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The central protagonist of the film, Evelyn is a middle-aged, Chinese American woman living in Southern California where she operates a laundromat with her husband, Waymond. She is, at the beginning of the movie, overwhelmed and annoyed by her responsibilities as a business owner and the tensions within her family. Because her laundromat is being audited by the IRS, she finds little time to spend with her husband Waymond, and as a result, their marriage is on the brink of imploding. He attempts to serve her with divorce papers, but she is so preoccupied with their upcoming meeting with the IRS that she doesn't even notice. When Waymond finally confronts her openly, she is shocked and hurt by his desire for a divorce, though he later acknowledges that he was only pressing the matter in the hope of sparking a conversation about their marriage. Evelyn, he claims, only speaks to him when there is an emergency, suggesting that Evelyn is frequently distracted by other concerns and struggles to prioritize her marriage. Her relationship with her daughter Joy is similarly strained, as Evelyn is reluctant to introduce Joy’s girlfriend Becky to her demanding, elderly father Gong Gong.  Evelyn is, in many ways, a quite ordinary person who struggles to balance the demands of her business and her personal life.  

The movie reveals, however, that Evelyn has a more romantic side, though she frequently represses it. As a young woman, she defied her parents and was even estranged from Gong Gong when she married Waymond against their wishes. When they first immigrated to America, they were full of hope and optimism, excitedly opening their laundromat together and starting a new life. In the intervening years, however, Evelyn has been worn down by the demands of life and has little time for Waymond’s jokes or other frivolities. During a brief moment at the laundromat, she is distracted by a romantic musical and gazes longingly at the lush costumes and beautiful actors. However, she quickly returns to her duties, helping customers and preparing the laundromat for a New Year’s Eve party. During their meeting with the IRS, Waymond notes that Evelyn had once dreamed of being a singer. All of these scenes hint that Evelyn has largely abandoned her dreams, and she now fears that she has wasted her life.  

When she first begins to verse-jump with Alpha Waymond’s instructions, she is immediately fascinated by an alternative version of herself who rejected Waymond and became a famous actress and martial artist. This version of Evelyn reflects, in several ways, actress Michelle Yeoh’s own life, as she first found fame in martial arts films. When Evelyn looks at this version of herself, she feels drawn into the fantasy of her own fame and wealth, though Alpha Waymond warns her not to become too attached to another version of herself. For Evelyn, this vision of herself as a famous actress serves as a pleasurable fantasy but also cements her own regrets, as it offers a stark and unflattering contrast to her own more humble life. Cruelly, she even tells Waymond about what she saw, and her enthusiasm implies that she regrets the life she has lived with him. Ultimately, however, Evelyn realizes that she loves her family more than anything else, and she pushes away her doubts and regrets, choosing to whole-heartedly embrace her own life and re-invest in her personal relationships. She tells Joy that she would rather be there with her in Southern California than anywhere else in the multiverse, suggesting that she cherishes her own life and accepts the choices she has made. Despite the cynicism she shows earlier in the movie, Evelyn’s love for her husband and daughter saves Jobu Tupaki from her own nihilism, thereby saving the universe from annihilation.

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