Michelle Yeoh Breaks Down Her Career, from 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' to 'Wicked'

Then I get this message from him

and it was like, Hi, Michelle.

I have two people who really, really want to talk to you.

And there was like Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo

and they turn around and say, Hi, Michelle.

It's imperative that you come and join us. Imperative.

[laughing]

Like, how do you say no to the two

most incredible creatures on the planet earth?

[light music]

Hello, I'm Michelle Yeoh,

and this is the timeline of my career.

How did I come into acting?

I wanna say by accident.

I was invited to do a commercial

with a very famous actor in Hong Kong.

22-year-old, just graduated and thought, Why not?

And after I did that commercial,

I was offered a film contract.

And then the rest is history.

The first movie that I did has this adorable title

called The Owl vs. Bombo.

I played the damsel in distress.

It was an action film, but I saw the guys,

Sammo Hung, George Lam, they were doing

these incredible stunts and movements and fighting.

It looked acrobatic, and in fact,

they looked like they were dancing.

So, I come from a dance background

and I went up to my producers and I say,

You know, how about you let me try to do some action?

And I guess because D&B at that time

was a fairly new production company

and I was new in town and they thought,

Well, what have we got to lose? Right?

Because action comedies were the biggest sellout

in the Hong Kong cinema at that time.

So my very first action movie was Yes, Madam,

where I played a detective.

[all shouting and grunting]

It was very clear with my director and myself.

I said, I do not want to look like, Oh, she's a fighter.

I wanted to look very normal.

You know, as a detective who,

but the minute she chased down anyone

who was threatening, her skills would come out.

And the most important thing is not

to be able to differentiate it's like,

oh, that's a girl fighting or that's a boy fighting.

When she did what she had to do,

it was, like, just with intensity and magic.

Cynthia Rothrock, she was then world champion.

So, I think for her was, for Cynthia was kind of rough

because, you know, it's different when you are fighting

for a movie and when you are fighting for real.

Of course, she was not in, like, the WMMA,

not the real kind of boxing kind of fighting.

Hers was more a performance, but when it came

to actually taking the hits and giving the blows,

that's a different ball game altogether.

I was very fortunate because I learned my martial arts

or my action beats with the stunt people.

So it really technically was for the camera.

And so we knew how to adjust.

So instead of getting really hit before you can react,

you know how to dodge.

So, if you didn't, you would go boom and go, Oh, ouch.

[laughing]

So, it was a learning curve.

I went on to do a few more,

and fortunately I was invited to do Supercop.

[train horn blaring]

It was a crazy, crazy ass experience.

The action in that particular movie,

now when I watch back, I go, My God,

you must have been insane to say yes to those stunts.

You know, hanging at the side of the van

and going full speed against traffic.

And you are wired in, you're strapped in.

There's nowhere to run.

There's, if someone comes crashing at you,

good luck to you.

And I remember looking at the scene

and seeing myself just being thrown from side to side.

And that was one point when I suddenly go like, whoa.

That was because the other car came too close to us.

That was a shot I could have had broken my neck.

Stanley Tong, the director said to me,

You are on top of this moving van.

The antagonists are inside the van,

and they realize you're up there

and they're gonna start shooting at you through the roof.

So, what happens is you are dodging the bullets, you roll,

and when you roll off the van, Jackie is gonna come up

with his convertible and pick you up.

So, the concept was when I rolled off the van

and I land on Jackie's car, the glass pane,

the front glass pane would break.

And, which would help Jackie

and myself to hold on to the bonnet of the car.

Well, you know, things go wrong.

So, and I'm, I remember so clearly

the only rehearsal that I had was

the van was parked, Jackie's car was at the bottom.

And you stand up there and you go like,

Oh, okay, this is not so bad.

It's like a four feet drop.

You just go like this.

You get up to the van and it starts moving.

And you go like, Wait a minute, this is not

what I, we, uh. [stuttering]

It's already going.

And you think, Eh, what the heck? Let's try.

And so I take the roll,

of course the window doesn't break.

And as I hit, I start to slide.

And I think everybody was in such a shock.

They didn't know to stop the van or stop the car.

Poor Jackie, he was panicking

and I was just like trying to like hold onto to myself.

And he managed to grab a little my shirt.

And I believe that also helped.

