Michelle Yeoh receives top U.S. civilian honor

Michelle Yeoh recalling working on Tomorrow Never Dies in a video

Michelle Yeoh, who played a Chinese secret agent in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies, this week received the highest U.S. civilian honor.

Yeoh was one of 19 people awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She previously won an Oscar for the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The Medal of Freedom is given out by the U.S. president each year. It’s awarded to those who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” according to its definition on Wikipedia.

Many politicians receive the award. This year the award was given to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Al Gore, and former Secretary of State John Kerry. The current U.S. president, Joseph Biden, was given one when he was vice president under then-President Barack Obama.

But such awards are given to people in various fields, including sports, business, and entertainment. Another one of the 2024 recipients was Medgar Evans, a civil rights activist, who was assassinated in 1963.

Yeoh played agent Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies. She and Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond are both investigating a media baron played by Jonathan Pryce. The businessman is trying to start a war between the U.K. and China to expand the ratings of his worldwide news channel. Yeoh’s martial arts skills were a highlight of the Bond movie.

Once upon a time, being a Bond woman was seen as a curse: You get a big movie and then disappear into obscurity. That hasn’t been the case for a while but Yeoh’s post-Bond career stands out.