Michelle Yeoh reflects on career setbacks and Asian stories at Busan film festival

Michelle Yeoh said at a Busan International Film Festival press conference in South Korea on October 7 that she was ‘not afraid of failures’ and still looked for new challenges. The Oscar-winning actor, attending as the festival’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year and the lead of its Gala Presentation film It’s My Time, connected that outlook to her experience of stereotyped roles and her hopes for more Asian stories on screen.

‘Every day, when I wake up, I look forward to a new challenge in life and I think that is what life is about,’ Yeoh said, according to Yonhap News Agency. She compared the ups and downs of failure to a heartbeat. The remarks framed a discussion of the choices she has made across more than four decades of acting, including her interest in roles that require her to learn something new.

Why Michelle Yeoh took on It’s My Time

Yeoh said the challenge of playing an old woman drew her to It’s My Time. She also pointed to the film’s message that new opportunities remain possible at any age. Yonhap reported that the film was invited to the festival’s Gala Presentation section, giving her appearance a direct connection to work she is presenting now, alongside the festival award.

The festival’s October 7 press schedule listed a conference and question-and-answer session for the Asian Filmmaker of the Year and the Gala Presentation of It’s My Time at Busan Cinema Center. Its newsletter that day identified Yeoh as the award recipient. The festival runs from October 6 to October 15, according to its schedule.

What Yeoh said about stereotyped roles

Yeoh recalled being shocked when she was first described as a ‘minority’ in Hollywood. Even after appearing in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, she said, she was repeatedly offered stereotypical parts for Asian women, including jobs in a Korean restaurant or a Chinese laundromat. She presented those memories as part of her own career experience, rather than a measure of casting practices across the industry.

The contrast between those offers and her later Oscar win shaped her account of what other performers might imagine for themselves. Yeoh credited Korean actor Youn Yuh-jung, the first Asian winner of the Academy’s supporting actress award, with inspiring her. ‘She opened the door for me to believe that it is a possibility,’ Yeoh said, according to Yonhap.

Yeoh urged Asian actors and filmmakers to continue telling their stories and said their success should extend beyond a single breakthrough. She praised Korean cinema and mentioned filmmakers Lee Chang-dong, Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. Her comments were an appeal for continuing opportunities, not an announcement of a new production, casting decision or industry initiative.

Cinema and the choices ahead

Yeoh also described cinema as indispensable to her life. Acting, she said, had taken her to different parts of the world and allowed her to step into other people’s shoes. She acknowledged the many platforms and distractions competing for audiences’ attention while making a case for the time people choose to spend watching a film.

Her Busan remarks brought together the appeal of a new role and the obstacles she recalled from earlier in her career. The festival appearance established what Yeoh said about those experiences and her ambitions for Asian storytelling. Neither the conference account nor the festival records establish how widely stereotyped casting persists today or whether her appeal will lead to particular changes.