Interview

Michelle Yeoh, Best Actress at the Oscars 2023: "righting an injustice"

Malaysia's Michelle Yeoh with her Best Actress Oscar at the 95th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles March 12, 2023. REUTERS - MIKE BLAKE

Text by: Carmen Lunsmann

3 mins

She is the first Asian to win the Oscar for Best Actress, thanks to her role as a Chinese immigrant in the crazy comedy “Everything Everywhere All At Once”.

Michelle Yeoh makes it all the pride of Malaysia.

Interview on this historic victory with Jean-Marc Thérouanne, general delegate and artistic director of the Vesoul International Asian Cinema Festival (FICA), the largest festival dedicated to Asian cinema in France, which will celebrate its 30th edition next year .

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Jean-Marc Thérouanne

In this period of wokism, I think that the Americans thought that it was not fair, that, until now, no great Asian actress had won this Oscar.

And there it was the greatest Asian actress of the moment, Michelle Yeoh.

She had already had a huge role in

, by Taiwanese director Ang Lee, in 1999, and she has already appeared in a lot of films.

I also think the hugely successful phenomenon of

, by Jon Chu, it was the first time in Hollywood that they had a movie that was so successful at the box office, it certainly made Hollywood businessmen think that maybe we should fix it an injustice towards this very great international actress.

I would also like that we do not give prices on skin colors, but only, because she is a great actress.

And not, because she's Asian.

I still think that we must be wary of wanting to characterize too much, to brand people too much with their ethnic origin.

It is not a good thing.

We must first look at their talent.

Me, I have this very French vision, that we must always look at the man or the woman and not this strategy of quotas which seems to be perverse and which is basically a racial and therefore racist way of organizing prices.

For Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, it's a sign of hope and possibility.

In addition, for a woman of a certain age.

She is 60 years old.

Do you think that we have passed a new stage in the attitude, in the gaze of the Hollywood cinema industry

I think that it is not only in the attitude of Hollywood cinema that we are changing this look.

Look at the French scale, the immense success of Davy Chou with his

.

There, we also realize that there are great French talents of Asian origin, as there are great French Afro-French talents with

Alice Diop's wonderful

I think we are in a society that takes into account all the diversity of the world and the diversity of the world is also found close to home.

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