So the filmmakers switched up the roles, making Yeoh the immigrant laundromat owner who deals with a failing business and a fractured relationship with her daughter—and, in a supernatural twist, transverses universes as a superhero version of herself.

“Think about it,” Yeoh said in the same interview with Swisher. “This is the first time you’re seeing an older Asian immigrant woman being the superhero, having the opportunity to demonstrate these kind of martial arts skills. It’s normally, yes, for a younger version. It could have been a girl. But in general, it’s always an older man.”

Both Yeoh and the film have been 2023’s awards darlings—with Yeoh nabbing a Golden Globe and beating out her primary competitor, Blanchett, to win the Independent Spirit Award and the National Board of Review trophy. Everything Everywhere All at Once earned 11 Oscar nominations, more than any other film this year, with other acting nominations going to Yeoh’s costars Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ke Huy Quan. Yeoh had another historically significant win in late February, when she became the first Asian actor to win the best-actress category at the SAG Awards.

According to calculations by The New York Times, only 23 of 1,808 acting nominees in the Oscars’ history could be identified as Asian. And of those 23, only four—before Sunday evening—won their category.

Shortly after receiving her Oscar nod, Michelle Yeoh referred to the Asian community’s long history of exclusion from Hollywood’s glitziest awards show.

“Ninety-five years of Oscars…Of course, I’m over the moon, but I feel a little sad because I know we know there have been amazing actresses from Asia that come before me, and I stand on their shoulders,” the actor told the Times. “I hope this will shatter that frigging glass ceiling to no end, that this will continue, and we will see more of our faces up there.”

This story originally appeared on Vanity Fair.