From clown school to gritty, real life drama
BRITISH actress Angela Yeoh gives a moving performance as Rowena Chiu, Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant, in the film She Said, about the women who brought the film mogul down — and the journalists who told their story.
Yeoh landed the role after Chiu told filmmakers she wanted to be portrayed by a British Asian actress and ‘not an American actress putting on an accent’.
The two women met before filming and have become friends off screen, attending all three of the film’s
premieres together. Yeoh said: ‘I really cared about getting it right and we have come to support each other on the journey to getting this story on the screen.’
She came to acting via an unusual route, having started out as a journalist.
She also spent a couple of years studying at ‘clown school’ with French master of the art Philippe Gaulier — who also taught Emma Thompson, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter.
I’m told Gaulier described one of the above talents as ‘very boring’ — I’ll leave it to readers to guess who that might have been.
Yeoh, who was raised in London and Australia, will next be seen in a sci-fi Apple TV series, Wool.
She Said opens in cinemas next Friday.