I have been watching Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh movies for the past 13 years. I first discovered Hong Kong martial arts cinema by way of Jackie Chan, who was the coolest acrobat I've ever seen. I quickly exhausted all of his films and moved on to Yeoh, who was introduced via Chan's "Supercop." She costarred with Jet Li in "Tai Chi Master." While it was not the same as Chan's funny martial arts, the wirework was awesome in its own right.
Once they started making American movies, they came over for press junkets and I've gotten to interview them both many times (Chan too, as well as John Woo and Stephen Chow). I think I've even developed a special understanding of the nuances of broken English, but frankly Yeoh is fluent and Li is right on the cusp of total clarity.
They reteam for "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor ." Jet Li is the mummy himself and Yeoh plays a mystic who curses him in the past, and lives thousands of years to help fight him when he returns. While there are a lot more visual effects in "The Mummy" than in their previous work, they still get an old school fight scene together.
Q: Since you had done a movie together 15 years ago, what had changed in fighting each other now versus then?
Michelle Yeoh: Before we were on the same team. This movie we were fighting each other. But it's not difficult when you have to fight with someone like him.
Q: A lot more special effects now?
MY: Actually for our fight scene there isn't. If you think about it, ours was probably the one that was with a real person and going at it, because it was more an emotional fight. But what was beautiful was because I had an amazing dress that seemed like it was part of the weapon itself.
Q: Why were you interested in this movie?
Jet Li: For me? The Mummy. [Laughs]
MY: I thought he was saying money.
JL: Studio is money. I was mummy. Because I play a lot of good guys before and "Mummy," of course, the first one, second one was great. I always like it. This time when they say "Mummy 3" in China and they say, "Jet Li, you are going to be the mummy." I say, "Okay, fine," because I like the director. We talked about making a movie together before but it didn't happen so.
MY: I think the first attraction was Rob Cohen because we love the "Mummy" franchise to start off with, and then was very excited when he said we're going to take it to China. It was a perfect opportunity to have the young kids learn a little bit about China, whether it's a little bit of fact and fiction fantasy all mixed into one.
Having spoken to Rob, because I think it's very important because the director really is the one with the vision, with the story to tell, I was very impressed with his Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, because from that you can see that he had a great respect for Chinese culture. He understood it and he did not have a romanticized Caucasian male image of what the Chinese icon or what the culture should be about.
Then when he was talking about the character, I found her very interesting because you know she's very magical. You're not quite sure what she is or where she really comes from. She lives out in the remote place but she has certain powers, but you're not quite sure what they are actually. Then to be part of this franchise, it was a no-brainer, it was easy.
Q : Is it fun being the bad guy?
JL: Oh, for an actor you always play good guys very heavy, because the good guy has the responsibility of taking care of his family, wives, children, neighbors. Being good is not easy. The bad guy is straightforward selfish. I like the girl. It belongs to me. I like his car, give to me.
Q: American movies have cast you as a villain more than Asian movies.
JL: Oh, Asian, never, never. If you find Jet Li playing the bad guy in China, in Asia, it wouldn't sell in the theater. They cannot make the movie.
Q: Is Hollywood the only place you're allowed to do that?
JL: Yeah. You can make some movies and play the bad guy. Maybe even Asian audience still doesn't like it.
Q: Rob's a big fan of your movies. Would he ask you to give him specific moves from specific movies?
MY: No, he doesn't work like that. I think when he does something it's very much a Rob Cohen vision of what the move is. It's not like something that he's done or what I've done before, but a feeling of what we are. We've got like Vic Armstrong which was fantastic for me because I worked with Vic Armstrong in "Tomorrow Never Dies" so you know walking onto the set and then suddenly go, "Oh my god, the Bond people are here!" It's more important that they understand what we can do and then what Rob wants.
Q: What are you doing next?
MY: Well, we finish our press in Tokyo on the 6th and then I go home to Malaysia because I've been away from home for a long time. I need to spend some quality time. I have another movie coming out, "Babylon A.D. " with Vin Diesel directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, I think a few weeks after so I think the audience might have a good share of me already this year.
JL: This year I'll do nothing. I turned down two movies. I will only do charity in China because I just started a foundation for philosophy, helping people. One Foundation. We believe in globally we're a big family, everybody supports each other. It's very simple idea. Everyone, every month donate one yuan and we put out a pool to help people. A lot of major studio and big companies support it. A lot of actors and actresses in Asia support it. Like the Sichuan Earthquake, you know, what got a million people to support us so we take a lot of responsibility.
Q: Would you like to come back for more "Mummy"s?
MY: He already said 4 and 5.
JL: I think it really depends on the audience, if they like the movie, of course. No studio, maybe they don't like the actor but they still like the money. I'm looking forward to the money! It's good money.
Q: Were there any injuries on set?
MY: No. He's so easy to fight with.
JL: It's most difficult to stop us from smiling.
MY: I think the most difficult thing when we're facing off is, "Okay, don't make me laugh." Because we stand there and go, "Oh god, no." Because when we were working on "Tai Chi Master," Yuen Woo Ping had to send us out of the room because we would giggle the whole time. Like Rob would come up to us and say, "What are you two talking about?" Because we would be like [chatting with each other] and laughing. Not just [chuckling], but laughing. That was the most difficult part when it came to our fighting.
Q: What is daily martial arts practice for each of you now ?
MY: He was born in shape.
JL: Because martial arts is like a part of my life, since eight years old I'm learning until now. But recently, the past few years, I'm more focused on meditation. It's not a physical part. It's more mental part, to understand life, why we need to make movies, why people like the peace but always say to hit somebody else, beat up each other. We talk about something but we want to see something different.
Q: Have you found an answer?
Jet Li: Yeah. I think a big enemy is yourself, how to see the world, how to understand the people's different angles, different cultures, to understand today's universe today's words of how to make them work.
Q: Michelle, what's your daily practice nowadays?
MY: Because you know you've had injuries over the years and you also understand what is necessary and what your body needs, because everyone is different, I have the normal every day the stretching, the core work is very important. But then you know you have to work on a movie, it's just doing the basics. That's the most important thing for me. And then I get on the elliptical and I love that, every day for an hour.
Q: Is acting the same priority for both of you that it used to be?
MY: No, never has been I think.
JL: After "Fearless" I didn't pay too much attention to making movies. I changed my character in the daylight to helping people right now. Movies is my job but my dream is to build up the new foundation and China and Asia. So we started the foundation in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and China where we have a million people involved in it. I need to take more responsibility to pay back to the world.
MY: He's playing the good guy again.
Q: Is there a place for people to go to get more information?
JL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can go to www.onefoundation.cn You can get everything. We have a lot of support like Microsoft, Starbucks, NBA, a lot of international companies.
Q: What kind of scripts are you turning down now that you're working less?
JL: I turned down a lot of things I thought I did many times already. Just like 30 million movies, beat up some guys on the street, beat them up. I just think what's the meaning of making that movie? Just business, business.
Read our Brendan Fraser interview or access more information on The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor .
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