The Many Lives of Michelle Yeoh

The truth is I love what I do. I love the challenge. I mean, I tear my hair out. And right now I’m doing a Mandarin movie and I’m going like, “I can’t remember my lines because it’s all in Mandarin and I don’t read Chinese.” So yes, it is challenging, but I think that’s life. It has to be challenging because you have to keep learning, otherwise you stagnate. Otherwise, like a heartbeat, if there’s no up and down, you’ve flatlined.

Another film of yours I love is The Stunt Woman, directed by Ann Hui. You got injured on that set, right?

Yes, quite badly.

You thought about retiring, right?

When you suffer an injury, everything is on hold. And it’s very depressing to be someone who’s so used to being very physical and up and running around all the time, to be in a cast and just lying there. And then of course, all my sisters, all my chosen family, they come into the hospital and start berating me. It’s like, “You know what? Look at what you’re doing to yourself. Well, you can’t blah, blah, blah”—and out of love. So then you think, “Yeah, it’s true.”

First of all, don’t take dumb risks. You should never. At the end of the day, you’re making a movie and making movies should be safe. And since then, I’ve learned to wise up. I’m an actor, there are certain things that I cannot do—which is fine because there are stunt people who [can] drive the stunt cars. I’m not going to do that because I know I will kill myself or worse, somebody else. So it’s the acceptance [of your limitations].

‘Sandiwara’ (2026)Courtesy of Self Portrait

But while I was going through that at the time, it was like, Maybe it’s time to think of doing something else. And then the amazing Quentin Tarantino came to visit. And the next thing you know, he’s there talking about movies. And you understand I do love it. So it wasn’t about giving up, it’s about how do you learn to do it wisely? How do you make it work not just for the movie, but for yourself? And so that turned it around. So I have something to be grateful for, for Quentin stepping in.

I mean, it’s crazy to me because if you retired right there and then, we wouldn’t have had Crouching Tiger, Everything Ever All At Once, Crazy Rich Asians. That was all still to come.

Yeah, it’s true. So that’s why whenever you make such a big decision, take a few steps back, really.

I had the privilege of getting an early peek at Sandiwara, the short film that you worked on with Sean Baker and Self Portrait.

Oh, you’ve seen it? Oh, it was magic. It was magic.

In the film, you’re playing five characters—once again, multiple characters like Everything Everywhere All At Once.

I was filming somewhere when I received the pitch deck and I went, “Are they insane? They want to do… What is this?” So then at first there were three characters that they were talking about. And then by the time I arrived in Penang, it was five characters. I was like, “And how many days are we shooting this in?” Two days. So shooting with Sean Baker is like being in a masterclass the whole time. He’s simply brilliant. He was shooting with so many iPhones.

What do you think about you gravitates towards the specific challenge of playing multiple characters in one project?

“Challenging” is the word. How do you make them all different? The posture, the voice, the this. That was the challenge. But then when you have a collaborator like Sean, he knows. He has a vision. He’s willing to let you run with it, but then he gently guides you into certain things that you know will make a difference. So together, we form these characters, but a lot of the time, he would just say, “Go for it. Just do what you feel.”