Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng (born August 6, 1962) is a Hong Kong-based actress and dancer, sometimes billed as “Michelle Khan”. Yeoh is a Chinese Malaysian born in Ipoh, Malaysia. Yeoh was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1997.

Michelle Yeoh.

In 1983, Yeoh returned to her home country, Malaysia. It was at the age of 21 when Yeoh became the winner of the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant in 1983. She was also Malaysia’s representative at the 1983 Miss World pageant in London. From there, she appeared in a television commercial with Jackie Chan which caught the attention of a fledgling film production company called D&B Films.

Despite having no formal martial arts training, Yeoh is best known for her roles in action and martial arts films (notably The Heroic Trio in 1993, and the Yuen Woo-ping films Tai Chi Master and Wing Chun in 1994). She relies on her dance training and instructors, and does many of her own stunts. She is one of the few women Jackie Chan allows to do her own stunts in his films; they first worked together on a commercial in 1984.

Like many other Hong Kong stars, Yeoh has attempted to break into Hollywood. Despite starring in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) — garnering considerable praise as one of the genre’s most popular Bond Girls Wai Lin — and the popular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), which also starred Zhang Ziyi, she has not won a mainstream audience in the English-speaking world as of yet.

She could have gained that audience had she accepted the role of Seraph in the two Matrix sequels, but due to a scheduling conflict she was unable to accept them, so the Matrix writers changed Seraph into a male character and cast Collin Chou in the role. In 2002, she produced her first English film, The Touch through her own production company, Mythical Films. In early 2005, Michelle finished the shooting of Memoirs of a Geisha.