[This is a slightly abridged translation of an interview originally published in the June 11, 2008 issue of the Shanghai magazine Bund Pictorial, with byline by Li Jun 李俊. A few paragraphs have been omitted because they just reviewed parts of Michelle Yeoh’s career that are generally common knowledge or recorded in her IMDB entry. The full original interview is online. Notes in brackets, like this one, are translator’s notes, added for clarification.]
It was not until she had made "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" at age 38 that Michelle Yeoh, the first truly Chinese Bond girl, began gaining recognition as having completed the transition to being an actress. When she accepted this publication's request for an interview, Yeoh expressed her deep gratitude to an [unnamed] American director and to Ang Lee. In discussing her, Lee himself has said, "Michelle Yeoh is not an acrobatic fighting star, she is an actress, a very talented one, and that is more important." In the past year, she has received the Chevalier award of the French Legion d'Honneur, and with friends has established a film company. At the same time, four of her movies are currently being shown on Chinese screens, including 'Mummy 3," which opened in July, and also starring Jet Li. Michelle Yeoh, who turns 46 this year, says "This is the best phase of my performing arts career."
"I was born in the year of the tiger, and Leo is my sign"
In his autobiography, Ang Lee wrote of a specific incident he witnessed: "In the many years I've been making movies, I've seen actors who have never given a good performance, but became big stars anyway because they had sincerity and nothing else. But after we had completed "Crouching Tiger," Michelle had enough left at the end to tell reporters she was happy to have made a film that was an artistic film and an action film in one."
The year 2008 has been a special one for Michelle Yeoh: four films in which she has a leading role (in addition to "Mummy 3," they include "Far North," "Babylon A.D." and "The Children of Huang Shi") are currently on Chnese screens. This month, she will officially announce she is joining with famous Hong Kong producer Terence Chang (Zhang Jiazhen 张家振 ) and a senior Taiwan media person to form a motion picure financing company. In addition, rumors persist she will soon announce her intention to marry Jean Todt, former CEO of Ferrari.
This interview was conducted at Yeoh's hotel in Cannes. Wearing a large engagement ring Todt had given her, Yeoh accepted interviews with a succession of reporters from various countries, and by our turn she had obviously grow very tired, her pace of speech had slowed, and she enunciated each word very clearly. Often, she would courteously remind the reporter to "please slow down a bit, my Mandarin isn't very good." Outside, the sun was shining brightly, and colorful plants were in full bloom, but she was suffering jet lag, telling the reporter "I just rushed over from America." Just before setting out, Yeoh received word of the Wenchuan earthquake in China, and for a while considered cancelling her trip to Cannes. She says, "As you know, Cannes is very luxurious and extravagant as well as a big stage." But she came anyway.
"In Cannes, every Chinese must be very strong and proud"
Michelle Yeoh is a regular attendee at the Cannes Film Festival, has been a Palme d'Or jury member, and has been at the last five festivals. This year, she walked the red carpet at the premiere showing of Steven Soderbergh's "Che," attended a charity dinner hosted by Madonna, and a cocktail party celebrating her old friend John Woo's new film "Red Cliff."
Because of the Wenchuan earthquake, Yeoh had considered not coming, but as she told this reporter, "My not coming wouldn't help much. We must have hope, and we must have every Chinese who has the chance to come here be very strong, very proud. I always tell our friends that although we have disasters like this, our government works very hard to help its people."
Michelle Yeoh was born in the small mining comunity of Ipoh, Malaysia. Her parents are Chinese, and in interviews she always stresses that "I am a Chinese."
In 1984, 22-year-old Michelle Yeoh set out on her career with a victory in the Miss Malaysia contest. Her first performing role was in a wristwatch commercial, with Jackie Chan. In 1992, this 5' 4" (1.65 m) tall and outwardly weak-appearing girl was the female lead in Chan's movie "Supercop," and had become Hong Kong cinema's highest-paid actress.
Although Hong Kong is now her home, what with Jean Todt in France, her parents in Malaysia, and making four films abroad, she has seldom been home in the last two years. Yeoh is such a blend of multiple cultural elements, it is difficult to define distinctly what type of person she is. She herself is somewhat puzzled about this. She says, "My career started out in the East, and my heart has always been there. My shortcoming is I can't read Chinese. When I'm in the East, they see me as someone from the West. In the West, the people there see me as someone from the East."
Now, when Michelle Yeoh looks for opportunities to go back to work, she tells reporters she believes the East has many charming stories and abundant resources. Last year, she spent considerable time in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland in confidential meetings organizing and establishing her own film and TV company, with herself at the head. Having absorbed the experience of failed investment in a movie produced by her then-lover Thomas Chung, Yeoh has this time chosen to work with Terence Chang and the senior Taiwan media person. She is close-mouthed regarding her own role in the company, but a person close to the situation disclosed she is one of the company’s three largest stockholders, and will be the backbone of its operations.
