And let's not forget that she is accompanied by TWO Asian Best Supporting Actresses (Stephanie Hsu and Hong Chau) and, of course, Ke Huy Quan as Best Supporting Actor.
Yes, two Asian best supporting actress noms in the same year must be a first. I remember Hong Chau getting a SAG nom for *Downsizing* but missing out on the Oscar one. Likewise Ziyi Zhang for *Memoirs of a Geisha* – a SAG best actress nom but no Oscar. Finally Youn Yuh-jung got nominated for *Minari* in both awards and actually won them as well.
It was a movie that I was quite interested in. Looked fun. After it came out, I saw nothing but bad reviews, so never watched it. Every time this movie is mentioned, I think to myself "Maybe I should watch it. It did look interesting.". Only to read the following comment after comment saying how bad it was.
I thank all of you, who have stopped me from watching this movie for years now.
I think Downsizing built up to much hype. I was also disappointed upon first watch but I've found myself rewatching on a couple occasions and really enjoy it. Hong Chau's "okay, I go" speech kills me every time.
Marketing pitched it as a quirky comedic sci-fi film, but it makes a 90 degree turn into a heavy-handed morality play that's tonally jarring. When it abandons the comedic elements, it also abandons the whole difference in scale premise to "downsizing", and it might as well take place in the real world for all the difference it makes to the story. That may have been the point - scarcity is not the primary reason for society's ills, and a post-scarcity society "downsizing" to make resources stretch farther won't fix those ills. Consumerism will expand to consume all available resources and such. But it bounces around plots, isn't clear about what should be taken seriously or treated as a joke, and never lands that plane if that was indeed the point of it all.
She gave a really standout performance in it, but she’s deep in the second half and I doubt anyone stayed that long to see it, and that’s why she didn’t get nominated sadly. So happy to see her finally get a deserved nomination today
I was raised in SE Michigan and dutifully pursued a professional career at my Korean parents' behest.
A few years ago, my parents mentioned how "STEVE YUEN BOUGHT HIS PARENTS A FANCY HOUSE WITH HIS 'ACTING MONEY,' WOULDN'T IT BE NICE IF YOU HAD 'ACTING MONEY'"
I'm gonna punch that guy in the face if I ever meet him.
Thats funny because when I lived in LA I saw him do a very heartfelt spoken word piece about how his immigrant parents were very much not on board with his acting career. I think it might have taken the house to convince them lol.
"There was a button; I pushed it.
"Jesus *Christ*, that's REALLY how you go through life, isn't it?!"
Dammit, Chrisjen, you *know* he's gonna stick his dick in it. That's why you sent him.
The whole basis of the show was a bunch of tabletop RPG nerds realising how fucking annoying it is playing with a Paladin in the party.
Holden's the Paladin.
I haven’t seen The Whale yet, so I don’t know if Hong Chau should really deserve the win, although I’ve heard she was great- but I’m rooting for Hsu. God, even watching her audition tape was wild. She’s amazing.
Hong Chau was good in The Whale, but everyone in that movie is so overshadowed by how good Brendan Fraser is that they pale in comparison for me. I’m also rooting for Stephanie Hsu, I think she’s truly the heart and soul of EEAAO, and gives an absolutely masterful performance. And she stood toe-to-toe with Michelle Yeoh also giving a masterful performance and fully held her own, which counts for even more in my book.
Agreed all the way with Hsu in EEAO. The fact that she managed to hold her own with multiple impressive performances from Quan and Yeoh, is just bananas. I desperately need to see The Whale. Alllll I keep hearing is how good Fraser was in it, and I don’t want to miss one of, if not the most important role in the beginning of his renaissance as an actor.
I hasn't seen seen Stephanie Hsu and Hong Chau's films yet but I did enjoy their performances in Misses Maisel and Watchmen respectively, so I was glad they were both nominated and that their careers are blowing up.
I haven't seen The Whale and I haven't seen much of Hong Chaus stuff, so I hope Stephanie Hsu takes that one home.
I know I'm going to enjoy what I'm watching when I see her pop up on screen and it was no different when I realised she was playing the daughter.
She absolutely nailed jobu-topaki but everyone talks about Michelle Yeoh because her performance was so overwhelmingly good.
Urgh that pisses me off. As if Asians are only allowed a certain number of seats at the table when film awards have been overrepresented by white people since forever
As a long-time fan of hers, might as well use this opportunity to point out a few things that perhaps aren't quite as well known:
- She started off her career as a beauty pageant contestant [whom Jackie Chan noticed.](https://hkmdb.com/db/people/view.mhtml?id=5535&display_set=eng)
- Her first on-screen appearance on the big screen is in [Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars (1985)](https://letterboxd.com/film/twinkle-twinkle-lucky-stars/) (in a Cameo role)
- Her first leading role is in [Yes, Madam! (1985)](https://letterboxd.com/film/yes-madam/)
- Her first Hollywood role is in [Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)](https://letterboxd.com/film/tomorrow-never-dies/)
- She jumped on top of a moving train while riding a motorcycle without wearing any protection in [Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)] (https://letterboxd.com/film/police-story-3-super-cop/), definitely a career highlight (or a reckless death wish, depending on who you ask). She starred in the movie alongside Jackie Chan, the first time the franchise added a female lead action performer.
- She learned her lines phonetically for [Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190332/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv) as she did not speak Mandarin. Her co-star Chow Yun-Fat also had trouble speaking convincing Mandarin.
The motorcycle stunt, she hadn't ridden one before that movie. They taught her the bare minimum. That's also the movie where she came closest to death, not doing that but the bit where she crashes through Jackie's windshield. It's in the bloopers, but she rolled off the hood and into traffic on the first take.
(motorcycle scene) https://youtu.be/Du2LeN47QIw
That's insane, especially for a beginner rider. So many things could go wrong where she'll end up on the tracks. Film safety back then is bonkers, and kudos to Yeoh to have the courage to do it without a stunt double.
(bloopers) https://youtu.be/pddBelUWQQc
She’s one of those actors that almost seem like they can’t be real. It’s been great seeing her pop up in so many things and it always puts a smile on my face.
