Oscars 2023 as it happened: Michelle Yeoh makes history with best actress win, as Everything Everywhere wins best picture and five other Academy Awards

Everything Everywhere All at Once star is first Asian actress to win the top acting prize at the Oscars, one of seven the madcap sci-fi martial-arts comedy won
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert win best director and best original screenplay, and film takes both supporting actor prizes; Brendan Fraser wins best actor

American cinema

Edmund LeeandAssociated Press

Published: 8:23am, 13 Mar 2023

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Best actress Michelle Yeoh poses with her Oscar backstage at the Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, after becoming the first Asian to win in the category in the 95 years of the Academy Awards. Photo: Reuters

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Michelle Yeoh has won the Academy Award for best actress and made history all at once.

The Malaysian-born actress became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress for her multifaceted performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibility. This is proof that dreams dream big and dreams do come true,” she said. “And ladies, don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re past your prime.”

Yeoh’s victory comes almost 90 years after Luise Rainer, a white actor, won the same category for donning “yellowface” to play a Chinese villager in The Good Earth.

As a nominee, Yeoh was the first in the category who identified as Asian. Merle Oberon, who was nominated in 1935 for The Dark Angel but didn’t win, hid her South Asian heritage, according to birth records.

Yeoh beat out past Oscar winner Cate Blanchett (Tár), as well as Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), Ana de Armas (Blonde) and Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie).

Yeoh also used her speech to honour her 84-year-old mother.

“I have to dedicate this to my mom and all the moms in the world because they are really the superheroes and without them none of us would be here tonight,” she said.

US actress Jamie Lee Curtis (left) celebrates after “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won the Oscar for best picture, having earlier won best supporting actress for her role. Photo: AFP

Janet Yeoh got to watch her daughter’s win at a live Oscar watch party in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Yeoh appeared a lock after winning seemingly every award everywhere, including the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards, for her nuanced portrayal of Evelyn, an immigrant Chinese wife, mother and laundromat operator bracing for a tax audit.

Her win was one of seven Oscars for Everything Everywhere All at Once, including best picture and editing. Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan also won best supporting actor Oscars.

Directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert pose with their Oscars for best picture for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” backstage at the Dolby Theatre. They also won best Oscars for best director and best original screenplay. Photo: Reuters

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won for best directors and original screenplay, making this the third time in four years in which a feature made by a director of Asian descent – in this case Kwan – has won the biggest prize in the American film industry, after Bong Joon-ho triumphed with Parasite in 2020 and Chloé Zhao did likewise with Nomadland in 2021.

One of the least predictable main categories, a three-way race among Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Austin Butler (Elvis), was won by Fraser for his role as a morbidly obese man confined to home.