The Malaysian actress’s last stop on a long run of Hollywood: Everything Everywhere All At Once at the Screen Actors Guild Awards
Even if she doesn’t win on Oscar night, her numerous awards this season indicate that she’s finally being appreciated as a versatile actor in Hollywood.
At the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, she was the first Asian woman to ever win an award in that category for outstanding performance by a female actor in a leading role.
“Thank you for giving me a seat at the table because so many of us need this. We want to be seen, we want to be heard. And tonight, you have shown us that it is possible, and I am grateful,” she said. She said that her mom would be “eternally grateful” for her to win the award.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” had a huge night at the SAG Awards, winning the ceremony’s top award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture. In addition to Yeoh, co-stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan also won awards in their respective categories.
The movie was nominated for 11 Oscar awards, including best picture and best actress. She won a Golden Globe last month for her performance in the film.
The Malaysian actress has been playing ass on screen and off for decades, and now she is winning awards for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
After picking up a Screen Actors Guild award on Sunday (and dropping a well-timed F-bomb in her acceptance speech), the Oscars are one of her last stops on this impressive run.
A Voice for You: Evelyn Wang, the overwhelmed mother of a laundromat owner, wins EVERYTHING-everywhere-all-at-once
Who is she? You may know her most recently as Evelyn Wang from EEAO, the overwhelmed mother and laundromat owner who is grappling with her complicated relationship with her daughter.
F***! Thank you! This is for any girl that looks like me. I would like to thank you for giving me a seat at the table. We want to be seen. We want to be heard. And tonight, you have shown us it is possible.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/27/1159799266/michelle-yeoh-oscar-awards-win-representation-everything-everywhere-all-at-once
” Everything Everywhere All At Once”: A Story of a Superhero, a Laundromat Owner, and an Asian Woman
We just have to look at the boat. We can give them a chance. Because guess what? We exist in the society that we live in. We are part of the society and very, very much an intricate part of this whole community. This is the only way we will get more opportunities — if we fight for it and no longer be able to say, ‘OK, I’ll turn the other cheek.’ Dang — no more turning the other cheek.
Those of us who’ve known her and watched her from the very beginning of her career realize that this is not new for her, either, the sort of belated acknowledgement of her achievements, her talent, her skills. In a world where men, and white men in particular, are just naturally seen as kind of the center of the universe, there’s something really lovely about the fact she’s getting her due now … But also something a little bit — again, why did it take so long?
” Everything Everywhere All at Once” is a comedy about a laundromat owner who learns she is actually a superhero and is fighting to save the world.
And the actors and creators behind the film are sharing behind-the-scenes stories of their own lives as the movie racks up honors and leads the way with 11 Academy Award nominations.
The stars of the movie have spoken out about their experiences with racism in the film industry and how important it is for non-White actors to break into it. They’re also sharing how their lives as immigrants and children of immigrants have shaped their work.
You get the script. The roles seem to shrink when the numbers get bigger. You know, as a woman, as an Asian woman, they put you in boxes. The guy who gets to go on adventures and save the globe is always the one who is doing it.
“This is a very ordinary woman, an Asian, immigrant woman, who is dealing with all the problems that we all can relate to,” Yeoh told Amanpour. “And what I loved about it, it was like this is an ordinary woman who is being seen, who’s given a role to play as a superhero.”
“This is a really emotional moment for me. Recently I was told that if I were to win tonight I would become the very first Asian actor to win in this category,” Quan said as he won a Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG) for outstanding supporting actor for his portrayal of the hapless and heroic Waymond Wang. “When I heard this, I realized that this moment doesn’t have to be for me.” It also belongs to everyone who has asked for change.”
Quan was born in Saigon and came to Los Angeles in 1979 after fleeing Vietnam and living in Hong Kong as a refugee after the war ended. He started his Hollywood career as a child actor in films such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Prey. After that, he kept auditioning, but his phone stopped ringing.
After studying film at the University of Southern California, he reinvented his career path by becoming a stunt assistant and assistant director. For almost 20 years, he didn’t have another movie role.
Seeing the Asian cast of the 2018 movie “Crazy Rich Asians” made him realize how much he missed acting. And as soon as he came across the “Everything Everywhere” script, he knew he was the right person to play Waymond.
