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Host Jerrod Carmichael started the 80th Golden Globe Awards by acknowledging the elephant in the room: last year’s controversy over the Globe organization’s lack of minorities, which helped keep the show off the air in 2022. But he helped defuse the issue by razzing the Globes’ past — and it didn’t hurt that winners included Angela Bassett, 64, best supporting film actress for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Abbott Elementary’s Tyler James Williams and Quinta Brunson won too. “We just made history with this nomination and with this award and it belongs to all of us, all of you!” Bassett rousingly said. Here are some more of the most memorably historic moments of a show that gave some over-50 talents their due:
(Left to right) Michelle Yeoh in "Everything Everywhere All at Once"; Yeoh accepting her Golden Globe Award for best actress in a motion picture – musical or comedy.
A24; Rich Polk/NBC via Getty Images
Michelle Yeoh channels the power of turning 60
Best actress in a motion picture - musical or comedy winner Michelle Yeoh showed the scrappy spirit of the uncanny athlete she plays in Everything Everywhere All at Once. She talked about the double hurdles she faced in Hollywood: acting while Asian and aging. “When I first came to Hollywood it was a dream come true — until I got here!” she recalled. “Someone said to me, ‘You speak English!’ I said, yeah, the flight here was about 13 hours long so I learned.” Few moments were more delicious than Yeoh’s return to the limelight 23 years after she first broke out in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. “I turned 60 last year — and I think all of you women understand this — as the days, the years and the numbers get bigger, it seems that the opportunities start to get smaller as well. I thought, ‘Well, hey, come on girl, you had a really, really good run, you worked with some of the best people. Steven Spielberg, Jim Cameron, Danny Boyle, and so it’s all good.’ And then came the best gift, Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The music came up to play her off, but Yeoh snapped, “Shut up! Please! I can beat you up [like her movie character], and that’s serious.” She finished giving credit to colleagues including her costar, “my hot dog lover Jamie Lee Curtis” (hot dogs feature in an Everything Everywhere scene we won’t spoil). Before graciously concluding, she also said, “And this is for all the shoulders that I stand on.”
White Lotus star Jennifer Coolidge embraces midlife bloom
Jennifer Coolidge, who cracked the crowd up as an awards presenter, turned more emotional when she won a supporting actress award for The White Lotus. She was funny, but she spoke painful truths about what it’s like to spend 20 years laboring in small roles as your hopes evaporate and years accumulate. And then she spoke exhilaratingly about the thrill of joining the A-list at 61 in back-to-back masterpiece shows. She teased the show’s creator Mike White, 61, for (spoiler!) killing off her character, but her tribute made him cry. And then their show won best limited series, signifying his own midlife renaissance as a hitmaker after years as a cult figure. Thinking about the both of them is enough to make us sniffle ourselves.
