Everything Everywhere All At Once changed everything for Michelle Yeoh. The film has bagged 11 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Recently, Yeoh herself took home the SAG Award for leading actress. However, once upon a time, the star had trouble getting good roles because of the rampant racism in Hollywood. She didn’t even work for 2 years after bagging a role in the James Bond franchise. But that didn’t deter Yeoh from trying to make a mark in Hollywood.
Michelle Yeoh Talks About Her Struggles In Hollywood
Michelle Yeoh’s first role in Hollywood was in the mega James Bond franchise film, Tomorrow Never Dies. She portrayed the role of Wai Lin, a skilled martial artist, and Chinese spy. Unlike other Bond girls who were depicted as damsels in distress, Wai Lin could take of herself and when the time came, she even saved the male lead. In a recent interview with People magazine, she said:
“The first movie I did after I came to America was ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ with Pierce Brosnan. James Bond at that point had only been known as macho, and the girls were just the ones with cutesy names.”
Yeoh received plenty of praise for her character and she expected similar unique offers to follow. However, what happened was the exact opposite, and that made her stop working for two years. The star says:
“At that point, people in the industry couldn’t really tell the difference between whether I was Chinese or Japanese or Korean or if I even spoke English. They would talk very loudly and very slow [at me]. I didn’t work for almost two years, until ‘Crouching Tiger,’ simply because I could not agree with the stereotypical roles that were put forward to me.”
So the barriers were there even though she was already a massive star in the other part of the world thanks to movies like Supercop 2 and Police Story 3: Super Cop with martial arts legend Jackie Chan. Not to mention the fact that she already had a major part in the now $7 billion franchise with a star like Pierce Brosnan. But thankfully, her story is different today. While the journey has been hard for Yeoh, it was definitely worth it when she held the SAG Award.
Michelle Yeoh Receives SAG Award For Leading Actress
Michelle Yeoh made history by bagging the SAG Award in the category of the best leading actress for Everything Everywhere All At Once. She was competing with Viola Davis (The Woman King), Cate Blanchett (Tár), Danielle Deadwyler (Till), and Ana de Armas (Blonde). In her speech she said:
“SAG-AFTRA, to get this from you, who understands what it is to get here, everyone of you know the journey, the roller-coaster ride, the ups and downs. But importantly, we never give up. I thank you for your love, for your support because I know I’m up against titans, rightly so.”
The 60-year-old actress then took a moment to compose herself and dropped an f-bomb while doing so. That alone made the audience go wild. She also said in her speech:
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is not just for me. This is for every little girl that looks like me. Sally Field, you said all the right things. We’re here because we love what we do and we’ll never stop doing this because we really, really love it. But thank you for giving me a seat at the table because so many of us need this.”
The 2023 Oscars ceremony will decide if Michelle Yeoh will break more barriers by bagging the statue in the Best Actress category. All eyes are also on Everything Everywhere All At Once to see how many of the golden statues it grabs.
The 95th Academy Awards will air on 12 March 2023.
Source: People
