International superstar Michelle Yeoh recently revealed why she was not cast in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill,” despite the filmmaker previously sharing that she was a major influence behind the film’s protagonist.
During her recent cover interview with Town & Country, Yeoh shared that she had the same question for Tarantino after she watched the film.
Yeoh, who recently starred in the A24 blockbuster hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” said that she had asked the director herself.
“I asked Quentin the same question,” the Chinese Malaysian actor was quoted as saying. “He’s very smart. He said, ‘Who would believe that Uma Thurman could kick your ass?’”
In the 2003 martial arts film, Thurman’s character, Beatrix “The Bride” Kiddo, got to pummel down a team of assassins played by Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah and Vivica A. Fox.
Subscribe to
NextShark's Newsletter
A daily dose of Asian America's essential stories, in under 5 minutes.
Get our collection of Asian America's most essential stories to your inbox daily for free.
Unsure? Check out our Newsletter Archive.
According to Yeoh, her friendship with Tarantino goes way back as he was the one who convinced her to continue acting after she sustained an injury on the set of her 1996 movie “The Stunt Woman.”
“I thought I broke my back,” Yeoh said. “I thought I was paralyzed.”
She noted that Tarantino was screening “Pulp Fiction” in Hong Kong at the time and asked if he could 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.’”
Tarantino recalled to Town and Country a stunt Yeoh performed in the first movie he saw her in: “She parts her hands just before she breaks through the glass so you can see that it’s her. He then admitted that he was “a huge, huge fan of hers” as “there was always a twinkle in her eye.”
As the renowned filmmaker had earlier revealed his plans of retiring from filmmaking after his 10th movie, there is still one last chance fans could see Yeoh in a Tarantino film.
