How Quentin Tarantino ‘Saved’ Michelle Yeoh’s Career
In a recent interview on The Graham Norton Show, Michelle Yeoh shared the sweet and heartwarming story of director Quentin Tarantino reigniting her passion for acting and her love for action movies.
Michelle Yeoh’s Accident While Doing The Stunt Woman
Yeoh discussed her accident on the set of The Stunt Woman. “I wanted to pay homage to the stunt people, so we made a movie called The Stunt Woman. And, in shooting that, I was pushed off a fly over, and we had done the wide shot where I landed, and it was all good. Then, we wanted to do a closeup … I did not anticipate the push was so hard and I tumbled over and nose dived.”
She added, “All I remember was, my head got jammed in a box and my legs came from behind, and I heard this [snap] in my back. I flipped over, and I was in the hospital. I had a full cast on.”
While recuperating and rethinking the “whole action thing” and maybe doing something else that Tarantino came to visit her. “He picks up a pillow, throws it on the ground, and literally just sits at my feet and starts to talk about my movies and what inspired him. Going frame for frame into the first action sequence that I had ever done, like going through a pane of glass and all that, and so you know, as I spoke with him, I realized, and I started getting very excited… I realized it’s true when you love something you can’t just give up on it, so I have Quentin to thank for that and, because he brought it all back to a realization, it’s like, be smart. Don’t give up. Just find a nice way and a proper way of doing it.”
Tarantino’s visit led to Yeoh regaining her love for action films. She has since starred in all kinds of films but never left action behind; she would appear in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Fearless and Reign of Assassins as well as dramas like Crazy Rich Asians. She also became part of the MCU as Ying Nan in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. In 2022, she starred in the movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once for which she won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. Her recent projects include starring in Wicked and Star Trek: Section 31.
