Michelle Yeoh by Julian Ungano for Madame Figaro July 28th, 2023

Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng (born 6 August 1962) is a Malaysian actress. Yeoh is credited as Michelle Khan in her early Hong Kong films. She rose to fame in the 1990s after starring in a series of Hong Kong action films where she performed her own stunts, such as Yes, Madam (1985), Police Story 3: Supercop (1992) and Holy Weapon (1993). Internationally, she is known for her roles in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Ang Lee's martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The latter role earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress nomination.

Her other works include Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), Reign of Assassins (2010), Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016), and The Lady (2011), where she portrayed Aung San Suu Kyi. In 2018, she starred in the American romantic comedy-drama film Crazy Rich Asians, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination as part of its ensemble. She also co-starred in the 2018 film Master Z: Ip Man Legacy and the 2019 film Last Christmas. She was cast as original character Ying Nan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). In 2022, she starred in the science-fiction film Everything Everywhere All at Once.

On television, Yeoh is known for her role in the Star Trek franchise as Philippa Georgiou in the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Discovery from 2017 to 2020. An untitled spin-off series set to star Yeoh was announced in 2019.

The film review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes ranked her the greatest action heroine of all time in 2008. In 1997, she was chosen by People as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World", and in 2009 the same magazine listed her as one of the "35 All-Time Screen Beauties". In 2022, Time named her one of the world's 100 most influential people on its annual listicle.