Malaysian actress Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh honoured with Doctorate

By Patrick Beech

Celebrated Malaysian actress, Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh was recently awarded an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts by the American Film Institute (AFI), a non-profit organisation dedicated to film-making and its various disciplines.

A beaming Yeoh went on stage and started her speech by thanking AFI for making her mother “the happiest mother in the world”, according to a report by The Hollywood Reporter.

“You have made my mother the happiest mother in the world today. I think now she actually thinks I’m an adult with a real job. I had to keep telling her, ‘I’m not a real doctor, I don’t write prescriptions, mum.’ But she can go around telling everyone, ‘My daughter is a doctor‘,” Yeoh, who turned 60 on Aug 6, said.

Yeoh said when she started her acting career in Hong Kong, she trained at the gym with stuntmen who taught her how to fall.

Present at the ceremony were the film school’s Class of 2022 graduates. Yeoh had some advice for them.

“What I want to share with you today is that our slips and stumbles are the secrets to our flight. Every person who has ever stepped on the stage has had their fair share of crashes. Trust me, that’s part of the deal. Success without failure is called luck,” the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star said.

Yeoh also told the graduates that the art of story-telling is a privilege that they shouldn’t take for granted.

“We are time travellers, world builders, change-makers. A scene you shoot on an average Tuesday may seed the dreams of a young child somewhere far away, inspire a future superstar or even begin an important conversation in our society,” she said.

 

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