By now almost everyone knows that Michelle Yeoh, the Malaysian actress, became the first Asian to win the SAG award for best female actor in a leading role in Everything Everywhere All at Once. The SAG Awards have been held since 1995, and the event is attended by some of the biggest names in Hollywood. The awards ceremony celebrates individual performances as well as ensemble casts, and is widely regarded as a precursor to the Academy Awards, as many of the winners of the SAG Awards go on to win Oscars.
To Michelle’s credit, she congratulated James Hong for achieving a lifelong dream when he won his first prize from the Screen Actors Guild. Michelle introduced James Hong by noting that the 94-year-old had been acting “since there were only 49 states,” and it took nearly seven decades of work to get him to the SAG Awards stage.
“I got my first SAG card 70 years ago. My first movie was with Clark Gable,” Hong said as he accepted the ensemble honor for Cast in a Motion Picture. “Back in those days, I have to tell you this, the leading roles were played by these guys with their eyes taped up,” he continued while his Everything Everywhere cast members — including Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu — stood beside him. “And the producer said that Asians were not good enough, and they are not box office. But, look at us now, huh?”
Hong then joked that Jamie Lee Curtis, who earlier in the evening won the Female Actor in a Supporting Role trophy, was a welcome addition to the project’s cast. “We’re not all Chinese,” he said. “But, ‘Jamie Lee’ is a good Chinese name.” He finished the speech by expressing hope that he’ll return to the SAG Awards after he turns 100.
Hong appeared in Everything Everywhere All at Once as Gong Gong, the father to Yeoh’s Evelyn, a laundromat owner who traverses multiple universes while protecting family ties and her business from a nefarious version of her daughter (Hsu) as well as different iterations of Curtis’ menacing IRS inspector, Deirdre.
In her SAG Awards acceptance speech, Yeoh also said that she hoped her performance would stand as an inspiration to Asian women.
“I think if I speak, my heart will explode. SAG-AFTRA, to get this from you, who understand what it is to get here, every one of you know the journey, the roller coaster ride, the ups and downs, but, most important, we never give up,” she said, later adding: “This is not just for me; this is for every little girl that looks like me…. Thank you for giving me a seat at the table because so many of us need this. We want to be seen, we want to be heard, and tonight you’ve shown us that it is possible, and I’m grateful. And my mom will be eternally grateful to you!”