JUST IN-Oscars 2023: Michelle Yeoh becomes first Asian Best Actress winner

Michelle Yeoh has become the first Asian winner of the best actress Oscar, for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The creative multiverse adventure also won best picture, best original screenplay and best director.

Accepting her statuette, Yeoh said: “For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities.

“And ladies don’t let anybody tell you that you are ever past your prime.”

The 60-year-old enjoyed a late surge in momentum in this year’s Oscars race, ultimately overtaking the early frontrunner Cate Blanchett.

“This is proof that dreams do come true,” Yeoh said.

“I have to dedicate this to all the moms in the world because they are the superheroes, and without them, none of us would be here tonight.”

Yeoh is only the second woman of colour ever to win best actress – following Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball more than two decades ago.

Everything Everywhere All at Once follows a laundrette owner, played by Yeoh, who must tap into different versions of herself in the multiverse in order to save the world.

Elsewhere, Brendan Fraser capped his extraordinary comeback by winning an Oscar for his performance in The Whale.

The 54-year-old won best actor after years away from the Hollywood spotlight.

Thanking the film’s director, Fraser said: “I’m grateful to Darren Aronofsky for throwing me a creative lifeline.

“I started in this business 30 years ago, and things didn’t come easily to me, but there was a facility that I didn’t appreciate at the time until it stopped, and I just wanted to say thank you for this acknowledgement.”

Addressing his fellow nominees, he said: “You laid your whale-sized hearts so we could see into your souls, like no-one else could do, and it is my honour to be named alongside you in this category.”

Fraser was a huge film star at the turn of the millennium, starring in films such as George of the Jungle and The Mummy.

But he spent years out of the spotlight as he struggled to recapture his earlier success, mostly taking on smaller roles.

That changed when he was cast in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, as an overweight professor trying to reconnect with his daughter.

Fraser transformed his appearance for the film – which also won best make-up and hairstyling.

Ke Huy Quan’s emotional speech

Yeoh’s co-star Ke Huy Quan won best supporting actor at the ceremony, while his co-star Jamie Lee Curtis won best supporting actress.

Much like Fraser, Quan has enjoyed a comeback narrative this awards season. The actor catapulted back into the spotlight thanks to his role in the madcap sci-fi adventure.

He told the audience: “Dreams are something you have to believe in – I almost gave up on mine.”

The 51-year-old took an extended break from acting after rising to fame as a child star in films such as The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

In an emotional speech, the Vietnamese actor said: “They say stories like this only happen in the movies – I cannot believe it is happening to me. This is the American dream.

“My journey started on a boat, I spent a year in a refugee camp, and somehow I ended up here, on Hollywood’s biggest stage… Thank you so much for welcoming me back.”

Curtis’s supporting actress win marks her first Oscar in her 45-year acting career.

“I know it looks like I’m standing up here by myself but I am not, I am hundreds of people,” Curtis said in her acceptance speech. “The entire group of artists who made this movie – we just won an Oscar.”

The film also won best editing, best original screenplay and best directing for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – jointly known as Daniels.

All Quiet on the Western Front won best international feature as well as best original score, best production design and best cinematography.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was named best animated feature. The Mexican filmmaker said: “Animation is cinema, animation is not a genre and animation is ready to be taken to the next step.”

Wakanda Forever’s Ruth E Carter repeated the best costume design victory she scored with the original film. She dedicated the prize to her mother, who died aged 101 last week.

There was a British win for The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. The adaptation of the Charlie Mackesy book, which aired on BBC One over Christmas, won best animated short.

The award for best documentary feature film went to Navalny, about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the events related to his 2020 poisoning.

In his speech, director Daniel Roher dedicated the award to Navalny and political prisoners around the world, saying: “Alexei, the world has not forgotten your vital message to the world.”

Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, added: “Alexei, I am dreaming of the day you will be free and our country will be free, stay strong my love.”

There was a win in the best sound category for Top Gun: Maverick – one of the biggest box office hits of the past year – while Naatu Naatu from RRR won best original song.

Jimmy Kimmel’s best Oscars jokes

The 95th Academy Awards ceremony is being hosted by US chat show host Jimmy Kimmel, who opened with a monologue which reflected on the last 12 months in the film industry.

“They say Hollywood is running out of ideas. I mean Steven Spielberg had to make a movie about Steven Spielberg,” he joked, referring to the director’s autobiographical best picture nominee The Fabelmans.

He also paid tribute to composer John Williams, the oldest nominee in Oscars history. “John turned 91 last month, and he’s still scoring, if you know what I mean,” Kimmel quipped.

Reflecting on the mixed year Hollywood has had, Kimmel said: “Batgirl became the first superhero to be defeated by the accounting department.”

The US comic also made reference to Avatar: The Way of Water, which he said was “another opportunity for James Cameron to do what he loves doing more than anything else – drowning Kate Winslet” (the actress also appeared in Cameron’s Titanic).

“It was a big year for diversity and inclusion,” Kimmel continued, “we have nominees from every corner of Dublin.” The Banshees of Inisherin has four acting nominations, including Colin Farrell and Kerry Condon.

“Five Irish actors are nominated tonight which means the odds of another fight on stage just went way up.”

Finally – Kimmel referenced the event that overshadowed last year’s ceremony – Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.

“If anyone here commits an act of violence during the show, you will be awarded best actor, and permitted to give a 19-minute speech,” Kimmel said, to much laughter.

This is the chat show host’s third time hosting the Academy Awards. He most recently presided over the 2018 event.

• Courtesy: BBC