从昂山素季到强势母亲：杨紫琼谈缅甸暴行与种族歧视

Michelle Yeoh was an established martial arts star in Asia by the time Western audiences came to know her, first as a Bond girl and then a balletic warrior in the 2000 hit “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” During Yeoh’s action-hero days, she performed her own stunts — like launching herself and the motorcycle she was riding onto a moving train — and was at one point, she said, uninsurable. Little wonder, then, that Yeoh’s portrayal of the imperious mother, Eleanor Young, in the summer smash “Crazy Rich Asians” was so ferocious. Now she and her co-stars are nominated for the top prize, outstanding performance by a cast, at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Jan. 27. (The film is also up for a Golden Globe for best musical or comedy at Sunday’s ceremony.)

等到西方观众知道她的时候——先是通过邦女郎，后来又有2000年大热的《卧虎藏龙》中动作优雅的女侠——杨紫琼(Michelle Yeoh)在亚洲已经是知名的动作明星了：在杨紫琼的动作英雄生涯中，她亲自出演特技——比如连人带摩托车飞到一列行驶的火车上——以致于她说自己一度无法投保。因此，看到杨紫琼在去年夏季大获成功的《疯狂的亚洲富人》(Crazy Rich Asians)中刻画的专横母亲埃莉诺·杨(Eleanor Young)如此霸气，也就不奇怪了。现在她和同剧组的明星们已经获得1月27日的美国演员工会奖(Screen Actors Guild Awards)最高奖项——最佳集体演出奖的提名。(该片还在角逐周日将举办颁奖礼的金球奖音乐/喜剧类最佳影片。)

During a recent trip to New York, Yeoh — who is 56, and cut an edgy figure wearing head-to-toe black and a supple motorbike jacket — met me at the Four Seasons for black coffee and a conversation about the film, the racism she encountered in her earlier years, and her heartbreak over Myanmar’s repressive government under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yeoh played in the 2012 biopic “The Lady.”

在最近一次纽约之行中，56岁的杨紫琼——瘦削的身材、从头到脚的黑色着装、柔软的机车夹克——和我在四季酒店见面，喝着黑咖啡聊了这部影片，她早年遭遇的种族歧视，以及她对昂山素季(Daw Aung San Suu Kyi)领导下的缅甸专制政府感到的痛心疾首——在2012年的传记影片《昂山素季》(The Lady)中，杨紫琼出演了这位诺贝尔和平奖获得者。

Here are edited excerpts.

以下是编辑的摘要。

It is almost unfathomable that “Crazy Rich Asians” was the first Hollywood movie with a contemporary setting and a majority Asian-American cast since “Joy Luck Club” in 1993.

《疯狂的亚洲富人》是自1993年《喜福会》以来，首部以当代为背景、由亚裔美国人为主的剧组出演的好莱坞影片，这实在是不可思议。

Asian communities are so hungry, they never see themselves on the big screen. Honestly when I first came out here, suddenly to be told I’m a minority was a big shock. I came from China — how did I suddenly switch to being a minority? We want to be represented, we don’t want to be invisible, we don’t want to be told that we’re not good enough to be on the silver screens. You don’t have to treat us special. Just treat us as equals.

亚裔群体太渴望了，他们从来都看不到自己出现在大银幕上。说实话，在刚来这里，突然被告知我是少数群体时，我大吃了一惊。我来自中国——怎么会突然变作少数群体呢?我们想要被表达，我们不想被视而不见，我们不想被告知我们不够好不能上银幕。你们不用给我们特别对待。平等对待就好。

Was your mom like Eleanor?

你妈妈像埃莉诺吗?

Oh no. My mom is not Eleanor at all. She’s not a hippie, but she’s very carefree, very outgoing. Eleanor would be truly my homage to the mothers that I know in Asia. A lot of my friends or my friends’ mothers.

哦不像。我妈妈完全不是埃莉诺。她不是嬉皮士，但她很无忧无虑，很外向。埃莉诺可能真的是我在向我所认识的亚洲母亲们致敬：我很多朋友或朋友的母亲。

Your crazy rich Asian friends?

你的那些狂有钱的亚洲朋友们?

