Ten days before the ceremony that finally crowned her, the ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ star explained what an Oscar would mean for Asian actors – and why she really, really wanted to win the statuette
© SIPA
We have an entire corner of the Mandarin Bar to ourselves. The Mandarin Oriental hotel in Knightsbridge has left the three tables closest to ours free, as a kind of demilitarized zone against selfie hunters.
Michelle Yeoh arrives a little late leaving Elstree studios. It’s a tiny figure all in black: big boots, what looks like leather leggings and a zipped fleece, all topped with an incongruous trilby-like hat. When you meet a movie star, you feel all your shortcomings. Even my suit pants seem to have mysteriously shrunk.
We made a reservation for tea, at 3 p.m., and I was afraid that Miss Malaysia, who had become a woman of action and a movie star, would not eat. When I interviewed her once in her house (well, one of them) in Geneva, she took me into the kitchen and gave me apple pie, but she refrained to eat herself. Today, fortunately for the ‘Financial Times’, she has missed lunch, and walks in proclaiming her appetite.
His career has ranged from Hong Kong fight films with Jackie Chan to ‘Tiger and Dragon’, to the James Bond ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’. But it is only today, at 60, that she is nearing the top: on March 12, she hopes to become the first Asian woman to win the Oscar for best actress for the role of Evelyn Wang, Chinese immigrant owner of a laundromat, in the low-budget independent sci-fi film ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ [le 12 mars, le film a finalement reçu 7 Oscars, dont celui de meilleure actrice pour Michelle Yeoh, ndt]. By nominating Michelle Yeoh, Hollywood recognizes the Asian artists it previously marginalized.
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Michelle Yeoh: “We’re finally seen”