Gong Li: Michelle Yeoh's success encourages Asian actors
CANNES – Gong Li, one of the best China-born actresses, said on Wednesday that her former co-star Michelle Yeoh’s recent success at the Oscars and Golden Globes was particularly encouraging for Asian actors.
“Since the beginning of the epidemic to now, in fact, the film industry has not been so vibrant, not like it was before, so her award is also an encouragement,” said Gong, who starred in Hollywood period drama Memoirs Of A Geisha (2005) with Yeoh, who is Malaysian, and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.
Yeoh, 60, won Best Actress at both awards shows for her role in multiverse adventure Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022).
“It really was a very special journey, and a very long one,” Gong said. “Well, congratulations to her, because I also take it as an encouragement to fellow Asian actors to enter the world.”
Gong, 57, rose to fame as the star of lush Chinese movies such as Red Sorghum (1988) and Farewell My Concubine (1993) before earning wider recognition in Hollywood films such as Memoirs Of A Geisha and Miami Vice (2006).
She was back on the Cannes Film Festival’s red carpet this week after being on pandemic lockdown for the last three years. China dropped its strict zero-Covid-19 policy, which kept its borders shut for most international travel, in late 2022.
“Firstly, everyone really has to get out, go out, go out of the house, and go abroad to see the world, to go back to how it was before,” said Gong, who has been going to Cannes for more than two decades and was on the Palme d’Or jury in 1997. - REUTERS
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