Michelle Yeoh didn't work for almost two years before booking 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' because she didn't agree with the 'stereotypical roles' she was being offered
- Michelle Yeoh didn't work for two years to avoid being typecast in "stereotypical roles."
- She told People she "could not agree" with the roles being offered to her after her 1997 US debut.
Michelle Yeoh said she didn't work for almost two years in the 1990s because she didn't like the "stereotypical roles" being offered to her in the United States at the time.
While Yeoh spent the 1980s and part of the 1990s starring in Hong Kong martial arts films, Yeoh told People that her breakout role in Hollywood was 1997's "Tomorrow Never Dies," with Pierce Brosnan starring as James Bond. In it, she changed the reputation of the typical "Bond Girl," she said, because she was the one to save Bond's life rather than the other way around.
Still, following that character, only jobs that wanted to typecast her were rolling in.
"At that point, people in the industry couldn't really tell the difference between whether I was Chinese or Japanese or Korean or if I even spoke English," Yeoh told People. "They would talk very loudly and very slow."
But because Yeoh was resistant to being typecast, she said she didn't work for almost two years until 2000's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" came along.
"I didn't work for almost two years, until 'Crouching Tiger,' simply because I could not agree with the stereotypical roles that were put forward to me," Yeoh said.
Yeoh is up for best actress at the 2023 Academy Awards after already snagging the same award at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards for her starring role in "Everything Everywhere All At Once."
Coming up, Yeoh is set to play Madame Morrible in the film adaptation of "Wicked," a role she said, "In the past ... would've been for a Caucasian lady."
"This is what we call diversity, inclusivity," Yeoh told People. "This is how you make it work. It is a natural process — progress, evolution that we can have as storytellers."