Michelle Yeoh Recalls Being ‘Depressed’ After a Bad Stunt Accident — and Reveals Which Famous Director Helped Her

Mar. 15, 2025

Michelle Yeoh attends The Karl Lagerfeld Grand Celebration at The Karl Lagerfeld.Photo:Anthony Kwan/Getty

Anthony Kwan/Getty

Michelle Yeohreveals that she went through a slump in her life — and a certain filmmaker helped her out of it.

TheWickedactress, 62, shared on the latest episode ofThe Graham Norton Showthat there was a time she considered stepping “back” from starring in action movies, but decided against it thanks to some guidance fromKill BilldirectorQuentin Tarantino.

“I was in Hong Kong and depressed as I had had a bad accident while filming a stunt,” Yeoh recalled on the show.

“I felt hopeless and was re-thinking the whole action thing and thought maybe I should take a step back,” she explained. “When I met [Tarantino], he was so enthusiastic and said that if you love something you have to find a better way to do it.”

American director Quentin Tarantino at Rome Film Fest 2021.Massimo Insabato/Archivio Massimo Insabato/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty

Her action film career continued through the 1990s in memorable films likeWing Chun, SupercopandTomorrow Never Dies, and in the 2000s withCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,Memoirs of a Geisha, SunshineandMaster Z: The Ip Man Legacy.

While the actress has worked with several notable directors through the years, she has still not worked with Tarantino — though she said she wouldn’t be opposed to doing so in the future.

“I have never worked with him, and when I asked him aboutKill Billand why he hadn’t thought of me, he said, ‘No one would believeUma Thurmancould kick your ass!”

Michelle Yeoh in ‘Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger.'.Columbia/Sony/Kobal/Shutterstock

Columbia/Sony/Kobal/Shutterstock

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Yeoh has not only been candid about the challenges she’s faced in the film industry over the last several decades, but also the struggles that she has overcome offscreen.

In November 2024, during an appearance on BBC Radio 4’sWoman’s Hour,she opened up about how infertility impacted her personal life and relationships, and how she eventually came to terms with not being able to have children.

Michelle Yeoh attends the TAAF Heritage Heroes Awards Dinner at The Glasshouse on May 05, 2023 in New York City.Cindy Ord/Getty

“And I think the worst moment to go through is every month you feel like such a failure,” she said. “And then you go, why? And I think at some point you stop blaming yourself. I go, there are certain things in your body that doesn’t function in a certain way. That’s how it is.”

She added, “You just have to let go and move on. And I think you come to a point where you have to stop blaming you.”

Yeoh eventuallymarried French motor racing executive Jean Todt, and added that although she still thinks about not being able to have children of her own,she is grateful to be a grandmotherthanks to her stepson.

source: people.com