Michelle Yeoh

Michelle Yeoh’s acting career has spanned continents, genres, and decades.

Her first on camera work was in the 1980s in a commercial and then Hong Kong action movies. Though never trained as a martial artist, her years as a dancer and her desire to do stunts herself contributed to her tremendous popularity with Chinese audiences in movies such as Yes, Madam (1985), Magnificent Warriors (1987), and The Heroic Trio (1993).

She became known in the West through her role in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).

The next decade brought more roles and even greater range, with Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), Sunshine (2007), The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), Reign of Assassins (2010), Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), and The Lady (2011), in which she portrayed Aung San Suu Kyi.

Yeoh’s comedy work includes Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Last Christmas (2019). She has also been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). Her television roles include work on the Star Trek: Discovery series (2017–2020) and American Born Chinese (2023). She has been a voice performer in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023).

Yeoh beame the first Asian to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in for her starring role as an overwhelmed mother navigating the multiverse in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). That award also made her the first Malaysian to win an Academy Award in any category.