The one person who ended up in hospital in that scene

was my, one of my stunt boys because his instinct was,

Whatever I do, I have to save Michelle.

So he jumped down and he goes double back

and he had a concussion.

Poor guy.

In all the action movies

that I did while I was in Hong Kong,

basically you get all dressed up, you go onto the set.

Your stunt coordinator, they've just been working out

the whole action sequence and then they

teach you on the spot.

You shoot it and then move on to the next action sequence.

[Pierce grunting]

Gimme that.

Clutch, clutch, clutch.

Go right.

No, left.

Who's driving?

Oh, Pierce Brosnan is a dream to work with.

He's not just good looking,

he's a really truly wonderful friend.

And when we were on it, he has, he's confident.

I mean he's James Bond, right?

So, he doesn't see any threat.

I was very grateful to be able to play opposite Bond

as an equal because my character, Wai Lin,

she comes from China and they are in equal positions.

They're both like, I don't need you

and well you're here so we might as well work together.

So that, that kind of chemistry was fun

and brought us very close.

I remember the first advice I was given,

This is a Bond movie, have a good time.

In the end we did, we had such a great time.

[grunting] [swords clanging]

Oh, Ang Lee.

I believe Ang is a person who plans ahead

what he would like to do.

The first thing he said was like, Well, you are so big

and famous now I didn't know if you would have time for me.

And I'm like, You are the Oscar winning director,

one of my biggest idols.

I will always have time for you.

So he started to say that he wanted to make

Sense and Sensibility with martial arts.

And I was like, Why didn't anybody think of that before?

Doing a martial arts film had always been

a childhood dream of his.

And that's one thing I love, is to be able to be part

of someone's else's dream.

Because when you have a dream, that urge to make it the best

and the most beautiful is very powerful.

I said yes.

I waited two years and I didn't do anything

for the two years.

I didn't find another role that was as interesting.

And I also, I think at that time, especially here,

it was all very stereotyped about,

especially for Asian women.

I couldn't understand it.

It was like you, here in Hollywood, you are supposed

to be the foremost filmmakers in the world.

How can that be possible?

Why do you have to find an excuse just

to be able to put an Asian face in that role?

So, Crouching Tiger will always have

a very special place in my heart.

And it was one of the most painful movies to do as well.

[laughing]

'Cause I had surgery right in the middle,

right at the beginning of the movie.

It was like that incredible action,

first action sequence with the drum.

[imitating drums beating]

[drums beating quickly]

Peter Pau, the DP, and my stunt coordinator says,

Okay, you are gonna run across,

jump up on the wall, go down the wall sideways,

and then pick a pod and you throw it at this intruder.

I do the jump kicks and suddenly,

we don't know what happened, when I landed,

it felt like someone had taken a bat to my knee

and whacked it and I fell down and go like, Who kicked me?

Memoirs of a Geisha, I loved the book.

Who would've guessed it was a white dude [laughing]

that wrote it?

You cannot call yourself a true geisha

until you can stop a man in his tracks with a single look.

No one can do that.

Choose someone for me.

I've always been fascinated by the culture of Japan.

You know, when you enter into this world, you learn.

You learn how to put on a kimono, you learn how to walk,

you learn how to have those gestures

that normally when you look at and you go like,

How do they do it with such grace and finesse?

So, making that movie gave me

this amazing opportunity to do all that.

The boy on the bike, just one look.

[light music]

It wasn't an audition, it was a meet.

And I will never forget, Rob Marshall is sitting

and just like looking at me.

And then he says, What passport do you hold?

I'm like, Huh? How did that come up into play?

So, I think it was because it's, you know,

casting the three girls, Hatsumomo, Sayuri, and Mameha,

was a very challenging task.

And Rob had gone all around the world

to find his dream girls.

He's really funny.

He was like, You all are my supermodels.

'Cause the costume designs, the kimonos

and nobody wears a corset under a kimono.

But we did because we needed to have that poise.

And I, it translates so well on film when you look at it.

This guy's a visionary.

I'm happy I finally met Rachel. She is very impressive.

I think so too.

I thought you might be excited

that the first girl that I bring home

is a Chinese professor.

Chinese American.

When we did Crazy Rich Asians, we ticked all the boxes

because romantic comedies were like a no-no.