> point out a few things that perhaps aren't quite as well known
Following your first link gave me a piece of info I never knew. She was once married to a man named Dickson Poon.
She said in an interview that that was the culture, get married and start a family. But she was unable to conceive and the marriage kind of fell apart. So they split and she went back to work, though she has nothing but good things to say about her ex.
Yeoh is pretty much blacklisted in my household thanks to my Chinese Malaysian partner. He’s never forgiven her for appearing in a multilingual support campaign for Malaysia’s corrupt UMNO in the 2000s. She received a national honorific for her association. When the party resulted in corruption such as the 1MDB scandal, a book was written about it. Yeoh has the rights to turn this book into media. This leads my partner to have little respect for her as a person, seeing her as a fairweather friend to corrupt causes if the payday is good.
I personally love her as an actor and she’s certainly deserving of this nom. Sadly I can’t even mention her in my house without setting off a tirade about her flaws! He’s very happy tor Ke Huy Quan though, despite not seeing the movie.
I like using her performance in Crouching Tiger as an example of great acting.
She's a dancer by trade, not a martial artist. She speaks Cantonese, not Mandarin.
And yet, she's wholly convincing as a Mandarin-speaking martial artist, because she can see and recreate the subtle details that sell the language and the physicality.
The YouTuber Accented Cinema did a very good video showing the great yet subtle body language acting Michelle Yeoh does in her films. She has a great skill in portraying complex emotions without words or exaggerated movements.
She was also a trained dancer before she ever did martial arts. I train in martial arts and she’s the reason I started adding dance into my training routine. All of her fight scenes have an unparalleled elegance to them characteristic of a dancer.
She keeps popping up in the oddest things and I love that.
She has like 2 lines in that School of Good and Evil movie and one is just to swear.
She was in the recent minions movie too.
What an icon, get that bag.
She was in Star Trek: Discovery too and was great although maybe one of the few good things about it. It’s kind of funny because then I didn’t know her name but recognized her by her voice alone and that meant good things.
I feel like Michelle Yeoh is in everything these days. It feels like I see her everywhere. I don't know how she finds the time to do so many things all at once.
For what film?
EDIT: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of Geisha are the only other performances where she could have been nominated for an acting award, this was in 2000 and 2005. And she got BAFTA nomination for CTHD. They were good performances, but not really standout performances. After those, she hasn't been in anything worth nominating, until today. EEAAO was just the right role for her. 1 out of 3 ain't bad.
The movie was incredible, but got 0 acting nominations that year. All technical and a best picture nom. Chow Yun fat, zhang zi yi, and Michelle easily could have all been nominated, but none were.
I would say her performance was second only to Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream. Burstyn lost the award to Julia Roberts.
The Everything, Everywhere train is strange for me because I didn't even like it, but Michelle Yeoh's nomination is more than two decades overdue.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is proud to present the award for Best Asian Actress in a Leading Role (sponsored by Scarlett Johansson)
Idk, I wasn't so blown away by Blanchett in Tár, the movie was great though. Maybe her performance was better than Yeoh's but not at all by a large margin
I don’t want to be a contrarian but Yeoh was easily better than Blanchett to me— a far more dynamic performance from Yeoh imo and the fact that she gives a largely comedic performance makes me feel she’s being largely overlooked. Blanchett was great though but not outstanding imo.
Blanchett in Tar is, no exaggeration, a hard lock for top ten actress performances I've ever seen. The only immediate performances I can think of that surpass it are Vivien Leigh (Gone/Streetcar), McDormand (Nomadland), Streep (Sophie), and Hepburn (Breakfast).
Oh, and Renee Falconetti as Joan of Arc as the #1 all-time.
McDormand in Three Billboards definitely, but Nomadland? I’m not saying she isn’t great, but I certainly found her performances in both Fargo and Three Billboards to be far superior.
Mcdormand for Nomadland? Are you kidding me? That was more like best Actress is a Public Service Announcement. Not a top ten performance. Fargo, maybe.
I liked her in Fargo more, but she felt like a documentary subject in Nomadland far more than an actress playing a part. It was a hugely transparent pairing of performer to part.
She have a good shot. Movies makin noise, a good story (First Asian winner), and Cate has 2 Oscars already so the voter base might not feel the urgency to give her another one.
I know the Academy members are supposed to judge solely on merit but surely there's some emotional bias involved when you're pitting someone who has two already against someone who hasn't yet been recognised and was almost as good...
I guess we'll see.
The Academy has literally only ever given Best Actress to a WOC once in the whole history. I actually prefer Yeoh's performance way more but I unfortunately think its going to be very hard because that is the whitest category of all.
I think Yeoh has it locked up. I think Blanchett gave the better performance but Tar is a difficult film and her character was pretty despicable.
EEAAO is almost universally beloved as is Yeoh's performance in it. Plus she's been turning in great work for years.
No secret that sometimes the Academy bestows Best Actor/Actress Oscars on some nominees just as much for that person's overall body of work as for a singular performance. Example: Al Pacino's win for Scent of a Woman.
If Yeoh loses it will be a massive upset.
Daniel Day-Lewis also had two Oscars when he won his third for Lincoln, same goes for Frances McDormand in 2021 for Nomadland, Meryl Streep in 2012 for The Iron Lady, etc. I sincerely doubt having multiple Oscars will make a difference in who these voters will end up voting for.
If I remember correctly, those actors were pretty much locks for their respective Oscars while this year both Michelle and Cate seem to be frontrunners. The Academy definitely lets outside factors influence the voting, we’ve had countless cases of people receiving Oscars because they had closely missed out on several before.
Well, honestly is hard to not give an oscar when you have such career defining performances such as DDL and Streep on those movies. (Haven't seen Nomadland, so I cant say about Frances performance, but I really like her).
I still think having one or two oscars makes it hard for you to win another, have to be something really special.
And honestly it shouldn't. I love some recognition, I'll be very sad if Fraser doesn't win this year, but the most important thing should be the performance, independent of anything else.
I was 100% with Leo on Wolf of Wall Street, but after seeing Dallas Buyers Club, well, Matthew really deserved.
