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Award shows are notorious for trying to hurry winners during their speeches. But when the orchestra tried to cut Michelle Yeoh off following her victory at the Golden Globes 2023, she wasn't having any of it.
The Everything Everywhere All at Once star, who had picked up the gong for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, had been on the stage for about two minutes when the band started piping up. "Shut up, please," she joked as she turned her head towards them and laughed. "I can beat you up, okay? And that's serious."
Elsewhere in her acceptance, Yeoh talked about how difficult things were for her when she first came to the US to pursue acting outside of Hong Kong titles. "It's been an amazing journey and an incredible fight to be here today, but I think it's been worth it," she said. "I remember when I first came to Hollywood; it was a dream come true until I got here, because look at this face... I came here and was told, 'You're a minority' and I'm like, 'No, that's not possible.'
"Then someone said to me, 'You speak English?' I mean, forget about them not knowing Korea, Japan Malaysia, Asia, India... and then I said, 'Yeah, the flight here was about 13 hours long, so I learned on the way.'"
Yeoh touched on her recent 60th birthday, too, and how she's noticed "opportunities start to get smaller" as she's gotten older. "I was at a time where I thought, 'Well, come on, girl, you had a really really good run. You worked with some of the best people; Steven Spielberg, Jim Cameron, Danny Boyle... and so, it's good, it's all good. Then came the best gift... Everything Everywhere All at Once.
"I thank you A24 for believing in these two goofy, insanely smart, wonderful geniuses, the Daniels, who had the courage to write about a very ordinary immigrant, Asian, woman, mother, daughter," she continued, praising writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
In Everything Everywhere All at Once, Yeoh plays Evelyn Wong, a laundromat owner who's struggling to juggle work and family life. Her dreary routine gets interrupted, though, when she's approached by a multidimensional traveler who looks exactly like her husband and is drafted into a mind-bending fight to save the world. Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, and Jamie Lee Curtis also star.
For more on what's hitting coming your way in 2023, check out our guide to all the new TV shows and movie release dates.
