Jackie Chan was offered the lead role in Everything Everywhere All at Once according to Michelle Yeoh

International action legends Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh have been having a fun sibling-rivalry-esque friendship ever since their collaboration in Police Story 3: Supercop. When Michelle co-starred with Chan, she was determined to compete with him with her own fight prowess and death-defying stunts (which includes an infamous sequence where Yeoh jumps onto a moving train with a motorcycle). According to The Independent, Yeoh reveals that after her Oscar nomination for Everything Everywhere All at Once was announced, Chan had texted her to reveal that he had been approached to do the movie.

Yeoh tells CNN, “It was written for a man, when [directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as the Daniels] set out to do this. They wrote it that way, with Jackie, and me as the wife. So the roles were completely reversed. I remember Jackie texting me and saying, ‘Congratulations! You know, your boys came to see me first.” As the congratulatory text came with Jackie’s teasing, Michelle would respond with her own cheeky reply, “I’m like, ‘Thank you, bro, you did me a huge favor.”

Yeoh would go on to explain that Jackie’s schedule would not grant him the time for EEAAO, as the star is still churning out films in China. The directors of the film, known collectively as The Daniels, had to take a step back and rewrite the film to concentrate on the wife as the lead. Yeoh would accept the role and everything else is history. Yeoh’s co-star would turn out to be the Cinderella story of the movie as it marks the return of child actor, Ke Huy Quan, who brings in his own style of comedy mixed with fighting, as well as some of the most poignant moments in the film.

The little indie that could had been making waves its entire release. Everything Everywhere All at Once became the highest-grossing movie for the studio A24, as well as collecting award nominations and wins, especially for the leads, Yeoh and Quan. It looks as if everything is culminating with the inevitable Oscar nominations, however competition looks stiff this year with such acclaimed films as The Whale, The Banshees of Inishirin, and Tár.