Michelle Yeoh has been making kung fu and action movies for the past 40 years, holding her own alongside legends like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat, and Jet Li. But, in an interview with David Letterman from 1997 Yeoh described not one, but two heartbreaking realities she had to come to terms with during her professional life. The first was losing her dance career after a spinal injury in her teens that caused one of her vertebrae to twist. She explained that when the doctors told her shouldn’t dance anymore, “…My dream shattered right in front of my eyes.” She went on to use her choreography skills in action films, becoming one of the most well known female action film stars of all time.

Via: Georges Biard/Wiki Commons

When she was approached about doing the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies she assumed it would be a leading role, and replied to the director Jeff Clemens by excitedly asking, “I get to play James Bond?” While Yeoh didn’t get to be a female James Bond, the film did introduce her to American audiences and made her an even bigger international star.

But, in the end she said that if she had to be handcuffed to someone that “Pierce Brosnan is a pretty good choice.” She also confirmed that the scenes on the motorcycle were actually filmed on a moving bike across the streets and rooftops of Bangkok.

See the rest of this fascinating interview in the video below.

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