His big-screen comeback has earned him rave reviews and numerous accolades , including Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards for best supporting actor. The actor says he feels more positive about the Hollywood prospects for him and other Asian actors.
Wang said that the award was for his dad, a Taiwanese immigrant who died in an early grave. The Evelyns, the Waymonds, the immigrant parents who would kill themselves for us immigrant children, are the subject of this.
A bit of my Dad is reflected in the film “Everything Everywhere”, Wang wrote on social media before the movie was released.
The producer has said his father helped inspire one of the movie’s many wacky plot twists — a film-within-the-film dubbed “Raccacoonie,” which features a raccoon sitting on a chef’s head. It is a reference to the movie “Ratatouille” and his dad.
An Unforgettable Gala Celebration for Pacific Islanders and Their Dialogues to Hollywood Reporter “Outside Good People Shooting”
The Hollywood Reporter quotes Wang as saying that Asian parents are often bad at movie titles. “My favorite one is, he said, ‘Let’s go see ‘Outside Good People Shooting.’” That, Wang said, was his dad’s name for “Good Will Hunting.”
“After the commotion of nomination day faded, I finally got a moment to take a shower and have a second to myself,” Wang wrote. “As the water ran over my stunned face, I sobbed tears of joy — deep tears of joy — finally feeling a release and acceptance that my Dad was, and is, so proud.”
At the Unforgettable Gala, which celebrates Asians and Pacific Islanders in entertainment, she thought back to a moment in her childhood when she was a child.
There was a fake lemonade ad in front of her school. She held the empty lemonade carton in the same way she held her award at the glitzy LA ceremony in December.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘That was really fun I’m good at it, but I think I could do something better with my life. And that was young, she said, as her voice shook with emotion. It’s because this world and the world of story-telling felt so far away from you, and you cannot imagine that it will ever be you.
Despite her doubts, Hsu went on to study drama at New York University, become a Broadway star in “Be More Chill” and the “SpongeBob SquarePants” musical and land a prominent TV role in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
But still, she says she had a hard time imagining she could succeed. That’s started to change in the whirlwind of acclaim around her powerful “Everything Everywhere” dual performances as downtrodden daughter Joy Wang and ruthless supervillain Jobu Tupaki.
“I’m so excited,” the 32-year-old said at the Unforgettable Gala, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. “I feel like I’ve never really allowed myself to love doing this because I’ve been so scared that it would never be possible. And I feel like this year has given me so much permission to truly love what I do, and I hope to make y’all proud, and I’m so excited to keep going.”
She told Women’s Wear Daily that she was impressed with the story, the mother-daughter relationship and the heartbeat of it. It was almost like that dynamic wasn’t necessary to explain or discuss. It was something I knew well in my bones.
“Listen, this ride is amazing, but that is real. We have not transcended this moment, right?” Hsu told the newspaper. James Hong (who plays her grandfather in the movie) started acting at a time when people wouldn’t even say his name, they would literally just call him ‘Chinaman’ and say ‘Get on your mark.’ For almost 40 years, Ke waited for her first chance as an actor, and for nearly 20 years,Michelle waited for her first chance as an actress. As successful as this film has been, the biggest fear on the other side is, ‘What if this is my last chance?’”
James Hong has hundreds of acting credits to his name, but it took nearly seven decades for him to end up center stage at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
“There is a person who has been with the ensemble for much longer than any of us have been alive”, said Hong, as the cast of “everything Everywhere” won the best ensemble award.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-hyphenated-cec/index.html
A Conversation with Hong on “The Great Big Story in 2020”, a Remark on the 20th Anniversary of Hong’s SAG Awards
“The leading role in those days was played by these guys with their eyes taped up, and they spoke like this,” Hong told me, replicating the accents that were written for Asian characters at the time.
He told Great Big Story in 2020 that it was very difficult to leave the mold of Laundrymen and Chinamen that he ended up in.
Hong said that the industry noticed who they were. “We weren’t just extras, or gimmick people. We were in a play that we organized. We were the main, lead people. We were the actors. And we commanded attention.”
As he commanded attention once again and drew a standing ovation from the crowd at this year’s SAG Awards, Hong noted he hopes to be on the awards circuit for years to come.