Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan unleashed a film featuring people with hot dogs for fingers, rocks with googly eyes and emotions, and an everything bagel as the ultimate universal truth -- that nothing matters.
"Everything Everywhere All at Once" was not exactly Oscar material on paper, but in practice the film has charmed Academy voters, who on Sunday honored the quirky pair with the golden statuette for best director.
The fantasy action sci-fi flick with a serious emotional message -- in which a Chinese American laundromat owner discovers the existence of the multiverse, where she learns how to appreciate life -- has propelled the Daniels to stardom.
Scheinert on Sunday thanked his parents "for not squashing my creativity when I was making disturbing horror films or perverted comedy films, or dressing in drag as a kid -- which is a threat to nobody."
Kwan added: "There is greatness in every person -- doesn't matter who they are. You have a genius that is waiting to erupt. You just need to find the right people to unlock that. Thank you so much to everyone who has unlocked my genius."
Scheinert and Kwan scored the coveted directing Oscar over the legendary Steven Spielberg ("The Fabelmans"), Todd Field ("Tar"), Martin McDonagh ("The Banshees of Inisherin") and Ruben Ostlund ("Triangle of Sadness").
It is only the second feature film from the Daniels, who are both in their 30s. In the run-up to the Oscars, they won the top prize from the Directors Guild of America, and Spirit awards for best film, best director and best screenplay.
It centers on laundromat owner Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), who has a sweet but milquetoast husband (Ke Huy Quan) ready to divorce her, a depressed lesbian daughter (Stephanie Hsu), a trying father (James Hong) and a tax auditor out for blood (Jamie Lee Curtis).
Everything quickly changes when husband Waymond tells Evelyn to reverse her shoes to the wrong feet; she is plunged into a multiverse of infinite Evelyns, who are tasked with saving the world from a nihilistic villain.
"It's like if my mom was in 'The Matrix'," Kwan, who is of Chinese descent, told The New York Times last year.
- Visual feast -
At one point, she caresses the face of her tax auditor with her feet, because both have hot dogs for fingers.
At another moment, her daughter Joy -- who is also uber-villain Jobu Tupaki -- kills people by reducing them to confetti.
The Daniels -- who met while working on wacky music videos -- were not afraid to go for broke in creating a feast for the eyes, and don't shy away from the gross-out factor.
Scheinert joked at the film's premiere at the South by Southwest festival in Austin that the movie contained "every idea that Rihanna said no to over the years."
The Daniels took a 3D animation class together at Emerson College in Boston but didn't always seem an obvious fit for collaboration.
Scheinert, who came from the improv world, was studious, and Kwan, the son of immigrants, was more introverted and suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
They only came together while working as teaching assistants at a summer theater festival at Harvard in 2009, where they reveled in their common love of all things bizarre.
The pair found early success with short-form videos that earned attention on Vimeo.
"The internet told us to be a duo," Scheinert told Rolling Stone.
- From videos to big screen -
The pair started directing music videos in the 2010s, working with groups like Foster the People and the Shins before making it big with the wacky clip for "Turn Down for What" by DJ Snake and Lil Jon in 2013.
They moved their oddball act to the big screen in 2016 with "Swiss Army Man," which tells the unlikely tale of friendship between a suicidal man stranded on an island (Paul Dano) and a corpse that can't stop passing gas (Daniel Radcliffe).
This marriage of farce and drama comes into full bloom with "Everything Everywhere All at Once."
"We are constantly experiencing comedy and tragedy and confusion and anger all at once," Kwan told Rolling Stone.
"It's very much like you scroll through your social media feed and people are talking about someone passing away right next to someone showing a weird video of a cat dancing."
On the back of the success of "Everything Everywhere," the Daniels signed an exclusive five-year deal last year with Universal Pictures, and are hoping to continue surprising audiences.
"We might try to make something really small -- just the opposite of this movie, you know, to disappoint all of our new fans," Kwan quipped to The New York Times.
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