Michelle Yeoh Wins Best Actress

Clip: Season 50 Episode 8 | 3m 31s | Video has closed captioning.

Michelle Yeoh wins Movies for Grownups Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Aired: 02/17/23

Rating: NR

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Funding & Distribution
Transcript

Major series funding for GREAT PERFORMANCES is provided by The Joseph & Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Jody and John Arnhold, the Abra Prentice Foundation, The Starr Foundation, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, the Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, Seton J. Melvin, the Estate of Worthington Mayo-Smith, the Jack Lawrence Charitable Remainder Trust Worchell Lawrence, and Ellen and James S. Marcus.

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You know, when I when I first told my mom that I had booked my first ever studio feature, she said something to the likes of "Cool."

When I told her that Michelle Yeoh was going to be playing my mom, she said something to the likes of "Oh my God, I love Michelle.

She's amazing!"

Needless to say, Michelle is a legend in our household.

I am so very honored tonight.

To be presenting Michelle Yeoh with the Best Actress Award for perhaps the most spectacular performance of her legendary career.

This is a performance that has brought families closer together across generations.

That has made my mother feel seen for the very first time in an American movie theater.

I truly believe that the reason our movie works is due to the precision of Michelle's craft paired with the unshakable fight within her.

It is a fight of a mother's love.

It is a fight of an artist's passion.

I imagine it is that same fight that drove her for the last 40 years to finally get her chance to be the leading lady and "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

To show us all.

What she's always known she's capable of.

She couldn't be here with us tonight, but she wanted to share her gratitude for this award on tape.

Thank you so much, AARP, for giving me this award.

I am so sorry I could not be there with you all in person.

As I'm in London, shooting "Wicked," which I am very excited to share with you soon as members of the AARP, you all know what it means to grow older and suddenly have to find new ways to stay vital and relevant because we never give up and we are not really older, but wiser and seasoned and more mature.

When I first read the script for "Everything Everywhere All at Once," I knew immediately how special it was I have been making movies for 40 years, but never had I seen anything so original and out there that would give me the opportunity to show everything I'm capable of, not just the action scenes that have been a hallmark of my career, but to tell a grown up story about a housewife, a mother who is taken for granted but through love and compassion becomes a superhero at 60 I knew what the role of Evelyn Wong meant to me as an actor, but I truly had no idea how anyone, let alone people our age, would relate to it or if they would like it at all.

But you did.

You embraced our film and started a conversation across generations.

You recognized the special, the weird and the whole Everything Bagel.

And maybe, just maybe, you recognized something of yourself and your own journey in it.

And so it is with deep gratitude that I accept this award for Best Actress.

It means so very much to me.

Thank you.