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Michelle Yeoh explains how Quentin Tarantino turned her life around

Thu 17 March 2022 11:30, UK

For those who are familiar with her work in the endlessly entertaining actions films from Hong Kong, Michelle Yeoh is a bonafide 1990s icon. Having starred in several popular productions with captured the imagination of the masses, Yeoh is a household name for many but it was Quentin Tarantino who convinced the actress to keep working.

According to a 2008 poll by Rotten Tomatoes, Yeoh was even named as the greatest female action star in the history of cinema but action films are back-breaking work. In fact, that’s what almost ended up happening to Yeoh when she sustained a serious injury while working on the production of the 1996 martial arts flick The Stunt Woman.

“‘You like to work, but this is insane,’” Yeoh recalled the reactions of her friends who expressed their concerns when they heard about the injury and asked her to reconsider putting herself at danger like this. “‘We feel so bad, but only you can help yourself. Why am I doing this? Is it worth it? If I really got hurt, then what?”.

When she was questioning these events in her career, it was Quentin Tarantino who changed her mind. The director convinced Yeoh to meet with him while he was in Hong Kong to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li. He told the actress that he had seen every single film she had appeared in and went on to provide expert commentary on his favourite sequences from those films.

“The next thing I knew, we were talking and I was coming back to life,” Yeoh revealed. “l never forget it. It was like, ‘I do love what I do.’ And that was a turning point where I felt, ‘I’ve paid my dues.’” She went on to star in huge projects such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies and she has continued to do so, recently appearing in the Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Watch the trailer for Michelle Yeoh’s new film Everything Everywhere All at Once below.