“I’m very happy… I’m proud of my daughter. She is very hardworking,” Janet Yeoh told reporters after her daughter became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress.

“I’ll call her to come back to Malaysia and celebrate very soon. Next month is my birthday.”

She and other relatives and friends of Yeoh’s were gathered at a live screening of the awards ceremony at a cinema in KL, where there were loud cheers, embraces and tears of joy the second the announcement was made.

“It was such a jaw-dropping moment,” Yeoh’s niece Vicki said.

“I was speechless, I cried. Everything was, it happened so quickly. We are so happy that she won, that our aunty won.

“We kept telling her: ‘You will win… you’re going to stand on stage with the golden man,” she said, referring to the Oscar statuette.

The Malaysian actress won the award for her role in the sci-film “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” beating Cate Blanchett, who had long been favourite to win a third Oscar for “Tar”.

Emily Ng, a Yeoh fan, said: “She is the pride not just for Malaysia, but she is the pride of Asia as well.”

In Hong Kong, where Yeoh worked for a decade before becoming a Hollywood star, secretary for culture, sports and tourism Kevin Yeung congratulated Yeoh, calling her a “shining star with impressive achievements”.

“This is a testimony to the strong potential of Hong Kong’s talents and film industry,” he said.