00:03As a theatre kid at heart, I am so excited to welcome John M. Chu to the stage.
00:18Enough about me. What do you think about me? No, um, Michelle, we're here. Oh my gosh.
00:25Like Director Ang said, it's about time. Only you could command, look at this amount of Asian excellence here today.
00:35Only you could pull everybody out, whether it was going to rain or not, we were showing up.
00:41Today we gather on this stretch of sidewalk that has been, that has seen legends pass over it for generations.
00:49And now it receives something rare. Not just a star, a force. My girl, Michelle Yeoh. Yes.
01:00Michelle, you have always moved through the world like royalty who never needs to announce it.
01:06You carry dignity like a superhero cape. Effortless, natural. Anyone who knows her knows that that's, she's in that every,
01:15seven in the morning, six in the morning, midnight, in the middle of a shoot.
01:19She always carries that. And by far, not just my hero, but my coolest friend. An icon in all senses
01:27of the word.
01:27Before her Oscar, before Hollywood truly knew her name, Michelle Yeoh was already redefining action cinema in Hong Kong.
01:35She performed her own stunts, jumped motorcycles onto moving trains, hung from helicopters.
01:43She was building a new image of Asian women on screen long before the West even knew what was coming.
01:51From the moment I saw you in Tomorrow Never Dies, you broke, yes, you broke precedent with what a Bond
01:57girl, woman could be.
02:00You were not decoration. You were not rescue bait. You were a partner, an equal, the spy who did not
02:07need saving.
02:08And I was in high school at the midnight showing in my local theater when I saw a little movie
02:14called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
02:16I'd never seen that. The theater was packed with young people reading subtitles. Yes, and they loved it.
02:24The huge grins on their face. It was no apology. A movie not trying to be invited, but just inviting
02:30people in.
02:31I have never seen a crowd so amped cheering on their feet in the middle of the movie during that
02:36rooftop fight.
02:38Literally high-fiving each other. And you weren't just flying across rooftops.
02:42You were lifting a generation with you, myself included, because I knew what a global storytelling could look like at
02:49that kind of scale.
02:50While we were shooting Crazy Rich Asians in Malaysia, you walked down that Tyrosol staircase.
02:56You looked at Rachel Chu, played by Constance Wu, in the eye and said five words,
03:02You will never be enough.
03:06Five words performed in a way that sucked the air out of the room.
03:11Boom. The crew stopped breathing. I went to tears.
03:15Constance couldn't even get through the scene because it dug so deep to the truth that we all feel, especially
03:23around you.
03:25And then there's the Mahjong scene, of course.
03:27Two women, two continents, two generations, not villain or hero, not right and wrong.
03:33Two equal superpowers negotiating love, pride, and sacrifice.
03:38And then everything everywhere all at once.
03:40Oh my God.
03:41Holy moly.
03:43The Daniels are here.
03:45You made us laugh.
03:47You made us ugly cry.
03:49You made us look at our parents and our children differently.
03:53You broke open the multiverse and somehow made it intimate and so deeply personal.
03:59You are one of the very few artists who can cross generations like that.
04:03Midnight crowds in 2000, comic book fans in 2021, cinema elites in 2022, and even TikTok kids in 2025.
04:12Because in Wicked, your first musical, you became not just madamorable, but flip it around, world-class wonder.
04:26And Wicked Witch.
04:28Elegant, devastating, defying all expectations.
04:30And yes, Michelle is the empress of culture, classy as hell.
04:33Her knowledge of watches, check out her watch, it's amazing.
04:36And jewelry could humble a museum curator.
04:39She knows the best restaurants in any city on Earth and will absolutely bring you there if you're around.
04:45She drinks life the way she drinks champagne, fully, generously, with a sparkle in her eye.
04:51And if you are in her orbit, she will bring you.
04:54And even though she is young enough to be our sister, she's also the mother to us all.
04:59Capital M. Mother.
05:02Now, when we were shooting weekends on Wicked, she would send baskets of fruit to my house to make sure
05:09my family was fed.
05:11To make sure we were healthy.
05:13She became close friends with my mother.
05:16Oh, God.
05:17Bad idea.
05:19Don't let her do that.
05:20Because I've watched them clink champagne glasses together, laughing like lifelong sisters, causing so much trouble,
05:26I might have reprimanded them several times for being too loud on set.
05:30But she took care of me on Crazy Rich Asians like I was her own son, quietly, without fanfare, just
05:35presence,
05:36an ante to my five children, just love.
05:39She said,
05:40For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight,
05:43this is a beacon of hope and possibility when you won your Best Actress Award.
05:49The first Asian woman to do so, not supporting, lead.
05:54Yes, a career win, but even more so, a generational shift, making a fact that no one could ever dispute.
06:02You have consistently mastered your craft, topping yourself over and over and over again,
06:08insisting on complexity, on power and humanity, and you've done it without losing your own.
06:13This star is permanent, set into the sidewalk for the world to walk and remember.
06:19But your true imprint was never going to be in concrete.
06:24It is here in us, in me, and my family, and everybody who's here today, forever.
06:31Like a handprint on our hearts.
06:34And that, Michelle Yeoh, like you, will stand forever.
06:39Michelle, everybody.
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