Quentin Tarantino is an outspoken Michelle Yeoh super-fan, so much so that he has cited her performance in the 1992 Jackie Chan action comedy “Police Story 3” as a major influence behind Uma Thurman’s The Bride in “Kill Bill.” So why didn’t Tarantino cast Yeoh in the film? It’s a question Yeoh herself had when she saw “Kill Bill,” and she made sure to confront Tarantino about it when the two met afterwards.
“I asked Quentin the same question,” Yeoh said in her Town & Country cover interview (via Entertainment Weekly). “He’s very smart. He said, ‘Who would believe that Uma Thurman could kick your ass?’”
Tarantino and Yeoh have a long history together as friends. After all, it was the “Pulp Fiction” director who inspired Yeoh to continue acting after she was injured on the set of the 1996 movie “The Stunt Woman.”
“I thought I broke my back. I thought I was paralyzed,” Yeoh said, revealing that Tarantino was in Hong Kong at the time screening “Pulp Fiction” and decided to visit her in the hospital.
“I must say, Quentin, he’s persistent,” Yeoh continued. “He is who he is today because he’s full of passion and love, so he wore me down. Suddenly we became animated. So then I thought, ‘Maybe I’m not ready to give up on this.’”
“I was just a huge, huge fan of hers,” Tarantino told Town & Country. “There was always a twinkle in her eye.”
Tarantino is still planning to retire from feature filmmaking after his 10th movie, which means he only has one film left to make. Here’s hoping Yeoh finds her way into a Tarantino movie before he calls it quits.
Yeoh is currently gearing up for Oscar season, where she’ll be in contention for best actress thanks to her acclaimed turn in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The multiverse-set action comedy has grossed over $100 million worldwide, a rare feat for an indie film coming out of the pandemic and the highest gross ever for an A24 movie.