Michelle Yeoh made Oscars history, becoming the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress, for her role as overworked launderette worker Evelyn Wang in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The 60-year-old actress told the audience: “I have to dedicate this to my mum and all the mums in the world because they are really the superheroes and without them none of us would be here tonight.
“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibility. This is proof that dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re past your prime.”
Her co-star, Jamie Lee Curtis, 64, who earlier in the evening took the best supporting actress gong, signed a heart with her hands from the audience.
The daughter of Hollywood veterans Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, during her own acceptance speech she looked to the sky and paid tribute to her parents, saying: “My mother and father were both nominated for Oscars in different categories, I just won an Oscar.”
Brendan Fraser took best actor for his role as an obese teacher in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale – completing what has been dubbed the “Bren-aissance” due to his return to Hollywood after nearly 20 years out of the limelight. Accepting his award with tears in his eyes, the 54-year-old Mummy star said: “So this is what the multiverse looks like.
“I thank the academy for this honour… Darren Aronofsky for throwing me a creative lifeline and hauling me aboard the good ship The Whale.”
He went on to thank his family and sons, as well as his co-star in The Whale, Hong Chau. “I want to tell you that only whales can swim at the depths of the talent of Hong Chau,” he said. The film also won best makeup and hairstyling. Fraser’s transformation for the movie took five-hours every day, and his suit weighed around 300lbs.
One month to the day after performing a medley of her biggest hits at Super Bowl LVII—and revealing her second pregnancy in the process—Rihanna took the stage at the Oscars 2023 to perform “Lift Me Up,” her nominated song from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The ballad, an elegiac ode to original Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman—who died of colon cancer in 2020—marks Rihanna’s first solo vocal effort since the release of her last album, Anti, in 2016. She shares writing credit (and the Oscar nomination) with Nigerian singer-songwriter Tems. Skynews