Ke Huy Quan honors Michelle Yeoh for EW's 2022 Entertainers of the Year: 'Being on set with her was just a dream'

From her action-packed Hong Kong movie beginnings to last year's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Michelle Yeoh has repeatedly demonstrated her chops as an actress and physical force on screen. But the star's full abilities were on display as never before this year in the science fiction-comedy-drama Everything Everywhere All at Once, where she played laundromat owner Evelyn — as well as some of her very different variations — across the universe. The result was proof positive that Yeoh, 60, is one of our greatest stars, even when she has hot dogs for fingers. She also appeared in Paul Feig's The School for Good and Evil and voiced characters in both Minions: The Rise of Gru and Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, proving she truly was everywhere, all at once in 2022.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom actor Ke Huy Quan — who plays Yeoh's onscreen husband Waymond in Everything Everywhere — pays tribute to his costar.

Getty Images Michelle Yeoh; (inset) Ke Huy Quan

I followed Michelle's career all these years, from Yes, Madam, to Supercop, to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was her movie Crazy Rich Asians that really got me excited about acting again. Being on set with her was just a dream. She's so fun to be around. She's generous, she's kind, and it was just incredible. On our movie set, nobody had any ego, everybody was very down to earth, and humble, and we all came to set on time, or early, because we wanted to be there, we just wanted to spend time with each other.

Michelle and Jamie Lee Curtis, they really encouraged me, and they were there every step of the way, helping me. A lot of the takes we would do, I would look to them and would say, "Michelle, Jamie, was that good? Was that okay?" They would often times give me notes when needed but most importantly give me confidence and encouragement when I lacked it.

If you look at Michelle's career, she's never really played a character like Evelyn. She's always played that heroine, the queen. She would have her back straight, she would walk very elegantly. She threw all that out the window for this role, to play this character, somebody who is weighed down with a lot of responsibilities. And life isn't going that well for her. She played it so well. To be on the set, and witness her give that performance, was incredible.

—As told to Clark Collis

More EW Entertainers of the Year 2022:

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• Nick Kroll celebrates Harry Styles

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