Michelle Yeoh says she was told to retire before she was cast in Everything Everywhere All at Once

Michelle Yeoh has revealed that she was encouraged to retire from acting before she was cast in Everything Everywhere All at Once – but she didn't listen to the naysayers.

"As you get older, the roles get smaller," Yeoh told the Los Angeles Times' The Envelope podcast. "It seems like the numbers go up and these things go narrow, and then you start getting relegated to the side more and more. So when Everything Everywhere came… It was very emotional because this means that you are the one who's leading this whole process, who's telling the story."

In the movie, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (AKA the Daniels), Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang, a woman who is drawn from her ordinary life as a laundromat owner into an adventure through the multiverse, when she discovers that she is the only one who can save every world in existence from an ominous threat.

She continued: "You know, as you get older, people start saying, 'Oh yeah, you should retire. You should do this. You should…' No, guys. Do not tell me what to do. I should be in control of what I am capable of, right?"

Yeoh won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and the Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Film at the London Critics Circle Awards for her performance as Evelyn. She's also been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA for Best Leading Actress, while the movie itself has been nominated for a total of 11 awards at this year's Oscars, the most of any release.

Everything Everywhere All at Once has returned to selected theaters following its Oscar nominations, and it's also available to stream on Prime Video. For more viewing inspiration, check out our picks of the other best movies of 2022.