Before Oscars, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ sweeps Spirit Awards

Winners are voted on by members of the non-profit organization Film Independent

Everything Everywhere All At Once continued its awards sweep at the Film Independent Spirit Awards on its path to the Oscars next weekend. The multiverse-hopping adventure collected awards for best picture, directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, actors Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Stephanie Hsu, screenplay and editing.

“Thank you to everyone who makes crazy, weird independent movies,” Scheinert said.

Awards were handed out Saturday afternoon in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica, and the show was streamed live on YouTube and Twitter.

First-time Spirit Awards host Hasan Minhaj opened the show saying, “Of all the awards shows, this is by far, one of them.” Minhaj went hard on everything, from the entertainment trade website Deadline (“At this point, Deadline is half gossip, half Ezra Miller crime tracker,” he said) to the show’s lack of a broadcast partner.

“The Independent Film Channel did not want the Independent Film Awards,” he said, noting that the channel chose to show the poorly reviewed Will Ferrell movie Semi-Pro instead. “Awards shows are dead,” he added. “My 2-year-old watches slime videos with more viewers than the Oscars.”

The first prize of the afternoon went to Quan for best-supporting actor for Everything Everywhere All At Once, which his co-star Jamie Lee Curtis was also nominated for. This is the first year the Spirit Awards embraced gender-neutral acting awards – both lead and supporting performance categories had 10 nominees. Quan, who is expected to win the supporting actor Oscar next week, chose to devote his speech to many of the crew who worked on the film, from the stunt coordinators to the production assistants.

Hsu later collected the prize for the best breakthrough performance for the film. “This is my first ever individual award and it feels incredibly appropriate that it’s in this room. I feel so honoured” she said. “I really want to thank the Daniels so much. Thank you so much for finding me and believing in my art and seeing me and championing me.” Hsu said she hoped the award would act as a talisman to “protect that freak flag” and desire to tell stories.