An all Asian cast hadn't been since Joy Luck Club.

And that's like talking 20 something years ago.

But then I met Jon Chu.

And he, in a few words, convinced me,

this is the director I really wanted to work with.

'Cause when I read the script, I felt the mother

and son didn't quite sit well with me.

The mother was not the kind of mother

that I wanted to see in, you know,

a film that showed Chinese mothers

as being just mean and cruel.

I said to him, Oh, what kind of a movie are you making?

You know, is it like a 'Hangover'?

And if he said yes, it would be perfectly okay

because look at Hangover 1, 2, 3.

I mean, they're very successful commercial films.

And Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan's books

were very commercially successful in that way.

And he said, Oh, if I did that, my mother would kill me.

Ding, right on. I was in his corner.

I said, Okay, John Chu, I'm coming over to you.

[Party Goer] Oh damn, Nick. It's a party though, okay.

It was contemporary. It was today.

You see the people that you see normally in life,

in America, in New York, in LA.

You see a lot of your Chinese friends who are like that.

And, you know, you laugh with them, you laugh at them,

but they're all around you.

And then he took you to a very exotic place, you know,

to Malaysia, to Singapore, and showed you

how the rich people lived over on the other side.

So he made it interesting and exciting

and very, very relatable.

I can't imagine the number of times people would walk up

to me and say, You know, my mother-in-law

is very much like you and I'm terrified of her.

[laughing]

Don't make me fight you. I'm really good.

I don't believe you.

[exciting music]

When I read the script,

Everything Everywhere All at Once,

I went, Either these two guys are clinically insane

or they're geniuses.

The script is what it was.

They didn't, there was only one major change

that they had to do.

You have to change the name Michelle.

'Cause they had written Michelle Wong.

And they go like, But no, we wrote this for you.

You know, this is, it's awesome.

I'm like, No, Evelyn deserves her life to be told.

I'm not a laundromat owner.

Michelle Yeoh is never gonna be that. Right?

So, if you keep calling the character Michelle,

every time that name come, you, it's said out,

people will start thinking, 'Oh, that's Michelle Yeoh

playing Michelle, what's her name?'

So they changed the name.

Nice.

You peed yourself.

No, Evelyn. You're not locked in.

[machine beeping]

Every time she made a decision,

it went into another universe.

And we don't know how many universes are out there,

but it was all very concise.

It's like effect, consequence, right?

So, that allowed me to step into different shoes.

The interesting thing was, like,

she knew who she was, right?

The mother, a wife.

And then suddenly she was in a universe

where she had hot dog fingers

and a lover who was a nemesis in her life.

So, all that gave way to being an actor

who was challenged constantly.

And the Daniels did that very, very well.

Every department, everybody was in.

We shot it in 37 days and we covered so many universes.

So, the Daniels were geniuses. They were not insane.

♪ My dear ♪

♪ I'll write at once to the wizard ♪

♪ Tell him of you in advance ♪

♪ With a talent like yours, dear ♪

♪ There is a definite chance ♪

I'm not a singer.

If I wanted to be a singer,

I could have when I was in Hong Kong and I never did.

So, then when Jon asked me to read the script,

I got him back to him and say, Hey, she sings right?

Madame Morrible sings. I don't sing.

And typical Jon, Ah, it's nothing.

And he is one guy, one director that can inspire you

to believe you can do anything.

That's where Jon is always very clever

and a few steps ahead.

Then I get this message from him

and it was attached to a video.

So I played it.

He was like, Hi, Michelle.

I have two people who really, really want to talk to you.

And there was like Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.

And they turn around and say, Hi, Michelle.

It's imperative that you come and join us. Imperative.

[laughing]

Like, how do you say no to the two most incredible creatures

on the planet earth who had voices like an angel?

I mean, that's terrifying already to start off with.

♪ You'll be making good ♪

Welcome to Shiz.

Jon said the right thing.

You're always up for a challenge, aren't you?

And I'm like, You're right.

And I'm so glad he called me.

'Cause then Marc Platt, our producer, said,

From the word go, you are Madame Morrible.

I'm a little nostalgic.

Very happy that I did those crazy action sequences then.

Appreciative of all the different experiences that I've had,

which leads me also to understand that there's still

so much to look forward to and to learn and to grow.