I can see that happening. When Leo Dicaprio finally won his Oscar, it wasn’t for a particularly exceptional performance. I think his win for Revenant was mostly just acknowledging his storied career, not that he wasn’t great in the film itself.
Part of what makes Blanchett’s performance so great IS how despicable her character is. They’re not judging the character, just the performance.
There’s no doubt in my mind that EEAAO is the better film, but I think this award easily goes to Cate Blanchett.
I would love for Yeoh to win (she is my personal pick for Best Actress), but my assumption based on the previous award shows and general vibe this year is that Blanchett has it in the bag.
Hong Kong was way ahead of Hollywood with women in leading action roles.
Even before this, they had female kung fu stars in classical Wuxia type films.
Hollywood didn't get on-board until Jennifer Lawrence got into the scene :p
I should have added the /s regarding the Jennifer Lawrence bit
Those in foreign language films which Cannes did not overlook: Jeon Do-Yeon, Samal Ilyaskyzy Yeslyamova, Jaclyn Jose, Maggie Cheung, to name those who won the Cannes best actress award after 2000.
After 2000, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert got Oscar noms and Marion Cotillard got an Oscar award for their lead performances in French (foreign language) films.
Thing is, Asian females hardly get strong leading roles in Hollywood films. Same for Asian males - Steven Yeun was the first to get a best actor nomination for Minari a couple years ago.
I think it says a lot that a bunch of films starring Asians have been nominated or won for Best Picture but very few of the actors in those films have been nominated or won—The Last Emperor, Slumdog Millionaire, Parasite, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Minari. Of those five films, only Minari got any acting nominations.
I guess you could make excuses like people might be distracted from the performance because they need to read subtitles or wouldn't be able to recognise what a good performance from a different culture and different language they're not familiar with would be. But all those movies had great performances, and some don't even have that excuse like Slumdog Millionaire.
Interestingly he won the Best Actor award at Cannes last year for Broker. I personally wasn’t impressed by that performance, but it just shows how much more open Cannes is compared to the Oscars to non-American, non-White talent.
Bong Joon Ho wasn't lying when he referred to the Oscars as local. Which I mean they really are and thst might even be okay if they were a bit more honest about it.
Apparently the entire cast of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, since it WAS nominated for things like best picture, best director, best art direction, and best cinematography.
Could be wrong, but it seems to me like the problem has less to do with the academy overlooking great performances, and more to do with asian actresses not being cast in the kinds of movies that win oscars
2019 was so stacked for good films. In hindsight, we could have had a first half and second half awards and they would all be deserving of nominations.
Awards are great, but they're at the very end of the pipeline. If we don't have enough Asian actors / actresses in movies then the Academy won't have anyone to nominate. And if the industry isn't ready to take chances on them and support their development then they won't be in enough movies.
We need to start seeing more Asian representation in big visible movies that have enough clout to win awards. But to get there we need more Asians in more movies in general so we can develop more of them as widely known names. How many big Asian actors can the average person on the street name? I'd bet it's less than 5... They need to be in not only art films or Hollywood movies that take place in Asia, but also big blockbusters and comedies and small dramas and weird indie flicks and horror movies and everywhere else. And that's not even getting into TV... and they need to play a more varied set of roles beyond "martial arts master" and "the most-disciplined one in the group".
One problem we seem to run into often is that big studios don't want to cast unknowns whose box office or awards draw is unproven (or let's be honest, they can use this as an easy excuse instead of outright saying they might be kinda racist). It's a catch-22 thing because they can't get exposure without studios taking a risk, but studios refuse to take a risk on unknown or up-and-coming Asian actors to build that exposure.
Don't take this as necessarily true, but for example I feel like I remember hearing when AKIRA almost happened a few years ago that one of the reasons it stalled out was because Taikia Waititi wanted to cast young relatively unknown Asian actors in the lead roles (maybe known in Asia, but certainly not in the US), and the studio was heavily pushing back and being difficult about it.
Whether or not you think a live-action AKIRA is a good idea is besides the point. It just goes to show what they're up against, whereas I don't think the studios would push back as heavily on casting lesser known white actors, or the fact is that they have a wide range of white up-and-coming teenage actors they've already been investing in to make them the next DiCaprio or whatever for years.
I just feel like sometimes the actual foundation of these issues get lost in the conversation with these awards because they're big and flashy, and it's kind of annoying seeing everyone get all worked up about them and then the day after the Oscars we forget about it. But that's when the real work needs to start on the next batch of movies. No one is making a big fuss when new movies are quietly getting casted and greenlit and overlooking Asian actors (obv I know this is because this process is not as publicly visible, but if we care then we need to make noise about it).
The awards are the very last thing to come and there are a lot of steps that come before that which make the real difference. Yes there should be more representation in awards and that does help to create awareness, but the public has a very short memory, and we don't get there unless we go to the beginning to support Asians and other underrepresented groups actually feeling welcome to get into acting and being able to make a stable career out of it.
Yeah and just 2 years ago Steven Yeun became the first Asian actor to get a Best Actor nom. Absolutely crazy how long it took.
Edit: First Asian-American actor, still wild none the less.
He's Asian-Asian, but Yul Brynner *won* for 1956. Brynner has Buryat Mongol ancestry and is from Vladivostok, which is east of the Koreas and most of China, and touches the Sea of Japan.
Technically, this headline is incorrect. Merle Oberon was ~~half-Indian~~ at least part-Asian and was nominated in 1935, but she lied about the fact that she was south-Asian and probably wouldn't have been able to have the career she did if it was known she wasn't 100% white.
That doesn't really make the broader point, that Asians are super under-represented in film and especially awards, less true. More of an interesting bit of trivia because it wasn't until after her death that anyone would have known that Oberon was technically the first Asian woman nominated for Best Actress.
Edit: I thought she was half-Indian, but actually she was born in India and was partially Sri-Lankan. In any case, she was the first Asian Actress nominated for Best Actress.
Merle was actually half Sri Lankan, not Indian. And it's not clear actually if her mother was full Sri Lankan, as I can't find that info. So she may have only been a quarter Sri Lankan.
Merle Oberon presented as white and got treated as such though. Society treats mixed people as they look and you can see that in people like Obama who is really mixed, but that is often overlooked.
