Michelle Yeoh has won the Oscar for best actress for superhero comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.
Born in Malaysia, Yeoh becomes the first person of south-east Asian descent to win the best actress Oscar for her role as laundromat manager Evelyn Wang, who stumbles across a “multiverse” of alternative realities. Yeoh defeated strong competition for the award, including Cate Blanchett for Tár and Michelle Williams for The Fabelmans.
Yeoh has already attracted considerable attention during the awards season for Everything Everywhere All at Once, including a Bafta nomination for best actress, and wins for the Golden Globe for best actress in a film (comedy or musical), and best actress at the Screen Actors Guild awards.
Yeoh dedicated the award to “all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight”. She continued: “This is the beacon of hope and possibility. Dreams do come true.
“And ladies: don’t let anybody ever tell you you are past your prime.”
She finished by thanking her mother, 84, who was watching at home in Malaysia, and “all the mums in the world because they are really the superheroes and without them none of us would be here tonight.
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“I’m bringing this home!” she continued. “Thank you to the Academy, this is history in the making!”