Michelle Yeoh

Sure, Michelle Yeoh kicks ass in movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once, but she's also a formidable figure in non-martial arts movies.

Maybe the best moment in the film comes when Santa, as part of her own romance subplot, is face-to-face with her potential paramour and says, “Have you come back for the gibbon?” with a breathless, starry-eyed hope. In a film set in the UK against the backdrop of Brexit, this could be read as a kind of liberal post-racism. Michelle Yeoh plays Eleanor Young, the wealthy mother of Nick ( [Henry Golding](https://collider.com/tag/henry-golding/)), who’s arrived in Singapore for a wedding with his new girlfriend, the Chinese-American Rachel Chu ( [Constance Wu](https://collider.com/tag/constance-wu/)). Michelle Yeoh demanded respect with the same voice that shook Chiyo and Rachel and Kate, as well as moviegoers everywhere. Prior to her award-winning turn as Evelyn in Everything Everywhere All at Once, practitioners of Google fu might eventually say, “Aung San Suu Kyi, The Lady!” That kind of role is like catnip to actors and awards bodies. This is why a term like “badass” comes in handy. She accesses that vulnerable side after Kate’s irresponsibility leads to the store’s robbery with “Clean up your mess, you stupid, stupid girl.” It’s a surprising dimensionality to what could’ve been a one-note character, a woman dedicated to such a bizarre store, and the sincerity helps with later laughs. Her career has spanned the globe, and included peaks like Police Story 3 and [Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon](https://collider.com/tag/crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon/), the [Ang Lee](https://collider.com/tag/ang-lee/) epic whose title refers to the clandestine nature of kung fu masters. Santa’s first appearance comes locked and loaded with criticisms, but unlike with Rachel, this is a case of “no lies detected.” If martial arts choreography is all about timing, Yeoh is a natural with comedy, perfecting deadpan deliveries of lines like, “Get to work, elf,” or “Get off the phone now! [Zhang Ziyi](https://collider.com/tag/zhang-ziyi/) as even more of a mentor figure. While Zhang Ziyi’s performance traces the growth of a student, Yeoh has to embody a lived-in comfort with the geisha ways from the start. [Michelle Yeoh](https://collider.com/tag/michelle-yeoh/) won a Golden Globe for her role in [Everything Everywhere All at Once](https://collider.com/tag/everything-everywhere-all-at-once/), she told the ceremony’s producers to shut up when they tried to cut off her victory speech.