The movies that made Michelle Yeoh want to be an actor
Despite having been around in the industry since the 1990s, it has only been in recent years that the true dramatic power of actor Michelle Yeoh has been released to the world. Having collaborated with the likes of Ang Lee, Danny Boyle, Luc Besson, Kenneth Branagh and James Gunn, Yeoh was finally awarded some recognition for her contributions to cinema with an Oscar in 2022.
The movie to change her fortunes and have her properly represented on the Hollywood stage was the A24 sci-fi flick Everything Everywhere All at Once, which swept the 2023 Academy Awards with seven total wins. Starring Yeoh as Evelyn Wang, the movie was an interdimensional coming-of-age tale that explored the complex relationship between a mother and her daughter.
Helmed by directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the tale featured Yeoh alongside other largely discarded actors, such as Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis, who hadn’t received the due praise in the contemporary industry. Indeed, even with early starring roles in the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies and the action masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it would take Yeoh years to be praised.
Back in 2022, whilst doing press for the release of Everything Everywhere All at Once, Yeoh sat down with Deadline to discuss her love of cinema and the films that first inspired her to foray into the industry.
“As a child I remember going to the movies was a family outing, and I used to love it,” the actor stated, “from then, my love for movies began. It wasn’t just one movie; it was the whole encompassing feeling that ‘I’m there with my parents having a good time’, sitting down in the dark with so many people around you and everybody laughing or crying, and that really stuck with me”.
With that being said, there are a number of movies that stick out in Yeoh’s mind from her developmental years as a burgeoning film star.
Continuing, she adds: “The ones I really remember the most were The Wizard of Oz or The Sound of Music…then, of course, as I grew a little older and I went on to study in England, the movies that really stuck with me was one particular movie called The Champ…That was the first movie I remember sobbing my heart out”.
Whilst The Wizard of Oz or The Sound of Music are pretty standard classics to be featured on a favourites list, the 1979 sports flick The Champ is far more unpredictable. Starring Jon Voight, Ricky Schroder and Faye Dunaway, the movie was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and told the story of an ex-champion boxer who is forced to look after his estranged son whilst juggling a life marred by drugs and alcohol.
Take a look at the trailer for the movie below.
