Michelle Yeoh, former beauty queen who rides flying motorcycles onto moving trains, is nothing short of amazing. She is the first lady of Hong Kong action and the only one tough enough to tangle with masters like Jet Li, Sammo Hung, and Chow Yun Fat. Even Jackie Chan has said she's the ONLY woman who should be allowed to do fight scenes! Plus, having just inked a three picture deal with Media Asia, a major production and distribution house in Hong Kong, to start Mythical Films, her newest film "The Touch" will turn her from being a world class film star to a world class film maker.
Martial arts film diva Michelle Yeoh hardly needs to speak before getting noticed. The minute she stepped into the LA suite to meet ASTYLE for this exclusive interview, you could feel the energy radiating from the 5' 4" incredibly toned "Bond girl." All eyes are on her, and not only because of her long silky hair and the fact she's made a career out of being an actress, a beauty, and the best female martial arts star around. Its because of the genuine smile that somehow mesmerizes and bewitches all who see it.
These days, of course, there are more reasons for that smile to be even more radiant. As Michelle says, "I’ve always been very lucky in that I’ve always been given opportunities – but when I do get those breaks, I am very, very ambitious. I will go and do my very best, because I don’t settle for anything less."
Talking about her success, her life, and her latest projects, she uses the word "lucky" and "fortunate" ten times as much as she uses any other adjectives. Indeed, one would think she had to be blessed, to have withstood the calamities she has and still come out on top. Born in Ipoh, Malaysia, where she was taught both Malay and English in school, Yeoh grew up in the tropics of wide open spaces and endless summer. Every moment she could she was on the kinetic go--swimming, bicycling, boating, playing table tennis or squash. "I was a tomboy--and still am!" she says good-humoredly.
Young
Michelle took up ballet and eventually went to London to study at the Royal
Academy of Dance, but to the great fortune of moviegoing audiences worldwide,
Michelle’s dance career did not go as planned. She sustained a spinal injury
before graduating college and eventually wound up getting a degree in choreography
and drama. An event Michelle says "was a blessing in disguise." Returning to
Malaysia to start a ballet school, her mother secretly entered Michelle in the
national beauty pageant and following through on a lark, she won first place
and was crowned Miss Malaysia.
Her success in the pageant led to a commercial shoot in Hong Kong, where she was cast opposite Jackie Chan. Afterward, she was cast in her first role of a much-bullied social worker in "Owl vs. Dumbo." But her second film, "Yes, Madam" where she was cast "correctly" as a tough police officer, high kicking and fist-slugging like one of the boys, catapulted her into the Hong Kong movie stardom by 1985. Retiring after only a few years to marry Dickson Poon, a Hong Kong business magnate and multimillionaire, she eventually returned with the insurance-company-rankling "Supercop."
As
Jackie Chan’s co-star, Michelle performed a series of incredible stunts herself
– at one point Michelle, entirely unfamiliar with motorcycles, jumped one onto
a moving train. The script also called for other outrageous stunts, including
one where the hero leaps through space from a building rooftop, averting death
only by snatching at a rope ladder dangling from a helicopter. "Yeah yeah yeah
– I’ll do that!" said Michelle, when told of the helicopter stunt. "No no, I
don’t think so," replied director Stanley Tong. "If you do that, what’s Jackie
going to do?" Apparently Michelle was content clinging to the side of a speeding
van!
A
few years after its initial Hong Kong release, the rights for "Supercop" – which
was previously available in the States only in a handful of Chinatown video
stores – were purchased by Miramax, which launched a worldwide re-release. Suddenly,
Michelle Yeoh was in the global spotlight, working publicity for the movie on
three continents. The attention was well-deserved and led her directly to her
next project – the 007 franchise, "Tomorrow Never Dies."
Stealing scenes from Brosnan and every other character on the screen, Michelle was cast as a Chinese special intelligence agent and redefined the image of the prototypical Bond girl - destroying all stereotypes associated to it. "The director and the producers were looking for a woman of the 90s, a woman who was on a par with James Bond." she says. "It was time to take the Bond series into the 21st century, and the roles for women now are a lot stronger; not necessarily more butch, but able to maintain that balance of being feminine and being able to take care of themselves at the same time."
What's
great was Michelle won the role not originally scripted for an Asian, something
uncommon in Hollywood for a lead character. "There was no definition of where
[Bond’s co-star] came from. She could have been Russian, she could have been
Chinese, she could have been anyone," Michelle points out, drawing attention
to the fact that "they were not looking specifically for an Asian. [Cross-cultural
casting] is acceptable, and people are more and more aware of that." But, she
concedes, "changes like this always take time."
As for her next project with Media Asia, group managing director Thomas Chung is "delighted to be entering this agreement with Michelle ... It gives us the chance to draw upon not only her talents as a performer, but also her invaluable experience in the international film industry.
Today, Terence Chang is her manager and represents only two actors --Yeoh and Chow Yun-Fat. "This business is so crazy," says Chang, who has successfully shepherded the career of John Woo in Hollywood, "that I only want to work with nice people, and Michelle's one of the nicest."
Until
the release of Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon," Michelle is currently keeping up with a frantic publicity schedule.
Also considering another film, "Mint Condition" with John Woo and Terence Chang
as the producers, one thing is for sure: Whatever project she picks, Michelle
has many more death-defying stunts and fight scenes to go.
Just one of the many questions in the interview:
ASTYLE: Well what about performing your own stunts. You have as many injuries on your body as Jackie Chan. Does it ever worry you?
Michelle Yeoh: You know for me, when I am doing a film, that character is me. The things that are being shown on film are supposed to be me and I truly enjoy doing that, because outside of that situation you can't do it in real life. You can't just go running up the wall and jump off it, or whatever it is. It is very challenging physically and mentally as well. To be able to tell yourself, to be able to train to a certain level where you can start performing these kinds of sometimes off-beat crazy stunts. I do them and you have to be very honest and careful about what you do. There is no absolute guarantee that you are going to be completely safe. You've seen in many instances, anytime you have a stunt, there is ALWAYS that risk factor. You know a lot of the time you find that with the bigger stunts, people generally don't get hurt. It is always the easier ones, the ones you know you've already done a gazillion times before that things happen. We're all human, things happen that we don't want to, because all we want is to complete the movie. Even in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" I was badly injured and I had knee surgery. (She was doing a jumping kick that tore her ACL) But I'm recovering from that and moving on..."