Michelle Yeoh’s slow build to awards dominance

Michelle Yeoh’s lead actress Oscar nomination for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is a high mark in a distinguished and action-packed but — until now — insufficiently recognized career.

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Yeoh received the first of three Hong Kong Film Awards nominations, for best new performer, in “Yes, Madam.” She has yet to win.

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Oscar nominations for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” the 2000 martial arts epic that firmly established Yeoh as a star in the U.S., did not include any for acting. But …

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... Yeoh did receive a lead actress BAFTA nomination for “Hidden Dragon.” She is nominated there again this year for “Everything.”

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Yeoh, co-star of 1997’s “Tomorrow Never Dies,” and fellow 2023 lead actress nominee Ana de Armas (“Blonde”), who appeared in 2021’s “No Time to Die,” are two of eight James Bond film actresses nominated for Oscars (for non-Bond films).

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Among the other six — Kim Basinger, Halle Berry, Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, Lotte Lenya and Rosamund Pike — Basinger, Berry and Dench won. This bodes well for Yeoh on March 12.

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Yeoh’s “Everything” awards haul so far — including a Golden Globe and many critics’ group honors — bodes even better.