Michelle Yeoh said she felt compelled to retire from acting before landing the lead role in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The actress received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role in the sci-fi comedy-drama, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
On The Envelope podcast, Yeoh, 60, explained that she opposed calls for her to step down before being cast.
“You know, as you get older, the roles get smaller,” Yeoh said. “Because los numbers suben y estas cosas se estrechan y entonces empiezas a verte relegada a un segundo plano cada vez más. Así que cuando llegó Everything Everywhere… fue muy emotivo porque signifies that eres tú quien directs todo este proceso, quien cuenta the story”.
He adds: “When you get older, people start saying, ‘Oh yeah, you should retire. You should do this. You should… “No, guys. Don’t tell me what to do. I should control who I can do, right?”
When asked if someone explicitly told him to retire, Yeoh explained that he was not told “in so many words”, adding, “But when they don’t give you the papers and you just sit there…”
He then pointed to actresses like Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, who started their own production company “because they too saw it coming.”
Yeoh recently confirmed that his role in Everything Everywhere All At Once was originally written for a male and that Jackie Chan was in talks to play him.
Speaking to CNN, Yeoh said: “The tables were completely flipped. I remember Jackie texting me and saying, ‘Congratulations! You know your guys came to see me first. “You have done yourself a great service.”
NME named Everything Everywhere All At Once its best film of 2022. In response, Kwan said, “It’s been a really good year for cinema, especially after the last few years where the pandemic made people have fun with movies. releases. We’ve seen a lot of movies that we’ve fallen in love with, for a lot of different reasons.”
“To have people put us at the top of the list is very flattering. We may not agree, but that’s okay. We’re so grateful. Thank you so much. I can’t believe we have the number one.”