Michelle Yeoh Is Super Rich Thanks to All of Her Iconic Roles Over the Years

Michelle Yeoh has low-key been taking Hollywood/the world by storm for decades. She got her start starring in Hong Kong action films before pivoting to international blockbusters after becoming a Bond girl in the 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies, and she has more recently taken on roles in Crazy Rich Asians and, of course, Everything Everywhere All at Once. So it should come as no surprise that all her hard work has resulted in a pretty epic net worth. Let's get into it, shall we?

Michelle's acting career is legendary

Her career spans over four-and-a-half decades, and that's a lot of time to build up $$$. One notable early project of hers was Tomorrow Never Dies, a James Bond project from back in 1997 in which the actor starred alongside Pierce Brosnan. Though the film had a $100 million budget, it wound up raking in $333 million because it was so popular. Michelle was even dubbed by co-star Pierce as the “female James Bond,” which goes to show how magnetic her star power really was/continues to be.

Just a few years later in 2000, Michelle starred in her first Mandarin-language martial arts film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The critically-acclaimed film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards (and won four, TYVM), and Michelle's performance earned her a BAFTA Best Actress nomination. Oh, and because she can do it all, here's a lil' PSA that Michelle actually didn’t speak Mandarin at the time and learned all of her lines phonetically.

“She usually plays masters, tough fighters,” mused Jet Li when speaking about Michelle, whom he starred alongside in the 1993 film Tai Chi Master. “The action—I know she can do it. But really acting from the heart, believing the part, makes the movie very special.”

More recently, Michelle's projects have been just as fantastic, and she has continued to give fantastic performance after fantastic performance. Case in point? Her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, which raked in a whopping $103 million worldwide, making it A24's highest-grossing movie of all time. The film has received *so* much positive praise and it scooped a whopping 11 Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. On top of that, Michelle is up for Best Actress for her role in the film and recently won Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Motion Picture at the 2023 Golden Globes on January 10 *and* made history with her win for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role at the 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards by becoming the first Asian woman to win a leading film acting award. TL;DR: She's kicking ass during the 2023 awards season.

In an episode of the Los Angeles Times’s The Envelope podcast back in February, the actor actually opened up about dealing with people who were telling her to retire (!!) from her craft just prior to accepting the lead role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is truly just so 🤯.

“You know, as you get older, the roles get smaller,” Michelle mused on the podcast. “It seems like the numbers go up and these things go narrow and then you start getting relegated to the side more and more. So when Everything Everywhere came…it was very emotional because this means that you are the one who’s leading this whole process, who’s telling the story.” The actor continued, “You know, as you get older, people start saying, ‘Oh yeah, you should retire. You should do this. You should…’ No, guys. Do not tell me what to do. I should be in control of what I am capable of, right?” Let this serve as a reminder to literally never let the haters win!

Other fans of Michelle may recall her role as Eleanor Young in Crazy Rich Asians. As for the actor's salary for the first film, rumors suggest most cast members were paid between $500,000 and $2 million, per StyleCaster. When speaking with Harper's Baazar back in 2018 when the film came out, Michelle opened up about the significance of Asian representation and how it has been changing for the better over the years, saying:

Michelle has also dabbled in some v successful TV franchises

According to her impressive IMDb, Michelle currently has 59 acting credits under her belt and 11 projects planned in the future. And though tons of those ventures have been blockbuster films, some of her buzziest work has actually been for the small screen, including her role in The Witcher: Blood Origin. Per Showbiz Galore, the actor was reportedly paid $70,000 per episode, which adds up to ~$420,000 for the entire season.

“I was already a big fan of The Witcher series because I love this world of fantasy and science fiction and monsters and the ability to do magic and all that,” Michelle told IGN. “I was completely drawn into it, because this is the original story—why do we have the Witcher? Why did we have to sacrifice a hero or heroine to create this Witcher that is able to save us all? And why did we get to this path?” She continued: “The elf kingdom was the golden age. How did we not manage to stay there? And I found that fascinating because this is a story that is a thousand, two, three hundred years ago prior to The Witcher. And for me, that’s always fascinating, mysterious, and interesting. So well, how do you say no to that?”

Plus, from 2017 until 2020, Michelle had a recurring role in Star Trek: Discovery and acted in in 24 episodes over the show's three-year run, which hopefully resulted in some preeeeetty strong paydays.

So what is Michelle Yeoh's net worth, in total?

That would be a whopping $40 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. And, honestly? It'll probably grow sooner rather than later considering Michelle is also set to star in James Cameron’s mega-hit films Avatar 3 and Avatar 4 *and* the highly-anticipated movie adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked.

So 😭 happy 😭 for 😭 her 😭.

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