It can only be true love when you enable your other half to be better, to be the person they’re destined to be.
Michelle Yeoh
To be a geisha, you have to have to an iron-clad layer around you – around your physical body and your heart.
Michelle Yeoh
We always see Aung San as a strong, tough woman. There are two stories running in parallel. You see the contradictions between the East and the West, and you see someone who does mundane and normal things – someone who’s supposed to be a housewife – and then someone who’s become important and imprisoned.
Michelle Yeoh
Action shouldn’t just be seeing all those crashes. You can blow up a cathedral; next time you blow up the Great Wall of China, and then what? But when you’re in love with your characters, the smallest action becomes an important action.
Michelle Yeoh
I believe that the director is really the soul. It is a collaborative effort, but the director is the one who needs to have that vision. It could be a great script, but it starts from there. You need to have good material, at least, but if you don’t have someone with vision, it’s just words.
Michelle Yeoh
There is so much we can do to save lives on our roads.
Michelle Yeoh
Body language is more fascinating to me than actual language.
Michelle Yeoh
Today, tomorrow and every day, we will see at least 2,000 young children killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads. This is unacceptable, preventable, and we have to stop it. We have the vaccines for this disease: helmets, seatbelts, speed enforcement, safe road design. We just need to use them.
Michelle Yeoh
The beauty about being a producer is you sit there, and you explore ideas which become a passion, which slowly becomes a reality.
Michelle Yeoh
Beauty shouldn’t be superficial and should come from within, and your eyes will tell the story.
Michelle Yeoh
Beauty shouldn’t be superficial and should come from within, and your eyes will tell the story.
Michelle Yeoh
It’s all choreographed; it’s a routine. So I told everyone I really wanted to try fighting in action films. I had no stunt experience, but I had the dance background, and I was very agile and coordinated. And the best thing about being a newcomer to acting is you can afford to try new things.
Michelle Yeoh
It’s so important for me to do my own stunts. The sense of achievement is so immense. But the studios don’t want to take the risk.
Michelle Yeoh
I always thought of myself as James Bond.
Michelle Yeoh
Martial arts is just practice. Being a geisha requires complete control.
Michelle Yeoh
Some of the martial arts films, the motivation is about martial arts. That’s where it’s coming from. It is a visual, commercial film, to showcase the next stunt, the biggest thing. And character development becomes a side thing.
Michelle Yeoh
I thoroughly enjoy a good hot bath. That is my ultimate luxury.
Michelle Yeoh
Before you get into the mind, you have to inhabit the physicality. Body language is a great way of speaking.
Michelle Yeoh
I have been presented with roles with demand not just a physical ability but mental disciplines as well. ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ was not so much about physical exertion… it was much more graceful and contained than that.
Michelle Yeoh
As an actress, you know there are limitations on what you can do creatively.
Michelle Yeoh
With an award like the Asian Film Awards, we’ve sent a message saying that ‘Asian Cinema is here, it matters, and more importantly, we are all part of the same fraternity!’ The AFA is truly, then, an award for Asia, by Asia.
Michelle Yeoh
If you read a lot of Chinese literature, there has always been very strong women figures – warriors, swordswomen – who defended honor and loyalty with the men. So, it’s not new to our culture – it’s always been very much a part of it. It’s good that now the Western audience would have a different image of the Chinese women.
Michelle Yeoh
When it is real person, especially who means so much to millions of people, you have an obligation, you cannot take liberties, you cannot pretend to know. But we are telling the love story of Michael Aris and his wife, the story of a beautiful, lush country, and the emotions of a mother.
Michelle Yeoh
I kick and punch quite hard, and it surprises people.
Michelle Yeoh
As an actor, you hope to find roles that are challenging to you as an artist. Then if you are truly blessed, you will find that it also carries a message that you can impart to your audience.
Michelle Yeoh
I grew up in Malaysia, and Bollywood is really big there. As a result, I’ve grown up watching a lot of Hindi movies.
Michelle Yeoh
When you love someone, you don’t try to change them.
Michelle Yeoh
On ‘Far North,’ we were always aware of being at the whim of mother nature. She’s the biggest star in the film.
Michelle Yeoh
My career in the movie business began in Hong Kong, my heart has always been tied to Asia, and it is immensely gratifying to see international recognition for Asian cinema as a whole.
Michelle Yeoh
I have people who love me and people that I love and a man that I love. So in that sense, I feel that I’m pretty well rounded.
Michelle Yeoh
If I only get to play Malaysian roles, there wouldn’t be very many roles for me to play.
Michelle Yeoh
When I watch myself on-screen, I always look for the flaws.
Michelle Yeoh
I have done many films across the globe and would love to be a part of Bollywood, but the script must have a strong character for me.
Michelle Yeoh
India is a great talent pool of actors. I see Freida Pinto making it big in Hollywood, and I am sure many others can also make it.
Michelle Yeoh
My mother is a very big cinema buff, so as a kid, we watched a lot of Indian and Malay films.
Michelle Yeoh
My grandmother had flawless skin just from using basic skincare – an old herbal remedy in the form of a white powder and cream. I don’t actually know what was in it because when you’re young, you’re not interested in skincare, and I didn’t want to walk around the house with a white face.
Michelle Yeoh
I’m not a fashion victim, and I don’t closely follow trends. I dress the way I feel comfortable because, at the end of the day, you have to be comfortable.
Michelle Yeoh
I don’t like cutting my hair. I did that once, and my mum thought I was a boy.
Michelle Yeoh
For me, beauty comes from natural happiness. I think that a woman glows, and a man, even, when they’re healthy and they’re happy.
Michelle Yeoh
When men have a smile on their faces, that does a lot for me.
Michelle Yeoh
Let’s empower men and help them take a stand to stop acts of violence against women.
Michelle Yeoh
This world belongs to all of us, and all sexes should be able to live in respect and harmony.
Michelle Yeoh
I stretch and do my squats when I brush my teeth.
Michelle Yeoh
When a movie becomes very successful, it’s automatic that people will start thinking a sequel, a prequel, a quel-quel.
Michelle Yeoh
As a producer, what you want to do is make the next hit. But you also want to lead the audience into wanting to watch different movies. You have to vary your content.
Michelle Yeoh
There is no guaranteed formula. And that’s one of the interesting things about filmmaking. You could put $115 million in, and it doesn’t guarantee success.
Michelle Yeoh
You have to have integrity.
Michelle Yeoh
Your timing has to be very accurate. I’ve done a lot of wire work before. I can see that experience makes a big difference.
Michelle Yeoh
The Asia and the Pacific region is facing an epidemic of road death and injury, but we also have innovative Asian road safety solutions.
Michelle Yeoh
As producers, we can influence where the budget goes, but only the director really controls what tone, what type of movie you are trying to make.
Michelle Yeoh
Crouching Tiger,’ of course, was a very dramatic role for me, and the fighting was very serious.
Michelle Yeoh
For an actress, everything is always fine – you are looked after, you have your trailer, and everything provided. But the crew are the ones out there in the wilds all the time, hours before and after us.
Michelle Yeoh
Every time you do a movie, it’s important for your career, your reputation.
Michelle Yeoh