Like any Asian woman, the stereotypical concept of the Dragon Lady in Hollywood is one which Yeo Yann Yann is all too familiar with. But unlike most of us, it’s one she holds actual agency to dismantle. “I think my first instinct towards a character is very important for me. The big turning point of Mother for me is that she’s not a character that’s just there to move the plot along—she’s not just a strong ‘Dragon Lady’. There’s a scene which shows just how vulnerable she is, and that’s what stood out,” she shares.
We are dialled in on a Saturday afternoon from our respective homes in Singapore—where she is based. When she jumps on the Zoom call, she meets me on audio first, explaining that she is bare-faced but she’d like for us each to see the faces of whom we’re speaking to. As she turns her camera on, the sight becomes a profoundly familiar one for anyone living here; a wary mother’s gait as she hides away in a room, careful not to disrupt her daughter’s tuition session happening just outside. As we go on to laugh about the woes of Singapore’s education system, I catch a glimpse as to why she was even drawn to her role in Havoc in the first place.
Yeo plays Mother in Gareth Evans’s action-packed thriller Havoc, a triad boss seeking vengeance for her dead son. She may be most excited to wax lyrical about the sheer epicness of the gun fights that unfurl in the film—as well as the very real gun training she had to undergo for it—but anyone can tell that it’s one deathly quiet scene opposite Forest Whitaker which she truly holds dear.
“How could I not be excited about acting with a legend, you know?” she starts. “I went quite blank when I first met him on set, before we started filming.”
But she goes on. She recalls the magnitude of their scene together; one that portrays the raw, aching heart of a fellow parent to another. It’s the deceptive calm before the storm; an exchange between a mother whose child has been violently stolen from the world and a father whose child is the believed perpetrator of said murder. “A mother who loses her child is probably one of the worst things in the world. As a mother, I cannot imagine losing my child. The pain, and the whole impact of it. It’s devastating for her. It probably feels like something has exploded from the inside,” she explains. “So when I first read the script, that conversation between Mother and the mayor (Whitaker) is what really got to me. She’s not just the tough boss we know her to be.”
But she’s not just Mother either. She’s a triad boss too, who has to maintain impressions; her only private moment being the one in the morgue. Earnestly, she continues: “I imagined a back story for Mother, before all this. What I came up with is that when she was younger, she’s possibly a killer herself, like the assassin character that Michelle Waterson plays in the film. She’s home when she gets the news, and there’s no one else who can help her with her pain as she deals with all of this.”
“I don’t care what genre it is, but I do care about whether my audience can feel it with me.”
So the first scene we see right after? When Mother shoots down three henchmen in an instant. The combined result of some extremely intense training with gun experts, but also an immense understanding of her character. I commend her on it all—the underlying, protracted emotions; the unscripted details of her character’s body language; the tragedy of Mother’s gaze—all viscerally felt, despite Havoc’s baseline being all about the action.
“Technically, it’s a part of my job,” she laughs. She goes on to elaborate further: “When we’re attracted to a character or a film, it’s about playing and portraying the human—no matter which genre you’re in. Even in something about mundane life, something extraordinary could happen and we see how these not-so-normal people react to the situation. In doing that, we can attract our audience to be in the same position as us and invite you to feel the process with us. I don’t care what genre it is, but I do care about whether my audience can feel it with me.”
“I do still love my dramas though,” she playfully adds. The sentiment falls right in line with the project she’s currently working on. Anthony Chen’s We Are All Strangers, which closes the loop on the director’s previous works, Cannes-winning Ilo Ilo and Wet Season, both hallmarks of the local cinema scene, and testament to Yeo’s acting prowess. Teeming with the poignancy of ordinary life and yet carrying the weight of so much more, the same trio—Chen, Yeo and her fellow actor Koh Jia Ler—are reunited for the third instalment.
Carefully, she ponders about her ongoing relationship with the two. “When it first began, we were all strangers. Anthony was in his 20s, I was in my 30s. Now, I’m approaching 50. Jia Ler is growing from a little boy into a man. At this point, we are like a family. Sometimes, we want to kill each other, sometimes we want to hug each other. It’s one of the luckiest things that could happen to an actor—that you could grow together with a director.”
Continuing to talk about the film, she goes on about how difficult it is to make a picture that looks like its daily life, especially with the weather and restrictions in Singapore. I tell her the wait will be worth it; it’s like magic, after all, what they’ve created for local cinema.
“It’s quite amazing to be able to work together again at this point, but we’re all communicating differently. I can feel the changes within all of us. We’re all getting tired more easily,” she pensively adds.
At this juncture, I ask after what she desires most for herself. “It’s simple, I want to be healthy. I’m going through my menopause right now, and it’s something I need to talk about. I want to feel energetic, and I want to feel calm. I don’t feel like myself sometimes, and I want to be myself,” she quietly shares. She reminds me of all the incredible women in my life, I tell her. My sister-in-law, my mentors at work, my own mother.
“Anthony called me out for dinner tonight.” She pauses with a smile, before explaining what the significance was: “Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.” A full circle moment, by any means.
Havoc is now showing on Netflix.
Photographer: Chuan Looi
Stylist: Colin Sim
Make-up: KF Bong
Hair: Garrie Bobs