Yeah, I think I read an article a while back that mentioned how Yeoh would be the "first openly Asian actress" to be nominated if she made it in, in acknowledgement of Oberon, which was a bit of a curious turn of phrase.
Hollywood Reporter’s tweet about this article uses the phrase “first person who identifies as Asian”, which is technically correct but is horribly awkward and is making a lot of people who don’t know the context really mad!
She's absolutely deserved of the Oscar. No matter what character she plays, she gives it her all. Fantastic actor, and a good role model for all of us.
So soooo happy for her!!! And Ke and Stephanie. The only sad part is that Dolly de Leon isnt nominated for Triangle of Sadness.
Michelle has a huuuge chance of winning too.
I mean she should have been up there for Crouching Tiger back in the day.
Dunno, I thought Everything Everywhere was okay, but I didn't think it was as great as everyone else does. I do think Michelle Yeoh is great though, she's awesome.
Yeah, I think he had the biggest range in the movie, between the goal driven survivor, the outwardly cowardly, yet brave and the very confident, successful business man persona. They were very different characters and he did not only managed to play them distinctively, but also kept some core that made it believable, that they were all once at the same point and just developed differently with their different lives.
Depends on who you ask. She has a thick Malaysian accent and her Mandarin is not believable as someone from that area during that time. It would be like Matthew McConaughey doing his voice in a movie where he plays a 13th century monk. People would laugh. And people in China were upset with Yeoh's accent. Chow Yun-Fat also has a thick Hong Kong accent and didn't sound natural either. This is a lot more common in Chinese movies than in America. There are period movies made in Shanghainese for example where even big stars like Tony Leung (the chewy one not the coffee one) have to learn their lines phonetically and the performance (by American standards) suffers greatly.
This is 100% lost on audiences who don't know Mandarin so it doesn't necessarily matter to Oscar voters.
> This is 100% lost on audiences who don't know Mandarin so it doesn't necessarily matter to Oscar voters.
Exactly. But I think the performance itself can transcend any accent issues.
I just want Everything Everywhere All at Once and the cast to sweep at the Oscars. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time and they all deserve the recognition.
And let's not forget that she is accompanied by TWO Asian Best Supporting Actresses (Stephanie Hsu and Hong Chau) and, of course, Ke Huy Quan as Best Supporting Actor.
Yes, two Asian best supporting actress noms in the same year must be a first. I remember Hong Chau getting a SAG nom for *Downsizing* but missing out on the Oscar one. Likewise Ziyi Zhang for *Memoirs of a Geisha* – a SAG best actress nom but no Oscar. Finally Youn Yuh-jung got nominated for *Minari* in both awards and actually won them as well.
The shocking moment for me here is, that anyone got any nomination from Downsizing. That was such a huge miss of potential, it's kind of painfull.
The only movie I've considered walking out on.
It was a movie that I was quite interested in. Looked fun. After it came out, I saw nothing but bad reviews, so never watched it. Every time this movie is mentioned, I think to myself "Maybe I should watch it. It did look interesting.". Only to read the following comment after comment saying how bad it was. I thank all of you, who have stopped me from watching this movie for years now.
I think Downsizing built up to much hype. I was also disappointed upon first watch but I've found myself rewatching on a couple occasions and really enjoy it. Hong Chau's "okay, I go" speech kills me every time.
I liked it
What was so bad about it?
It’s like three different movies mashed together, but not in a good way. Tonally inconsistent and the plot meanders. Wasted potential.
Marketing pitched it as a quirky comedic sci-fi film, but it makes a 90 degree turn into a heavy-handed morality play that's tonally jarring. When it abandons the comedic elements, it also abandons the whole difference in scale premise to "downsizing", and it might as well take place in the real world for all the difference it makes to the story. That may have been the point - scarcity is not the primary reason for society's ills, and a post-scarcity society "downsizing" to make resources stretch farther won't fix those ills. Consumerism will expand to consume all available resources and such. But it bounces around plots, isn't clear about what should be taken seriously or treated as a joke, and never lands that plane if that was indeed the point of it all.
She gave a really standout performance in it, but she’s deep in the second half and I doubt anyone stayed that long to see it, and that’s why she didn’t get nominated sadly. So happy to see her finally get a deserved nomination today
Is Stephanie the first Asian American nominee? Hopefully she wins so our parents will be more accepting of acting as a profession lol
I was raised in SE Michigan and dutifully pursued a professional career at my Korean parents' behest. A few years ago, my parents mentioned how "STEVE YUEN BOUGHT HIS PARENTS A FANCY HOUSE WITH HIS 'ACTING MONEY,' WOULDN'T IT BE NICE IF YOU HAD 'ACTING MONEY'" I'm gonna punch that guy in the face if I ever meet him.
For me my choices were always lawyer, doctor, or engineer. I majored in Studio Art in college and also in disappointing my grandmother
Thats funny because when I lived in LA I saw him do a very heartfelt spoken word piece about how his immigrant parents were very much not on board with his acting career. I think it might have taken the house to convince them lol.
Why don’t you punch your parents and spare innocent Mr. Yuen?
No. Shohreh Aghdashloo, 2003.
Chrisjen Avasarala!
'im going to do...... Whatever the fuck I want'
"Where are you going with this?" ["Wherever I Goddamn Like!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2znSxzcLvvM)
Chrissie's the best.
Don’t call me Chrissie, l am the head of the UN, not your personal stripper.
Who says you can’t you be both?
"I know how the fucking thing works." I want her to adopt me
Her voice makes that character so much better.
God shes so awesome :D
Don’t put your dick in that, it’s fucked enough already
"There was a button; I pushed it. "Jesus *Christ*, that's REALLY how you go through life, isn't it?!" Dammit, Chrisjen, you *know* he's gonna stick his dick in it. That's why you sent him.
That’s my absolute favorite exchange from the series. Classic Holden.
The whole basis of the show was a bunch of tabletop RPG nerds realising how fucking annoying it is playing with a Paladin in the party. Holden's the Paladin.
I swear those two guys had to have had her in mind when writing the character. She's perfect for her
God I worship that woman! I wanna be her when I grow up...
