Michelle Yeoh — Acting | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

Yeoh Choo Kheng PSM SPMP (Chinese: 楊紫瓊; born 6 August 1962), known professionally as Michelle Yeoh (/joʊ/), is a Malaysian actress. In a career spanning over four decades, Yeoh has appeared in projects encompassing a wide array of genres and received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for two British Academy Film Awards. Credited as Michelle Khan in her early films, she rose to fame in the 1980s and 1990s after starring in Hong Kong action and martial arts films, where she performed her stunts. These roles included Yes, Madam (1985), Magnificent Warriors (1987), Police Story 3: Super Cop (1992), The Heroic Trio, Tai Chi Master (both 1993), and Wing Chun (1994).

After moving to the United States, Yeoh gained international recognition for starring in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and in Ang Lee's wuxia martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000); the latter gained her a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her Hollywood career progressed with roles in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), Sunshine (2007), and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008). She continued to appear in Hong Kong and Chinese cinema, starring in True Legend (2010), Reign of Assassins (2010), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016), and Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (2018). In 2011, she portrayed Aung San Suu Kyi in the British biographical film The Lady.

Yeoh played supporting roles in the romantic comedies Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Last Christmas (2019), as well as in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) and the television series Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2020). Her voice acting work has included Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), Minions: The Rise of Gru, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (both 2022), Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023), and The Tiger's Apprentice (2024). For her starring role as Evelyn Quan Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first Asian to win the category, and the first Malaysian to win an Academy Award. She has since featured in the mystery film A Haunting in Venice (2023) and the musical fantasy film Wicked (2024).

The film review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes ranked her the greatest action heroine of all time in 2008. In 1997, she was chosen by People as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World", and in 2009, the same magazine listed her as one of the "35 All-Time Screen Beauties". In 2022, Time named her one of the world's 100 most influential people on its annual listicle and its Icon of the Year. In 2024, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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