Photo: @bb49r
Everything Everywhere All At Once went viral and it was really exciting to see all of the buzz about it. Seeing Jamie Lee Curtis win the Oscar made me really decide to go through with this new cosplay in time for WonderCon. I actually didn’t have that much time but got picked up some pieces from thrift stores, did some kind of creative crafting, and decided that there might be other people cosplaying as Deidre. I wanted to elevate my cosplay a bit so I decided to bring a desk.
I had seen somebody who cosplayed a character from South Park who was the heavier set guy with a computer and as a cosplayer, he walked around with a prop desk. And I thought that was really fun.
So I decided to make a desk for Deirdre and just knowing my age and the logistics of it, I put it on a kind of a walker that had four wheels and it used a tri fold board just like what kids use for science projects. With the tri fold board I put contact paper over it so it looks very sturdy but it’s actually very light. Just knowing about props and maybe how serious or strict the security was I decided to take anything that was heavier like the phone and the adding machine actually got them from thrift stores, use this tick the screws out and take the guts out of them so they’d be lighter and then I ended up velcroing everything down or using zip ties to get everything down so nothing you know would fall off and you know be embarrassing or you know kind of detract from the actual cosplay.
Obviously, you know it was a hit and people were really excited and as they were responding to me I was responding back and I realized, oh you know tax season is coming up. So let me go ahead and get into character and I walk by and I’m like “do your taxes and you know you’ve got a couple of weeks to file” and then that was day one.
So on day two because of the excitement from day one and the really warm welcome that Deidre got, people immediately knew who I was and it was funny because even if they didn’t know who I was, they still were kind of just taken by the whole vision of the wig, the outfit, the desk. I decided I was going to start interacting kind of an immersive improv kind of way and just kind of use dad jokes with depending on what their character was.
I actually done a bunch of research in the hotel room the night before and I figured out you know that Doctor Strange has inner sanctums you know. Did he claim them as his primary residence and just kind of playing off the word strange? The Death Stars were doomed from the beginning because of the design so that I thought if I saw a Darth Vader cosplayer I would kind of approach him and let him know that you know the auditor had some questions about that and just every character I was just thinking about kind of dad jokes. For Ariel you know was she using her money and shell companies.
I always warned people ahead of time I didn’t ever walk up to people and start filming. I had always gone up to them and said, hey you know, I’ve got this little idea for this little skit you know are you game? And as you can tell, I mean, I don’t think anyone said no. But everybody was really happy to do it and did a great job. I mean very rarely would we have to you know stop and retake anything but people really love the gag kind of and really understood her character and understood what it would be like to be audited.
We all find that thing that makes us happy and that brings joy to our life. If you don’t find those things you know you can easily get depressed or anxious and I just know when I’m in my most creative headspace thinking oh you know what am I going to use at this convention or what do I need? The creativity just makes me happy and then when I’m at events and I see the smiles that people have.
Everything Everywhere All At Once cosplayers when they saw me, it was like we were a family. They would just come up and like, oh my God I love your cosplay. This is amazing. Can we get a picture you know? What’s going on? There’s a lot of camaraderie, a lot of friendship, a lot of socialization, but really to me it’s mostly the creativity, I know so many cosplayers that I know have really high intense jobs like social workers, teachers, and it’s a way to you know still be creative and still feel like you’re enjoying life and having fun something to look forward to.
Just having that emotional impact on other people is just it’s so fun and really it’s almost addicting. During COVID, I thought, okay, am I really going to go back to this? Is this something that I’m going to do at my age you know? Is there something else I can be doing with my time? Should I go volunteer at the animal shelter? And I was like, no, no. I’m going to be doing this for a while.