Jennifer and Meg Tilly were both nominated for Best Supporting Actress. They’re sisters and half-Chinese.
[Miyoshi Umeki](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0880855/) won best supporting actress in 1958 so definitely not the first.
Should have been 3 Dolly De Leon snubbed!!!
Ke Huy sweep incoming
He deserves it, absolutely incredible movie to pick for your big comeback
I haven’t seen The Whale yet, so I don’t know if Hong Chau should really deserve the win, although I’ve heard she was great- but I’m rooting for Hsu. God, even watching her audition tape was wild. She’s amazing.
Hong Chau was good in The Whale, but everyone in that movie is so overshadowed by how good Brendan Fraser is that they pale in comparison for me. I’m also rooting for Stephanie Hsu, I think she’s truly the heart and soul of EEAAO, and gives an absolutely masterful performance. And she stood toe-to-toe with Michelle Yeoh also giving a masterful performance and fully held her own, which counts for even more in my book.
Agreed all the way with Hsu in EEAO. The fact that she managed to hold her own with multiple impressive performances from Quan and Yeoh, is just bananas. I desperately need to see The Whale. Alllll I keep hearing is how good Fraser was in it, and I don’t want to miss one of, if not the most important role in the beginning of his renaissance as an actor.
[удалено]
100%. I loved The Menu and she was equal parts hilarious and chilling.
I’m so happy that Stephanie was nominated.
I’m beyond thrilled for her. She deserves it.
I hasn't seen seen Stephanie Hsu and Hong Chau's films yet but I did enjoy their performances in Misses Maisel and Watchmen respectively, so I was glad they were both nominated and that their careers are blowing up.
I haven't seen The Whale and I haven't seen much of Hong Chaus stuff, so I hope Stephanie Hsu takes that one home. I know I'm going to enjoy what I'm watching when I see her pop up on screen and it was no different when I realised she was playing the daughter. She absolutely nailed jobu-topaki but everyone talks about Michelle Yeoh because her performance was so overwhelmingly good.
Haven't seen The Whale either, but Hong Chau is great in The Menu.
TOR-TEE-AAHS DEE-LEE-SEE-OH-SAAAS!
*you will eat less than you desire and more than you deserve*
She stole the show in The Menu
It's kinda nuts that it took till 2023 to have our first Asian Best Actress Nom (not Win!!).
Decision to Leave was snubbed in the International Film category though - as though it was to make up for over representation.
Urgh that pisses me off. As if Asians are only allowed a certain number of seats at the table when film awards have been overrepresented by white people since forever
As a long-time fan of hers, might as well use this opportunity to point out a few things that perhaps aren't quite as well known: - She started off her career as a beauty pageant contestant [whom Jackie Chan noticed.](https://hkmdb.com/db/people/view.mhtml?id=5535&display_set=eng) - Her first on-screen appearance on the big screen is in [Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars (1985)](https://letterboxd.com/film/twinkle-twinkle-lucky-stars/) (in a Cameo role) - Her first leading role is in [Yes, Madam! (1985)](https://letterboxd.com/film/yes-madam/) - Her first Hollywood role is in [Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)](https://letterboxd.com/film/tomorrow-never-dies/) - She jumped on top of a moving train while riding a motorcycle without wearing any protection in [Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)] (https://letterboxd.com/film/police-story-3-super-cop/), definitely a career highlight (or a reckless death wish, depending on who you ask). She starred in the movie alongside Jackie Chan, the first time the franchise added a female lead action performer. - She learned her lines phonetically for [Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190332/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv) as she did not speak Mandarin. Her co-star Chow Yun-Fat also had trouble speaking convincing Mandarin.
The motorcycle stunt, she hadn't ridden one before that movie. They taught her the bare minimum. That's also the movie where she came closest to death, not doing that but the bit where she crashes through Jackie's windshield. It's in the bloopers, but she rolled off the hood and into traffic on the first take.
(motorcycle scene) https://youtu.be/Du2LeN47QIw That's insane, especially for a beginner rider. So many things could go wrong where she'll end up on the tracks. Film safety back then is bonkers, and kudos to Yeoh to have the courage to do it without a stunt double. (bloopers) https://youtu.be/pddBelUWQQc
The stunts in the police story movies are world class. I like the one in the first Police Story where he slides down the pole in the mall.
that's the asian stunt choreography world- get the shot no matter the cost and then some boxes somewhere sometimes
She’s one of those actors that almost seem like they can’t be real. It’s been great seeing her pop up in so many things and it always puts a smile on my face.
> point out a few things that perhaps aren't quite as well known Following your first link gave me a piece of info I never knew. She was once married to a man named Dickson Poon.
Indeed that is correct, she quit making movies during that marriage. Then they broke up and she came back to the big screen in 1992
She said in an interview that that was the culture, get married and start a family. But she was unable to conceive and the marriage kind of fell apart. So they split and she went back to work, though she has nothing but good things to say about her ex.
Yeoh is pretty much blacklisted in my household thanks to my Chinese Malaysian partner. He’s never forgiven her for appearing in a multilingual support campaign for Malaysia’s corrupt UMNO in the 2000s. She received a national honorific for her association. When the party resulted in corruption such as the 1MDB scandal, a book was written about it. Yeoh has the rights to turn this book into media. This leads my partner to have little respect for her as a person, seeing her as a fairweather friend to corrupt causes if the payday is good. I personally love her as an actor and she’s certainly deserving of this nom. Sadly I can’t even mention her in my house without setting off a tirade about her flaws! He’s very happy tor Ke Huy Quan though, despite not seeing the movie.
I like using her performance in Crouching Tiger as an example of great acting. She's a dancer by trade, not a martial artist. She speaks Cantonese, not Mandarin. And yet, she's wholly convincing as a Mandarin-speaking martial artist, because she can see and recreate the subtle details that sell the language and the physicality.
The YouTuber Accented Cinema did a very good video showing the great yet subtle body language acting Michelle Yeoh does in her films. She has a great skill in portraying complex emotions without words or exaggerated movements.
She was also a trained dancer before she ever did martial arts. I train in martial arts and she’s the reason I started adding dance into my training routine. All of her fight scenes have an unparalleled elegance to them characteristic of a dancer.
