Why Michelle Yeoh of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Looks Familiar
If Everything, Everywhere All at Once star Michelle Yeoh looks familiar, it’s probably because she’s been in some of the most popular movies of the last decade. Here’s a breakdown of Yeoh’s career and what her latest role is all about.
Michelle Yeoh is a versatile actor who’s been in some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters
From comedy and drama to action and sci-fi, Yeoh has appeared in dozens of blockbuster projects over the last four decades. The Malaysian-born actor started her career in Hong Kong action films but found international success with the 1997 James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies.
In the early 2000s, Yeoh appeared in two Academy Award-winning films — Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Memoirs of a Geisha. In the last decade, she has been in several popular films, including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Crazy Rich Asians, Gunpowder Milkshake, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Yeoh also found success in television. She has a recurring role as Captain/Lieutenant Philippa Georgiou on Star Trek: Discovery. And she will appear in the upcoming The Witcher prequel, The Witcher: Blood Origin. The actor’s next big project is Avatar 2 and its three sequels, in which she plays Dr. Karina Mogue.
Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang in ‘Everything, Everywhere All at Once’
Everything, Everywhere All at Once is a mind-bending sci-fi story that stars Yeoh as Evelyn Wang, a seemingly ordinary woman who discovers she’s the only one with the power to save the world from a ruptured, merging multiverse. While she has great fighting skills and supernatural abilities, Evelyn isn’t a typical movie superhero.
She’s a mom and a wife, who is dealing with everyday issues with her family. And for Yeoh, that aspect of Evelyn is what drew her to the role.
“It’s probably easier to say what is going right in her life, the minute that you meet Evelyn Wang,” Yeoh told NPR. “I felt that this was such a perfect opportunity to give a voice to the very ordinary mothers and housewives who are out there, doing the most mundane things and get so taken for granted. And then let her discover that, oh my God, she is a superhero.”
‘Everything, Everywhere All at Once’ is Michelle Yeoh’s first physical comedy
Along with her immense acting talent, Yeoh is known for her graceful fight scenes and thrilling stunt work. But Everything, Everywhere All at Once was the actor’s first go at physical comedy.
When talking to NPR, she noted that it initially wasn’t easy working with silly props and scenarios. But she revealed that the challenge of it had her hooked.
“I think I had it easy in the past where I just look cool — I know exactly what I’m doing,” Yeoh said. “Martial arts is simple. It’s easy compared to physical comedy. Physical comedy is like timing, it’s precision, it’s so many things coming together at the right time. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I never did it before because it was so hard.”
“I think it was so challenging that I really, really enjoyed it very much,” she added. “Because you had to literally fracture your mind into knowing the moves and doing them like you’re a master, but your face is completely registering shock and then wonder and like, ‘Oh my god, how the hell am I doing this?’ like all at the same time.”
Everything, Everywhere All at Once is currently in theaters.
