Michelle Yeoh has been known for starring in action movies for decades, but did you know there was a time in her life, almost 30 years ago, when she almost hung it up completely? Just ahead of Yeoh’s Hollywood debut as one of the “Bond girls”, the actress was in a life-threatening stunt accident that had her rethinking her career. However, a meeting with Quentin Tarantino (of all people) actually inspired her to keep going.
At the age of 62, the actress’ career is bigger than ever, between her 2023 Oscar win and all the upcoming Michelle Yeoh movies. However, she recently reflected on her traumatic accident that almost altered the course of her career, saying:
I had a really bad accident making — 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 over a flyover. And we had done the wide shot, where I landed. It was all good. Then we wanted to do a close-up, and the fall was maybe from there [points to column above]. But I did not anticipate — the push was so hard. And I tumbled over and nose-dived — and we used cardboard boxes. … And all I remember was my head got jammed into the boxes, and my legs came from behind and I heard this [claps] in my back. I flipped over.
Before Yeoh became a Hollywood star, she rose to fame with a series of Hong Kong action films in the ‘80s and ‘90s that notably had her working alongside Jackie Chan, Tony Leung, Donnie Yen and Jet Li. However, as she explained on The Graham Norton Show, she suffered a serious accident while trying to accomplish a stunt from an overpass to a moving truck. As she continued:
I was in the hospital. I had a full cast on, and then, I was back home, trying to recover. And, when you get injured, that’s the most depressing time of your life, because you are helpless. You can’t do anything. And I think, at that point, I was thinking, ‘Maybe I should just rethink this whole action thing. Maybe it’s time to take a step back, maybe do something else. I don’t know.’
One wouldn’t blame Yeoh for hanging it all up after being faced with a near-death experience like that. However, a visit from the director behind Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction helped her put things into perspective. In her words:
It was at that point when Quentin came to town. And you know Quentin, he’s very determined to do certain things. And, when he came to Hong Kong, he said I want to meet Jackie [Chan], Jet [Li] and Michelle. So he met with our guys, and I said, ‘OK.’ So I’m sitting in the living room with my neckbrace, very steady. And suddenly, I see this huge guy come bounding down the stairs. ‘Hey, Michelle!’ Then he picks up a pillow, throws it on the ground, literally just sits at my feet and starts to talk about my movies and what inspired him and going frame from frame to the first action sequence I’d ever done, going through a pane of glass and all that. So, as I spoke with him, I realized — and I started getting very excited — and then next thing, my people were like, ‘Can you please stop waving your arms around and just sit still?’ And then I realized it’s true. When you love something, you just can’t give up on it, so I have Quentin to thank for that, because he brought it all back to a realization – be smart, don’t give up. Just find a proper way of doing it.
Quentin Tarantino has long vocally been a huge fan of Michelle Yeoh and some of her Hong Kong films. He even called a stunt sequence she did in 1992’s Supercop “the greatest stunts ever filmed in any movie ever.”
As Michelle Yeoh recalls, when Tarantino visited Hong Kong in the ‘90s, he set up a meeting with herself, along with Jackie Chan and Jet Li. During her meeting with him, he helped her realize how much she loves her job and it inspired her to not let her accident put a wrench in her career.
In the few years after the release of The Stunt Woman, Michelle Yeoh had some of the biggest movies of her career. She was in Tomorrow Never Dies with Pierce Brosnan’s 007 and she starred in 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as well. Imagine if she had quit before having those experiences? She would have missed out on so much.
Despite Quentin Tarantino’s love for Yeoh, the pair have never worked together. When the actress once asked him why she wasn’t cast in Kill Bill, he cleverly quipped “Who would believe that Uma Thurman could kick your ass?” Here’s hoping these two do work together someday. In the meantime, you can see Yeoh when the Star Trek: Section 31 release date comes on January 24 and see her in the Wicked cast as Madame Morrible.