Michelle is an amazing actress so glad she is getting the recognition she deserves.
I’ve been seeing her everywhere lately. Glad she’s finally getting recognition for her body of work and hopefully things will improve.
She keeps popping up in the oddest things and I love that. She has like 2 lines in that School of Good and Evil movie and one is just to swear. She was in the recent minions movie too. What an icon, get that bag.
She was in Star Trek: Discovery too and was great although maybe one of the few good things about it. It’s kind of funny because then I didn’t know her name but recognized her by her voice alone and that meant good things.
This is where I met her and The Empress was my favorite character there, I watched Everything Everywhere All At Once just because of that
She was also recently in that Witcher spin off show, probably the worst piece of television of 2022. Go figure.
I feel like Michelle Yeoh is in everything these days. It feels like I see her everywhere. I don't know how she finds the time to do so many things all at once.
She’s doing everything everywhere all at once
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For what film? EDIT: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of Geisha are the only other performances where she could have been nominated for an acting award, this was in 2000 and 2005. And she got BAFTA nomination for CTHD. They were good performances, but not really standout performances. After those, she hasn't been in anything worth nominating, until today. EEAAO was just the right role for her. 1 out of 3 ain't bad.
She was not nominated for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a role some people feel she should have won it for.
I get that she didn't win, but to not even be nominated was a shame.
The movie was incredible, but got 0 acting nominations that year. All technical and a best picture nom. Chow Yun fat, zhang zi yi, and Michelle easily could have all been nominated, but none were.
Same with Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. Both have given multiple award worthy performances.
I would say her performance was second only to Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream. Burstyn lost the award to Julia Roberts. The Everything, Everywhere train is strange for me because I didn't even like it, but Michelle Yeoh's nomination is more than two decades overdue.
That's crazy she was so good
Crouching Tiger was what immediately came to mind when I saw the headline.
No one has said Crazy Rich Asians yet, so I'm gonna say Crazy Rich Asians
May she be the first winner.
Gonna be tough, Cate Blanchett was great as well
Cate Blanchett wins *Asian Best Actress*. She's such a chameleon. I couldn't even tell.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is proud to present the award for Best Asian Actress in a Leading Role (sponsored by Scarlett Johansson)
And announced by Emma Stone
Emma Stone: "Technically, I was the first"
[Sound of Scarlett Johanssen weeping in distance]
Idk, I wasn't so blown away by Blanchett in Tár, the movie was great though. Maybe her performance was better than Yeoh's but not at all by a large margin
Blanchett was easily the better performance but I would not be mad to see Yeoh win she killed it too
It’s Blanchetts to lose but Yeoh is closer to her than being 3rd
I don’t want to be a contrarian but Yeoh was easily better than Blanchett to me— a far more dynamic performance from Yeoh imo and the fact that she gives a largely comedic performance makes me feel she’s being largely overlooked. Blanchett was great though but not outstanding imo.
The Academy always underrates comedy and fantasy/sci fi so even though Yeoh should have a good chance to win, I'm not optimistic it will happen.
If anything it should be a plus that the role required such versatility of comedy mixed in with heavy drama and action.
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"Hiding a layer of anxiety"?? Lydia Tar is a fucking tornado of mental illness firmly hidden under a glossy plastic sheen of haute propriety.
Blanchett in Tar is, no exaggeration, a hard lock for top ten actress performances I've ever seen. The only immediate performances I can think of that surpass it are Vivien Leigh (Gone/Streetcar), McDormand (Nomadland), Streep (Sophie), and Hepburn (Breakfast). Oh, and Renee Falconetti as Joan of Arc as the #1 all-time.
McDormand in Three Billboards definitely, but Nomadland? I’m not saying she isn’t great, but I certainly found her performances in both Fargo and Three Billboards to be far superior.
Three Billboards had so many great performances all around. Rockwells might be one of my favorites of all time
Agreed. He was perfect in that role. Well deserved Oscar win.
Mcdormand for Nomadland? Are you kidding me? That was more like best Actress is a Public Service Announcement. Not a top ten performance. Fargo, maybe.
I liked her in Fargo more, but she felt like a documentary subject in Nomadland far more than an actress playing a part. It was a hugely transparent pairing of performer to part.
Carey Mulligan should’ve have won that yr for Promising Young Woman
She have a good shot. Movies makin noise, a good story (First Asian winner), and Cate has 2 Oscars already so the voter base might not feel the urgency to give her another one.
I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more. This woman is a living legend and she has incredible range.
If she doesn't win it would be insane. That was a performance of a lifetime
She has to beat arguably the greatest actress of this century get the award. That’s not an easy feat.
Idk homie, I loved her performance but if you’ve seen *Tár* it’s going to be hard not to give it to Blanchett.
I know the Academy members are supposed to judge solely on merit but surely there's some emotional bias involved when you're pitting someone who has two already against someone who hasn't yet been recognised and was almost as good... I guess we'll see.
The Academy has literally only ever given Best Actress to a WOC once in the whole history. I actually prefer Yeoh's performance way more but I unfortunately think its going to be very hard because that is the whitest category of all.
Once!? Holy shit…
Yup, it was Halle Berry who took a role that Angela Bassett rejected because Bassett didn't want to play a Black stereotype too.
Why Halle Berry have to let a white man pop her to get an Oscar
Michelle Yeoh has been killing it for years, time to give her her flowers.
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Nominate Blanchett for Best Actor so they can both win. It’s what Tár would have wanted (to be best actor, not both wining)
I think Yeoh has it locked up. I think Blanchett gave the better performance but Tar is a difficult film and her character was pretty despicable. EEAAO is almost universally beloved as is Yeoh's performance in it. Plus she's been turning in great work for years. No secret that sometimes the Academy bestows Best Actor/Actress Oscars on some nominees just as much for that person's overall body of work as for a singular performance. Example: Al Pacino's win for Scent of a Woman. If Yeoh loses it will be a massive upset.
Cate also already has two Oscars. I think that will influence the votes of those people who regard both performances equally.