Ha ha. Yes. And their mothers-in-law. Or their mothers. Because I drew a lot of inspiration from them.

哈哈。是的。还有他们的婆婆，或者他们的母亲。因为我从他们那里获得了很多灵感。

[Read our review of “Crazy Rich Asians.”]

[参考阅读《疯狂的亚洲富人》时报影评文章。]

Eleanor was up to the last moment trying to please her mother-in-law. She wanted her son to look good because she wasn’t good enough.

埃莉诺直到最后一刻还在取悦她的婆婆。她想要儿子看上去好些，因为她不够好。

That was the one thing we really, really worked on. We needed Eleanor to be vulnerable to make her more human. In the book Eleanor was black-and-white-movies mean. I didn’t want her to be a villain. I wanted her to have very high standards, to be very elegant. But the most important thing, what we really worked on, is the love between the mother and son.

这的的确确是我们在努力做好的一件事。我们需要埃莉诺有些脆弱，从而让她更人性。在书中，埃莉诺是黑白片式的刻薄。我不想把她当成一个大反派。我想让她有非常高的标准、非常优雅。但最重要的事情，我们真正下功夫的，是母子之间的爱。

The mah-jongg scene was great. I take it you know how to play.

麻将那场戏很棒。从中我猜你是会打牌的。

Yes, it’s my sort of specialty, I had no problem in that scene at all. It was the showdown, right? And the movie could’ve ended there. At the end of the day it wasn’t a prince-Cinderella movie. If you look at all of the women, they all were stronger. They weren’t waiting to be rescued.

是的，这差不多算我的特长，那场戏我一点问题都没有。那是要摊牌了，对吧?影片也可以在那里结束。但归根结底，这不是一部“王子和灰姑娘”式的电影。你去看里面所有女性，她们都变得更强大了。她们没有在等待被拯救。

Eleanor had a very intense presence.

埃莉诺有种很紧绷的仪态。

Eleanor was very composed. She didn’t talk with her hands. She was very contained. For a character like that, she has to command a lot of attention, with the stillness. That I worked on.

埃莉诺很沉着。她从不用手势表达。她很从容。对于那样一个角色，她必须在静中吸引许多的注意力。这也是我努力去表现的。

“The Lady” was quite contained.

《昂山素季》很克制。

“The Lady” is. But “The Lady” is also very emotional on other levels.

《昂山素季》的确是。但从其他层面讲《昂山素季》又是很情绪化的。

How are you reacting to news about the atrocities against Rohingya Muslims under Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership?

你对昂山素季领导下针对罗辛亚穆斯林的暴行有何感受?

I feel very against of course what is happening to the Rohingyas. We do have a foundation inside Burma. We felt when the country opened up, it’s not the top layer [of society] that needed help. It’s the rest. But they adore her. Because they really believe that she’s trying to do whatever she can for the lower people.

我当然非常反对针对罗辛亚人的行为。我们在缅甸有一个基金会。我们感到，当这个国家走向开放时，需要帮助的不是(社会的)顶层。而是其他人。但是他们崇拜她。因为他们真的相信她在尽力为底层人民服务。

They still adore her?

他们现在还崇拜她吗?

They still feel like that. But the thing is, it’s so complicated. I don’t believe she has the power. Maybe she’ll hate me for saying this. She has no power. The power is still with the military.

他们仍然有这种感觉。但问题是，这太复杂了。我不相信她有这种能力。也许我这么说她会恨我。她没有权力。权力仍然掌握在军方手中。

Are you in touch with her?

你和她有联系吗?

We are in touch with her. But recently it has been very difficult because of all the things that have been going on. But she knows that I have been a little bit outspoken about the fact that I’ve been so disappointed. It’s tragic.

我们和她有联系。但是最近情况变得很困难，因为发生了各种各样的事情。但她知道我在公开说我很失望。这很不幸。

It must be very strange for you, having played her. Do you think she should lose her Nobel?

你演过她，这感觉肯定很奇怪。你认为她会失去诺贝尔奖吗?

