You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Can you introduce yourself the way that you would like to?

Eany, meany, it's E. Bidsey.

Yellowpoker. Daniel.

He's to get back out.

Yeah, I'd like to be introduced.

Hi guys, my name is Daniel Kwan with Daniel Shiner here and we are the directing duo, Daniels.

Hello, this is my voice, other Daniel.

Daniels first feature Swiss Armyman swept Sundance with fart jokes. This year, they took us to an entirely different universe, many universes in fact, in everything everywhere all at once.

I'm here because we need your help.

Starting the show, yo.

Very busy today, it's all time to help you.

Stephanie Xu, Ki Huai Kwan, James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Thousands of evidence. You can access all the memories.

This movie is a kung fu action film, a sci-fi flick, a romance, a family drama, even a little bit coming of age story, a multiverse of genres and possibilities.

The thing about the multiverse that fascinated and scared us was the idea of infinity and we wanted to make a movie that like went to too many.

We're borrowing heavily from Vonnegut and Douglas Adams in the way that they take science and they just take the absurdity and dial it up to like 100 and try to apply that to the multiverse just because they just felt like a really good metaphor for what it feels like to be alive right now.

To exist in an infinite number of different stories and narratives, kind of colliding constantly in contradictions and emotional whiplash.

Today on the show, how an indie film about laundry and taxes confronts infinity and our place in it.

We talk to the directing duo Daniels about how science and real life inspired the world building in everything everywhere all at once.

I'm Emily Kwong and you're listening to Shorewave, the Daily Science podcast from NPR.

Listen, both Daniels are nerds, but in different ways. For Daniels Shinerd, a self-proclaimed overachiever and teacher's pet, math was his thing.

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