South China Morning Post


Michelle Yeoh Interview


by Winnie Chung

The latest Bond lethal weapon lopes into the Peak Cafe armed only with a mobile phone and her trademark beam. Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng is looking good, even in jeans, denim shirt and Polo sweater.

A two-week break from an intense promotion schedule has obviously refreshed the 35-year-old Malaysian-born Hong Kong actress who has been winning rave reviews as Chinese secret agent Wai Lin who goes blow for blow with Agent 007 in Tomorrow Never Dies.

"The promotion has been harder work than making the film," Yeoh says, with a mock groam. "But then they say that only the Bond films have the publicity of the magnitude."

Yeoh is pleased nevertheless: "I knew it was a good movie for my career but I didn't expect it to be that incredible."

And the past month has certainly been incredible and, at times, nerve-wracking even for a spunky fighter like Yeoh. She was plunged into a world of private jets, helicopters and gala premieres around the globe - almost like a movie in itself.

In the interim, she inadvertently left her personal assistant behind, lost a suitcase and panicked over the late delivery of her premiere outfits by French designer Azzedine Alaia and Hong Kong's Barney Cheng. (They finally arrived on time.)

"At the end of all that, I just went with the flow. I was going 'all right, if I have to go in my blue jeans, it's fine. No problem!'," she laughs.

During the New York promotion leg, she had to fly from New York to Washington and take a helicopter to Baltimore, then by helicopter back to Washington to catch a flight to Singapore via New York and London. Her assistant missed all the connecting flights and Yeoh ended up flying into Singapore alone, in the same dress she had left New York in.

"I walked out of the airport in this little dress and told myself: 'It's fine. It's cool. You're a movie star, just put on your shades and people will forgive you if you look a little weird.'" she adds, laughing.

Although Yeoh did a lot of publicity rounds in the United States when Jackie Chan's Supercop was released there, nothing she did then prepared her for the full onslaught of international promotion and the world gala premiere in London.

"I really didn't know what to expect; it was my first premiere and everything was so hyped up that it would make you nervous even if you weren't initially," she recalls.

"The roughest was pulling into the entrance for the premieres. The minute you get out of the car, it is incredible. The camera flashes are like fireworks and there are people cheering your name. I wasn't nervous about the film because word-of-mouth had been very good. It was just being there, going into it and the whole atmosphere. Nothing prepares you for that soundbite that you have to do.

"In London, there were about 30 to 40 television reporters on both sides. I didn't know what to do, where to turn, how long to stay; I was a little shy and a little nervous. It was very, very difficult."

Thank God for good friends, sighs Yeoh.

Close friends such as Pansy and Josie Ho, and Margie Yang (the first Mrs Dickson Poon) and her god-daughter Dee Dee Poon were on hand to lend moral support.

"It was great having them around. Every time I got nervous and said: 'I'm not getting out of the car,' they would say: 'It's all right, you look great. Now go out,'" she says.

Despite her whirl in the surreal world of Hollywood, Yeoh still has her head very firmly on her shoulders. She has not changed, she insists, and her priorities remain the same: "Family, friends, and career". In that order.

She said the hype was now part of her work and career. "The most important thing is that you have really good friends and family, and when you go back to them, it's like 'what?'. You carry on as who you are. It was great at the time and you have fun but it would be a shame if you get carried away into thinking that it's how it should be," says the former Miss Malaysia.

So what next after Bond? Yeoh doesn't know; she is, she repeats, going with the flow. She has turned down a rewritten version of Confucius Brown, which had originally been offered to Chan.

"It wasn't something we wanted to do," she explains. "The Bond film is so huge that you have to be careful what you do next. At the end of the day, it's going to be who you work with.

"With all this hype that's going round, MGM [Bond's producers] has a standing order that says: 'We want to do another project with Michelle.' The great thing right now is that they're bringing in writers to tailor-make something for me rather than see what's out there in the market."

Yeoh is not in any hurry, having already found out how much time it takes to get any project going in Hollywood. She says the scripts that have been coming in have been "a good mix" of action and dramatic roles.

"[Director] Roger Spottiswoode said to me: 'You speak the language, you don't have to be just an Asian actress. Don't limit yourself to these boundaries.'

"In that sense, horizons have broadened. In Tomorrow Never Dies, you get to see the feminine side as well as the action. People noticed that I don't only have to do action."

She would like to tackle a romantic comedy or a dramatic role, or "a show about China that's pro-China for a change" and another action movie. And she is not ruling out another Hong Kong production.

"You know, I took [stunt director] Philip Kwok and his crew for this film and they learned a lot. It was a very good exchange. When people work a lot with each other, they learn to get along and live without so many constraints. I think we should have more co-productions," she says.

"That's what this is all about ... learning. Not leaving one for the other.

"Now is a difficult time to get finance for films in Hong Kong so it is a good time to go and learn, and when the time is right, you come back. This is like home, we all want the market to do well."

Right now, Yeoh is looking forward to a quiet Lunar New Year with her family in Ipoh, Malaysia, and putting the dazzle and the glamour away for a while.

"When you look at it, I've done so much and been through a lot. It's been a good interesting life; I've lived a lot of lifetimes in one."

Tomorrow Never Dies is scheduled to open in Hong Kong on January 22