“I can barely take care of myself”: ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ Director Daniel Kwan Has a Beef With God
Daniel Kwan is a well-known filmmaker and a member of the filmmaker duo Daniels with Daniel Schienert. The Daniels initially directed videos including DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s Turn Down for What and Foster the People’s Houdini. Their work was highly appreciated as they went on to earn Grammy nominations for both videos.
With 2016’s Swiss Army Man, the duo entered the filmmaking industry and garnered positive reviews from the critics and the audience. Then in 2022, the directors received praise for their highly regarded and critically praised movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. In a conversation with The Bear actress Ayo Edebiri, Kwan reveals about his ADHD and his conflict with God Almighty. Let’s find out more.
Daniel Kwan on making the most of the attention on social media
Everything Everywhere All At Once co-director Daniel Kwan sat down with The Bear fame actress Ayo Edebiri for an interview for Interview Magazine in August 2023. The two of them during their conversation discussed the WGA & SAG-AFTRA strikes after which the conversation shifted to them talking about how they want to use the attention they get on social media for something good.
Kwan said,
“Every time I post something, I think about how much accumulated human attention I have taken. I’ve been calling it attention extraction. If I’m going to take your attention, how can I make the most of it at the moment?”
Ayo Edebiri added that everything circles back to accepting the reality of fame mentioning that it’s like how they use their fame that feels honest and sustainable at the same time to them as well as to the audience watching them. The actress further in the conversation mentioned that she grew up Christian and it was pretty intense.
She added that while she was growing up, she was scared of the apocalypse. She noted that the love she had, was directed toward the acts of service for the future is greater than anything anyone else could conceive.
Kwan also shared with Edebiri that he finds it weird that the storytellers are supposed to be sharing and telling stories that cultivate conversations and help them along with the audience to reflect on their lives. He noted that the reality is that no one is having these intersectional and interdisciplinary conversations.
Daniel Kwan talks about how convincing people that they’ll go to hell was ‘scary’
Daniel Kwan who is an evangelical shared during the interview that one of the scariest things he had to do was to convince people that they would go to hell. He added that if he couldn’t convince the people about what he was showcasing, then he wouldn’t have been able to live with that.
Kwan added,
“I think I’m still working through a lot of that trauma of needing to save the world and save myself. I have ADHD; I can barely take care of myself. What the hell? Why would god do this to me?”
Daniel Kwan went on to talk about Everything Everywhere All At Once, where Michelle Yeoh’s character discovers that she must connect with versions of herself in parallel universes to prevent a powerful being from destroying the multiverse. The director shares with Edebiri that his definition of god is evolving every day and he finds himself thinking about the ‘continuous apocalypse’ humans are living in.
Daniel Kwan lastly added that since his definition of God has been evolving, it makes him keep holding onto a little hope about God and what his stories are doing. He adds that it has been terrifying and interesting to process all of it.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is available to stream on Netflix.
