ACTRESS Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honour by US President Joe Biden. The ceremony took place at the White House last Friday. In presenting her with the medal, Biden said that for decades, the actress has “shattered stereotypes and glass ceilings to enrich and enhance American culture.”
“Her roles transcend gender, cultures and languages. From martial arts, to romantic comedies, to science fiction, to show us what we all have in common.
“As the first Asian actor to win an Oscar as Best Actress, she bridges cultures to not only to entertain, but also inspire and open hearts and that’s what she keeps doing. Congratulations,” Biden said.
Yeoh, along with 18 others, were the latest recipients of the award, which is given according to presidential decision in recognition of individuals who have made a significant, meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the US, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavours.
Previous recipients for the award includes Mother Teresa, Walt Disney, Martin Luther King Jr, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg and Steve Jobs, among numerous others. Yeoh’s fellow acting peers who were also recipients of the award include Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, the latter who similarly received the award from Biden in 2022.
From ballet to Bond
Born in the sleepy city of Ipoh, Perak, Yeoh’s interest in the performance arts began with ballet at the age of four and it lasted for nearly half a decade before suffering a spinal injury that pushed her away from dance to acting.
Impressively, despite the injury that took her out of ballet, Yeoh would go on to make a name for herself in Hong Kong action films. Throughout the 1980s up to the late 1990s, she racked up a significant number of roles in crime and martial arts genres. In many of these films where she held a mixture of lead and co-lead roles, Yeoh performed her own stunts without stunt doubles.
Her big break internationally came with Tomorrow Never Dies, the 18th film in the James Bond franchise. She starred as Wai Lin, a PRC agent that Pierce Brosnan’s Bond teams up with. The role as one of the franchise’s “Bond girls” put her on the US film industry’s radar.
The nearly two decades afterwards saw Yeoh dipping her toes into a wider variety of films compared to her years within the rigid confines of Hong Kong cinema. She starred in big blockbuster films like The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, went to space in Sunshine and travelled back to feudal Japan in Memoirs of a Geisha.
Oscar recognition
Though she had buit a strong presence, in Hong Kong cinema, it took 25 years of starring in Hollywood films before her acting prowess was finally recognised in 2022, with Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once was an absurdist sucker punch no one saw coming or anticipated to be the hit that it became.
In the film, Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang, the matriarch of the Wang family who finds herself flung through alternate universes where she encounters different versions of herself and her family as Wang struggles and learns to fix things not only to save her family, but herself.
It certainly helped that the Daniels had written the role specifically with Yeoh in mind. Initial drafts of the script were created with the actress playing the character but in a supporting capacity to Waymond, Evelyn’s husband (played by Ke Huy Quan).
Upon realising that the film would be radically more interesting if it centred on Evelyn, with Yeoh behind the wheel, Everything Everywhere All at Once’s final form took shape.
Yeoh has gone on record to say that she did not understand the film’s premise based on script upon first reading it but after watching the Daniels’ Swiss Army Man, she knew Everything Everywhere All At Once was going to be something special and different from any of her previous projects.
“It really was that sensation of ‘Oh, now I get it!’ I like working with new, or relatively new directors, because they’re hungry. They have something to prove in a lot of ways. They’re fearless. And I need that. I feel that if I am not hungry, if I am not fearless, then I should retire and just go away quietly,” she said back in 2022.
Activist A-lister
The film turned out to be the perfect marriage of creativity between the Daniels and Yeoh. The writer-directors benefited from having a veteran actress with immense star power lead their insane film, while the Malaysian actress’ full breadth of acting talent was stretched in every dramatic and physical direction. It forced Hollywood to finally take notice and acknowledge Yeoh.
Though her contributions to the performance arts are stellar and is likely a huge part in why Biden chose her to be conferred the Presidential Medal of Freedom, her strong inclination and contribution towards activism most likely factored into the US president’s decision.
For as long as she has been active in the public sphere, Yeoh has been involved in everything from campaigning over road safety to HIV/AIDS awareness, gender equality and even anti-racism.
Like she said a couple of years ago, she has always been hungry and from the look of things, Yeoh will stay that way instead of going away quietly with retirement.
