Michelle Yeoh says Berlinale holds special place for her as she collects lifetime award

By Hanna Rantala

BERLIN, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Michelle Yeoh has won some of the acting industry's top honours over her four-decade career, including an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and on Thursday night she will add another: the Berlin Film Festival's Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement.

"Berlinale has always been a very special place for me," Yeoh told Reuters ahead of the festival's opening ceremony.

The star of hits such as "Wicked" and "Crazy Rich Asians" recounted how Berlin was the first festival to invite her to sit on a jury in 1999, an experience that she said opened her eyes to filmmaking beyond Hong Kong.

Yeoh, who rose to fame during the heyday of Hong Kong action films in the 1980s and 1990s, will be the first Asian woman to receive the honour, joining past laureates including Martin Scorsese and Tilda Swinton.

She came to the attention of global audiences with the 1997 James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" followed three years later with the martial arts classic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

Winning an Oscar for "Everything Everywhere All at Once" in 2023 was a blessing, said Yeoh, but that award is just for her performance in one movie.

"A lifetime achievement award is about your path, your journey, your career over the last, I guess, almost 40 years and how I've been resilient and stubborn," said Yeoh.

That journey, she added, included pushing back against stereotypical roles for Asian actors.

"The fact that I am given this award goes to show that us, people who look like me, will be recognised and will be seen more and will be heard," she said.

"But we also have the responsibility to make sure that our voices are heard. We have to speak up."