Michelle Yeoh won the Best Actress award Sunday night at the Oscars, becoming the first Asian woman to receive the Academy Award in the category.
“Thank you to the Academy — this is history in the making!” Yeoh said in her acceptance speech.
“To all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities,” she said. “This is proof that dreaming big and dreams do come true.”
Yeoh won the award for her performance as Evelyn — a laundromat owner who is being audited by federal authorities while she attempts to navigate the multiverse — in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The film won seven awards, including Best Picture.
“And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime,” Yeoh added in her remarks, an apparent jab at CNN host Don Lemon, who sparked criticism last month for saying that a woman is in her prime only up to “maybe her 40s.”
Yeoh, 60, dedicated a portion of her speech late Sunday to her mother and all mothers, saying that they are the real “superheroes.”
“I have to dedicate this to my mom [and] all the moms in the world because they are really the superheroes and without them none of us would be here tonight,” she said.
Yeoh also won a Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award for her role as Evelyn this year.