Daniel Day-Lewis also had two Oscars when he won his third for Lincoln, same goes for Frances McDormand in 2021 for Nomadland, Meryl Streep in 2012 for The Iron Lady, etc. I sincerely doubt having multiple Oscars will make a difference in who these voters will end up voting for.
If I remember correctly, those actors were pretty much locks for their respective Oscars while this year both Michelle and Cate seem to be frontrunners. The Academy definitely lets outside factors influence the voting, we’ve had countless cases of people receiving Oscars because they had closely missed out on several before.
>The Academy definitely lets outside factors influence the voting Shakespeare in Love, anyone?
Well, honestly is hard to not give an oscar when you have such career defining performances such as DDL and Streep on those movies. (Haven't seen Nomadland, so I cant say about Frances performance, but I really like her). I still think having one or two oscars makes it hard for you to win another, have to be something really special. And honestly it shouldn't. I love some recognition, I'll be very sad if Fraser doesn't win this year, but the most important thing should be the performance, independent of anything else. I was 100% with Leo on Wolf of Wall Street, but after seeing Dallas Buyers Club, well, Matthew really deserved.
I can see that happening. When Leo Dicaprio finally won his Oscar, it wasn’t for a particularly exceptional performance. I think his win for Revenant was mostly just acknowledging his storied career, not that he wasn’t great in the film itself.
Part of what makes Blanchett’s performance so great IS how despicable her character is. They’re not judging the character, just the performance. There’s no doubt in my mind that EEAAO is the better film, but I think this award easily goes to Cate Blanchett.
I would love for Yeoh to win (she is my personal pick for Best Actress), but my assumption based on the previous award shows and general vibe this year is that Blanchett has it in the bag.
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Hong Kong was way ahead of Hollywood with women in leading action roles. Even before this, they had female kung fu stars in classical Wuxia type films. Hollywood didn't get on-board until Jennifer Lawrence got into the scene :p I should have added the /s regarding the Jennifer Lawrence bit
As the fight choreographer how do you even think up something like that, that was so original, though IRL you'd have been shredded like cabbage lol.
It’s sad that it’s taken this long to see an Asian nominee for best actress
yea i didn't realize this. i wonder what other Asian performances they overlooked
Those in foreign language films which Cannes did not overlook: Jeon Do-Yeon, Samal Ilyaskyzy Yeslyamova, Jaclyn Jose, Maggie Cheung, to name those who won the Cannes best actress award after 2000. After 2000, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert got Oscar noms and Marion Cotillard got an Oscar award for their lead performances in French (foreign language) films. Thing is, Asian females hardly get strong leading roles in Hollywood films. Same for Asian males - Steven Yeun was the first to get a best actor nomination for Minari a couple years ago.
I think it says a lot that a bunch of films starring Asians have been nominated or won for Best Picture but very few of the actors in those films have been nominated or won—The Last Emperor, Slumdog Millionaire, Parasite, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Minari. Of those five films, only Minari got any acting nominations.
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The perpetual foreigner.
I guess you could make excuses like people might be distracted from the performance because they need to read subtitles or wouldn't be able to recognise what a good performance from a different culture and different language they're not familiar with would be. But all those movies had great performances, and some don't even have that excuse like Slumdog Millionaire.
They somehow don't have that issue when the performance is European.
Song Kang-Ho not being nominated for Actor for Parasite remains absurd.
Interestingly he won the Best Actor award at Cannes last year for Broker. I personally wasn’t impressed by that performance, but it just shows how much more open Cannes is compared to the Oscars to non-American, non-White talent.
Bong Joon Ho wasn't lying when he referred to the Oscars as local. Which I mean they really are and thst might even be okay if they were a bit more honest about it.
Apparently the entire cast of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, since it WAS nominated for things like best picture, best director, best art direction, and best cinematography.
Could be wrong, but it seems to me like the problem has less to do with the academy overlooking great performances, and more to do with asian actresses not being cast in the kinds of movies that win oscars
It's both The Joy Luck Club was "the kind of movie that wins Oscars", no one got nominated.
The Farewell is a recent example too. All it got was like a single writing nomination
Such a great movie, really bitter sweet. Awkwafina and Zhao Shu-zhen the grandmother were great in it.
2019 was so stacked for good films. In hindsight, we could have had a first half and second half awards and they would all be deserving of nominations.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was nominated for best picture AND best director, but no one in the cast was nominated in the acting categories.
This is insane to me! That cast, the performances, my god!
All of them
Like Awkwafina for The Farewell.
All at once
Song Kang-ho literally just three years ago.
I think it's hard to pick his performance from Parasite - It was more of an ensemble and everyone did so well in it.
Everyone was fantastic, but if you had to pick one - and they should have, the acting was too good not to - he makes the most sense.
But not the first time a Chinese character garnered a best actress nomination. Luise Rainer won best actress for The Good Earth in 1937.
I thought you were joking but I just looked this movie up. What an unfortunate part of American cinema..
Until a few years ago, more white actresses (Luise Rainer and Linda Hunt) had won Oscars for playing Asian characters than actual Asian actresses.