The company is yet to be named, but Michelle Yeoh announced officially in June that it has already signed several artists to work with it, including director Johnny To’s frequent leading lady Kelly Lin. It has also been rumored in Hong Kong and Taiwan media that Isabella Leong is among other actors interested in working with the new venture. The company intends to make numerous films during its first two years of operation, and concerning these, Terence Chang intends to all he can to broker a new cooperation between Chao Yun-Fat and John Woo.
“We can’t usually choose the way we live out our lives”
“Just because I’ve started the company doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll go back behind the scenes.” Michelle stressed several times to this reporter that completion of “Crouching Tiger” marked the first time she felt she was an actress.
From her 1984 movie debut in “The Owl vs. Dumbo” until 2000, most of Yeoh’s screen time was spent using her fists, feet and swords as weapons. She also became a female action star to rival Jackie Chan.
This past January, the American magazine “Entertainment Weekly” published the results of an audience survey to choose the top 10 Bond girls, and Michelle Yeoh’s “Tomorrow Never Dies” brought her in 7th. The magazine’s comment about Yeoh was that she “wasn’t the first woman to match wits with Bond, but in 1997 she became the first one who merited more than a casual glance, and her attractive skills established her in Hollywood.” [translator’s note: this varies somewhat from the EW original comment, but it is an accurate translation of the Chinese original.]
Eleven years have passed since “007” was made, but this is still the role for which Michelle Yeoh is best known in the West. “When someone says ‘Bond girl,’ you definitely think of this Bond girl crying out ‘Save me, save me! But I never thought of myself like that.”
In Britain, “The Times” believed that the significance of a Chinese Bond girl lay in its having “smashed the persistent view in the West of Chinese women being passive and subservient.”
Michelle Yeoh has suffered some terrible injuries in life. She points out various scars on her body: “an artery was severed here on my arm; my right arm was hurt here; I jumped from an 18-story building and broke some ribs, my shinbone … “
In the following interview, B=The Bund Pictorial Y=Michelle Yeoh
“Our Movies Need New Friends to Have Fun With”
B: When you’ve come to Cannes in the past, it was to serve as a jury member, or to walk the red carpet. Are you here this time with the new identity of studio head?
Y: [Announcing the new company] will come later on. I’m here this time to support my friend and co-worker John Woo’s new movie. I don’t want to try multitasking too many things, that might not work out to well.
B: In recent years you’ve steadily sought ways of working again in China, how did you get the idea of starting a film company?
Y: Because we believed it was needed, and was very important. In the future, our movies will all require new actors, new directors, new producers, every link in the production chain will have to be replenished. To make good movies, we have to foster new talents, and that requires a platform, so we decided to do this. If you have a good movie concept, you can’t always use Jacky Chan, Jet Li, Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Maggie Cheung, just recycling a closed circle of a few people. Our film community needs some new friends we can have fun with. (Laughs).
B: Some might worry that once your company is in operation, your own appearances on-screen might be fewer. Could that happen?
Y: No. I now have two very good [business] partners, and they can help me with a lot of things. Then I can go outside, traveling around, meeting and greeting people, representing the company. But you make a good point: if you’re going to do something well, you really have to focus your full attention on it, it’s impossible to be too focused. I set up this company, but I don’t have to go in to the office every day, the company is already arranging people to do these things. My two partners travel constantly to Chinese Taiwan, the Chinese mainland, Chinese Hong Kong, even South Korea. Now, everyone is linked up by telephones and mail, very convenient, and they can contact me very quickly, so if today we see a very beautiful young person, or a girl with a great personality, they can get this information to me at once, to get my opinion.
B: It has been said that you really like Isabella Leong’s personality, and will sign her, then cultivate her as your own replacement.
Y: That’s just a rumor. Isabella and I worked togther on “Mummy 3,” and her individual talent and personality are very good.
B: How will you divide up the work among the three of you, you and your two partners? Specifically, what will be your job?
Y: We haven’t determined this precisely yet. But if I didn’t have these two partners, I would never have considered starting a company. First, because I’m too tired, and second because I don’t have the ability. So I need partners to work with me. They will handle some things, I’ll handle some others.
“With Jet Li, I see no gender distinction between us”
B: When “Mummy 3” opened worldwide this summer, it marked your third cooperation with Jet Li; but in one of those movies, “Fearless,” you were nowhere to be seen. Do you regret that?
Y: Don’t go there, it’s a sad story. I was surprised he deleted my scenes.