I think we should really take a step back and try and understand. What they are condemning her for is for not speaking out. For not turning around and saying, “You are wrong, you shouldn’t have.” Yes, maybe she can do that and be thrown out of the country again. I feel that she’s trying to keep the door open so that there’s still dialogue within her country and she still can have some kind of say. What I fear is without the support of the international people, it’s easy for the military to just disregard her. So I think she’s in a really, really rough place.

我认为我们真的应该退后一步，试着去理解。他们谴责她没有公开发声，没有转过身去说：“你们错了，你们不应该这样。”是的，也许她可以这样做，然后再次被驱逐出境。我觉得她在努力让大门保持敞开，这样她的国家内部仍然可以有对话，她仍然可以有一些发言权。我担心的是，如果没有国际上的支持，军方就可以轻易把她抛开了。所以我认为她的处境非常非常艰难。

Let me ask you about another controversial thing.

我再问你一个有争议的问题。

Why stop now while we’re at it? Don’t get me into trouble.

都说到这里了何必停下来呢?别让我惹上麻烦啊。

It’s been over a year since news about Harvey Weinstein broke. You have said you never had any trouble with sexual harassment, and if you had, you would have deployed your martial arts skills. What do you think about men hoping to come back?

哈维·韦恩斯坦(Harvey Weinstein)的事传出来已经有一年多了。你说过你从来没有遇到过性骚扰的麻烦，如果你遇到了，你会用武术来对付。你怎么看那些希望回到业界的男人?

It was an adjustment. Something that we needed to clean up. We needed skeletons to come out from the closet. The most important thing is that the person has changed and understands that all that is bad.

这是一种调整。是我们需要明确的东西。我们需要让不可告人的秘密曝光。最重要的是这个人已经改变了，明白了这一切都是不好的。

With “Crazy Rich Asians,” were there reactions to the film that surprised you?

对于《疯狂的亚洲富人》，有没有让你感到惊讶的反应?

Asians are quite reserved, but after the movie they’ve come up to me on the streets to say “Can I give you a hug? I just want to say thank you.” The first opening weekend, I was on my knees, because God forbid, if it didn’t work, it could’ve set us back 20 years.

亚洲人很含蓄的，但看完电影后，他们在街上遇到我的时候会说：“我可以拥抱你吗?我只想说声谢谢。”首映的第一个周末，我跪了下来，因为上帝保佑，如果这部片子不成功，我们可能会倒退20年。

I was shocked by the opening scene, the intense discrimination aimed at Eleanor’s family. I thought it couldn’t have been like that in the ’90s.

影片开始的一幕让我震惊，就是对埃莉诺家人的强烈歧视。我以为90年代不可能是这样的。

[Yeoh arches a brow and shoots me a piercing “Girl, you’re so naïve” look.]

(杨紫琼扬起眉毛，犀利的眼神仿佛在说:“姑娘，你太天真了。”)

I remember when I first went to Paris, in the late ’80s, early ’90s. Every time I walked into a store, the women would fold their arms. They wouldn’t even speak to me. So the next day, my ex sent his designer to go shopping with me, and doors flew open.

我记得我第一次去巴黎是在80年代末90年代初。每当我走进一家店，女人们都会抱起胳膊。她们甚至不和我说话。所以第二天，我的前男友派他的设计师和我一起去购物，那些门一下子就打开了。

Just like “Pretty Woman”!

就像《风月俏佳人》(Pretty Woman)那样!

You’d be surprised how racist people were at that time, it’s a shame. But I’m glad it’s not like that now. I work with the [United Nations Development Program] as a good-will ambassador, to promote gender equality, all these things we [need] to have a better world, more peaceful world. If we don’t we’re not going to be able to save our world. We have to work together, start dialogue together and have no judgment. Why are we so judgmental?

你会惊讶于当时人们的种族主义有多严重，很遗憾。但我很高兴现在不是这样了。作为一名亲善大使，我与联合国开发计划署(United Nations Development Program)合作，促进性别平等，我们(需要)的一切就是拥有一个更美好、更和平的世界。不这么做，我们就无法拯救世界。我们必须一起工作，一起开展对话，不要有那么多臆断。我们为什么那么喜欢臆断呢?

Twitter. It’s all Twitter’s fault.

Twitter。这都是Twitter的错。

I don’t know. I don’t know how to twit.

我不知道。我不知道怎么twit。