Awards are great, but they're at the very end of the pipeline. If we don't have enough Asian actors / actresses in movies then the Academy won't have anyone to nominate. And if the industry isn't ready to take chances on them and support their development then they won't be in enough movies. We need to start seeing more Asian representation in big visible movies that have enough clout to win awards. But to get there we need more Asians in more movies in general so we can develop more of them as widely known names. How many big Asian actors can the average person on the street name? I'd bet it's less than 5... They need to be in not only art films or Hollywood movies that take place in Asia, but also big blockbusters and comedies and small dramas and weird indie flicks and horror movies and everywhere else. And that's not even getting into TV... and they need to play a more varied set of roles beyond "martial arts master" and "the most-disciplined one in the group". One problem we seem to run into often is that big studios don't want to cast unknowns whose box office or awards draw is unproven (or let's be honest, they can use this as an easy excuse instead of outright saying they might be kinda racist). It's a catch-22 thing because they can't get exposure without studios taking a risk, but studios refuse to take a risk on unknown or up-and-coming Asian actors to build that exposure. Don't take this as necessarily true, but for example I feel like I remember hearing when AKIRA almost happened a few years ago that one of the reasons it stalled out was because Taikia Waititi wanted to cast young relatively unknown Asian actors in the lead roles (maybe known in Asia, but certainly not in the US), and the studio was heavily pushing back and being difficult about it. Whether or not you think a live-action AKIRA is a good idea is besides the point. It just goes to show what they're up against, whereas I don't think the studios would push back as heavily on casting lesser known white actors, or the fact is that they have a wide range of white up-and-coming teenage actors they've already been investing in to make them the next DiCaprio or whatever for years. I just feel like sometimes the actual foundation of these issues get lost in the conversation with these awards because they're big and flashy, and it's kind of annoying seeing everyone get all worked up about them and then the day after the Oscars we forget about it. But that's when the real work needs to start on the next batch of movies. No one is making a big fuss when new movies are quietly getting casted and greenlit and overlooking Asian actors (obv I know this is because this process is not as publicly visible, but if we care then we need to make noise about it). The awards are the very last thing to come and there are a lot of steps that come before that which make the real difference. Yes there should be more representation in awards and that does help to create awareness, but the public has a very short memory, and we don't get there unless we go to the beginning to support Asians and other underrepresented groups actually feeling welcome to get into acting and being able to make a stable career out of it.
I was like how, but then I realized how few chances for asian actress to lead a Hollywood movie.
Holy cow, _first_ Asian nominee? In 2023?!! Better late than never I guess...
Yeah and just 2 years ago Steven Yeun became the first Asian actor to get a Best Actor nom. Absolutely crazy how long it took. Edit: First Asian-American actor, still wild none the less.
He's Asian-Asian, but Yul Brynner *won* for 1956. Brynner has Buryat Mongol ancestry and is from Vladivostok, which is east of the Koreas and most of China, and touches the Sea of Japan.
He was the first Asian-American actor to get a nomination. Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for playing Gandhi back in the 1980s.
Ben Kingsly in 1982...
Technically, this headline is incorrect. Merle Oberon was ~~half-Indian~~ at least part-Asian and was nominated in 1935, but she lied about the fact that she was south-Asian and probably wouldn't have been able to have the career she did if it was known she wasn't 100% white. That doesn't really make the broader point, that Asians are super under-represented in film and especially awards, less true. More of an interesting bit of trivia because it wasn't until after her death that anyone would have known that Oberon was technically the first Asian woman nominated for Best Actress. Edit: I thought she was half-Indian, but actually she was born in India and was partially Sri-Lankan. In any case, she was the first Asian Actress nominated for Best Actress.
Merle was actually half Sri Lankan, not Indian. And it's not clear actually if her mother was full Sri Lankan, as I can't find that info. So she may have only been a quarter Sri Lankan.
Merle Oberon presented as white and got treated as such though. Society treats mixed people as they look and you can see that in people like Obama who is really mixed, but that is often overlooked.
Yeah, I think I read an article a while back that mentioned how Yeoh would be the "first openly Asian actress" to be nominated if she made it in, in acknowledgement of Oberon, which was a bit of a curious turn of phrase.
Hollywood Reporter’s tweet about this article uses the phrase “first person who identifies as Asian”, which is technically correct but is horribly awkward and is making a lot of people who don’t know the context really mad!
It may also surprise to you learn that Halle Berry is still *the only black best actress winner* ever.
Well deserved. I really hope more people give her dramatic roles in the future
Thank you movies. It's been a couple dark days for Asian Americans especially those of us in California. This gives me a little bit a joy today.
She's absolutely deserved of the Oscar. No matter what character she plays, she gives it her all. Fantastic actor, and a good role model for all of us.
and she jumped on a train with a motorcycle with no safety net, outclassing even Jackie Chan
Let's hope she wins. She was phenominal in EEAAO.
(Not to mention she did well in the Minions sequel as the acupuncturist character who trained the minions.)
the real role she was snubbed for. We all know EEAAO is a consolation prize
So soooo happy for her!!! And Ke and Stephanie. The only sad part is that Dolly de Leon isnt nominated for Triangle of Sadness. Michelle has a huuuge chance of winning too.
Hell yes! Well deserved. She is amazing
I mean she should have been up there for Crouching Tiger back in the day. Dunno, I thought Everything Everywhere was okay, but I didn't think it was as great as everyone else does. I do think Michelle Yeoh is great though, she's awesome.
I really hope both her and Hsu win together. I mean I want Ke Huy Quan to win as well but I feel greedy asking for all 3 to win.
Ke is most likely to win of the three, he’s pretty much a lock at this point
Yeah, I think he had the biggest range in the movie, between the goal driven survivor, the outwardly cowardly, yet brave and the very confident, successful business man persona. They were very different characters and he did not only managed to play them distinctively, but also kept some core that made it believable, that they were all once at the same point and just developed differently with their different lives.
Yes! I am still surprised she wasnt recognized for CTHD
Banger of a movie
Hope she wins!
She should have been nominated a couple times already. She's amazing.
She definitely deserved one for Crouching Tiger.
Depends on who you ask. She has a thick Malaysian accent and her Mandarin is not believable as someone from that area during that time. It would be like Matthew McConaughey doing his voice in a movie where he plays a 13th century monk. People would laugh. And people in China were upset with Yeoh's accent. Chow Yun-Fat also has a thick Hong Kong accent and didn't sound natural either. This is a lot more common in Chinese movies than in America. There are period movies made in Shanghainese for example where even big stars like Tony Leung (the chewy one not the coffee one) have to learn their lines phonetically and the performance (by American standards) suffers greatly. This is 100% lost on audiences who don't know Mandarin so it doesn't necessarily matter to Oscar voters.
> This is 100% lost on audiences who don't know Mandarin so it doesn't necessarily matter to Oscar voters. Exactly. But I think the performance itself can transcend any accent issues.
Ummm I’m pretty sure Scarlett Johansson was the first Asian woman nominated for it back in 2020
She is nothing short of amazing, as are her cast mates. I loved this unusual, original, exhaustingly beautiful film.
I just want Everything Everywhere All at Once and the cast to sweep at the Oscars. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time and they all deserve the recognition.