B: You first worked with Jet Li more than a decade ago on “Twin Warriors.” When you meet now, what has changed?
Y: Jet Li and I have always enjoyed working together. Sometimes the director would come onto the set, then run over to us and ask “What are the two of you talking about? Could you share it with us?” Because he could see the two of us were laughing and joking loudly. When Jet told me he had established his [fund-raising] foundation on the mainland, I naturally wanted to support him in that good cause. I consider us good friends, in fact I often think of us as brothers, and when I’m with him I don’t think of any gender distinction between us at all.
B: In “Mummy 3,” the two of you have a big climactic fight, how did you handle that?
Y: When you do a fight scene with someone, you have to work with them ahead of time to determine very precisely where he will deliver a blow and how fast it will be delivered. When we’re set on that, I’m relieved, and not worried he might injure me. During this fight, Jet Li and I were working with large, very heavy swords, and if he didn’t have so much art and skill, I could have lost my head in an instant.
B: Jet Li’s background is in martial arts, he hits very hard and is a savage fighter. Couldn’t you get hurt doing fight scenes with him?
Y: He hits very hard, but it just looks like he’s using a lot of force. If you are also very accurate, he knows where to take the blow. But we definitely hit each other, otherwise the fight scenes wouldn’t be fun to watch. The key is how hard is the blow. There must be actual contact, but fighting with him is better than with someone new. It’s when fighting a new opponent that there is most likely to be an injury.
B: When you’re doing a scene with Jet Li, have you ever thought back that you have 15 years of doing this together?
Y: Oh, yes. But that’s not to say that everything in those years has been the same.
B: Some of our actresses [here in China] think that their best opportunities now would be in Hollywood. But is the overall environment in Hollywood really better now than when you first went there?
Y: Things have been changing slowly, but we need more people to come in, and strengthen our Chinese numbers. I just understand and take care of myself now.
B: Until “Crouching Tiger,” not everyone realized how good an actress you are. Do you regret that it’s taken so long for you to gain mass acceptance, and has it come too late?
Y: Late is better than never, right? Before, the great majority of the movies I was in were action films, with very simple scripts, just say a line or two then start fighting, fighting everywhere. These movies were action films offering action for action’s sake, for the box office, but they were very popular and attracted large audiences. And you can’t say it was a mistake to make them that way, for they were commercial films, designed from day one to make money. So that’s all OK. The important thing is it led me to meet the most important director in my life.
B: And that is Ang Lee?
Y: Foreigners look at it this way: if your own talent is not up to doing an action scene, they can always use a stand-in. An American director once told me, “if you can’t do the action required by a scene, I can use a stand-in, but if you can’t deliver the written lines of a scene, there’s nothing I can do about that.” I feel really indebted to that American director, for I believe that was the point where I really began moving forward, and gradually matured.
Ang Lee especially trusts me. Before, a lot of people would tell him, Michelle Yeoh is an acrobatic fighting star, and maybe this or that … and he would tell them very clearly, “She is not an acrobatic fighting star, she is a very good actor, very talented, and that is what is important.”
B: Do you feel now that you are complete in both genres?
Y: It’s very strange, but for years I only did action movies, then after dramatic films came looking for me, and I went back and forth between the two. The action movies back then were just action films, and every director I saw was only interested in making action movies. If you ask me, could I give them up, I would answer definitely not, because they are a lot of fun. Besides, film studios now realize that action films now are something that need good characters and good plots, they have to be like “Crouching Tiger,” where the action drives the plot. If there’s just a lot of action, and nothing in the script, that’s pretty boring, don’t you agree?
B: As you have grown older, and your acting techniques mature, have you found that age is becoming an obstacle limiiting the roles you can choose?
Y: Many times, I’ve jokingly told myself, “I’m too old, I can’t do this stunt.” But you also have to take care of yourself. When I look at my films now, I feel I’m not old, and I see my skin has grown better than it was.
B: How did you accomplish that?
Y: My secret is, I don’t smoke. I used to smoke when things got boring on the film set, and it really harmed my complexion. When I was young, I liked to swim outside and lay in the sun, but now I don’t do either. I usually stay at home, and when I go out I wear sunblock. As I get older, I learn more about how to take care of myself, how to nourish myself. My body and skin are mine, and at this age I have to consider how to protect them. If not, it’s like saying bye-bye to myself!
B: Do you pay more attention to family now?
Y: I’ve been taking care of my family for a long time.
B: Everyone is waiting for an announcement [this summer] of wedding plans. Will this happen?
Y: No. I know a lot of people say that, they all worry about me, are happy for me. I really appreciate everyone’s concern, and if I have such happy news one day, I will surely tell everyone. But really, I have no such plans right now.
