Butler ranked at No.
2 behindThe Banshees of Inisherin’sColin Farrell.
STEPHANIE HSU: What’s really beautiful and this is so Chinese, people is we are so spiritual.
We’re a very witchy bunch, actually.
They wouldn’t call it witchy in our culture, but we’re very spiritual.
We started filming in January 2020.
Wepremiered at South By Southwestin March 2022, and now the Oscars are going to be in March 2023.
Isn’t that wild?
So I feel like this year is going to be a full-circle completion.
Because no one could have possibly imagined our story could do what it’s done.
The Daniels really cultivated a beautiful community.
That is what the Daniels are so good at doing.
And we all signed on because Michelle is Michelle.
She completely surrendered to the process without any ego.
The part came to you after you worked with the Daniels on the seriesAwkwafina Is Nora From Queens.
What was it about the script that resonated with you?
The Daniels are amazing.
I honestly think we really are cut from the same artistic cloth.
We’re very much best friends and soulmates in so many ways.
Working with them on that one episode, I was like, I’m yours for life.
Whatever you want me to do, I’m yours.
But then, of course, when I read the script, I couldn’t believe it.
I couldn’t believe it was a story about a mother and a daughter, an immigrant family.
I had never seen anything like that before.
I came from experimental theater.
That was the thing that I felt so excited about.
I was like, I wanna blow this role open.
I wanna stretch it as far as it can go.
I want Joy to be so almost forgettable that Jobu is like the wildest surprise ever.
Those roles are really hard to come by.
At its core, this multiverse saga is about a mother and daughter.
When I first watched the movie, it made me feel like I broke in half.
How did you and Michelle build this dynamic?
So it’s a chemistry thing.
It’s also a Michelle Yeoh thing.
She makes everybody feel like family when you work with her.
There was something really magical about this little group.
Michelle does open her arms so wide, and she completely surrendered to all of us.
We didn’t have rehearsal time.
We were really just like doing it as we went.
Her love is so big.
My love is so big.
We didn’t talk about our families, really.
But when we were talking about the script, we didn’t have a roundtable discussion about intergenerational trauma.
I think everybody just knew it.
What did your mother think of the film?
And it was surprising because I thought she was going say, “Oh, that’s you.”
Like, “Ha ha ha, you’re that grumpy daughter.”
But she was crying and she said, “That’s me.”
And I realized that that was the first time my mom had ever seen herself on the screen.
And that, to me, is so powerful.
A little bit of healing happened to her as well.
Was that a real pig?
Was he or she a good scene partner?
I don’t remember the gender of the pig.
I don’t know their pronouns.
It was a real pig.
Most of our stuff was all practical.
That’s the magic of it.
Even the confetti, when we blew up the police officer’s head, was real confetti.
Best entrance in the whole wide world.
She’s funny, she’s cool, she doesn’t care what you think about her.
And for Halloween, so many people noticed it.
They took pictures as Jobu with a cigarette at the center of their mouth.
I felt really seen.
