Actress Michelle Yeoh tackles her first comedic role in 40 years Paul Feig’s Last Christmas
Michelle Yeoh – known for action roles as Bond girl Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – was understandably apprehensive when Hollywood director Paul Feig asked her to play Santa in the comedy Last Christmas.
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Michelle Yeoh was understandably apprehensive when Hollywood director Paul Feig asked her to play Santa in Last Christmas.
Known for action roles in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or as Bond girl Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies, the celebrated actor had never tried comedy in her nearly four decades on screen.
“This is my first comedic role, serious try to make you laugh movie. I think Paul (Feig) saw a comedic element in me which I never fully realised before, no one else has,” Yeoh told News Corp on the phone from New York. “Have you ever seen me in a role like that? I was a little apprehensive, especially when Paul came to me and said he wanted me to play Santa. Did he mean Santa Claus? Would I have to put on a white beard?”
No Santa Claus costume was required as the role of Santa in Feig’s film is a slightly quirky woman who loves all things festive and owns a Christmas store in London that operates all year round.
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The script was written by Academy Award winning actor Emma Thompson and her partner Greg Wise.
“Of course when I read the script knowing it was written by Emma Thompson, I knew I couldn’t say no to it,” Yeoh continued. “But it was a stretch because I hadn’t done a character like that before and I really thank Paul for having the confidence in me. He was just so insistent that I was the only one who could carry out this role. I was a little taken aback actually and touched by that. Paul brought the comedy out in me. As an actor, what I am constantly hoping to do is to challenge myself in roles with things I have not done before or have attempted before and for me that is always very challenging and is an opportunity to grow. If you can’t find those opportunities, you get stuck in a rut and I wouldn’t love what I was doing anymore. In Santa, that is what I saw, a woman who was so passionate and she found her calling in loving Christmas and who opened a store that sold Christmas all year round. That character just touched something in everyone that saw her.”
In real life, Yeoh conceded some might find her more intimidating than funny.
“People find me quite serious and then they laugh a little sort of afraid,” the veteran actor said. “I think I am quite funny but I am definitely not the Ken Jeong Akwafina kind of funny. I have an interesting sense of humour and I enjoy a good laugh, lets put it that way.”
Yeoh is undoubtedly a leader in the field, having won countless awards and been nominated for a BAFTA for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
She’s straddled both Chinese language cinema and Hollywood and paved the way for many to come behind her.
Yeoh has been ranked one of the greatest action heroine’s of all time and one of the top screen beauties.
Accolades are great but not the reason she gets up and goes to work in the morning.
“We don’t do it for those accolades,” she said. “I am very grateful for the things that I have done because it is part of your job and something you work so hard at. It is very gratifying and I am thankful for them because there are so many of us in the world so to be put up there in that way is very touching.”
Last Christmas sees Yeoh on screen alongside Henry Golding and Emilia Clarke while Thompson also plays a part.
“I am very blessed with the roles that come my way,” she said, sounding genuinely grateful and humble.
“Sometimes those amazing directors and roles, they come choosing you and you just have to make time (but) choosing a role is very important because it takes me away from my family and I want that role to be meaningful. It cannot be just a role to play. It has to speak to me personally as a human being or it has to make an impact to someone else. I am not trying to be high and mighty but I think it is important because you spend many weeks or months away from home, so you need to make sure you justify the time and being there doing a good job. In the roles that I have chosen, I think you can feel the passion because I really do choose to be there.”
At 57, she is proud to admit she still does her own action scenes.
“I really do enjoy that very much and the only way I feel I can do it is if I keep up my end of the bargain and be diligent in being flexible, fit, on my feet and toes. If I didn’t have to be on camera, I might not be so diligent. We do what we need to do. If I have to start work at 7am, I would be in the gym at 5am and start the day like that. I do a lot of cardio because you need to have the stamina. I do stretches every day because I need to keep up the flexibility and mobility because I still do my own action sequences when you see me in movies.”
Yeoh’s home base is in Paris, although she has spent “more time in hotels over the past two years”.
Coming up is a return to Crazy Rich Asians after she played Golding’s on screen mother, Eleanor Young, in the first film.
And she’s also attached to James Cameron’s next few Avatar flicks that have been a long time coming and are shrouded in secrecy.
“Am I allowed to speak about them? Let’s put it this way, I am in the Avatar movies and I love working with James Cameron, he is a genius.”