As Michelle Yeoh - action icon and star of The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor - happily admits, her job can often be back-breaking work.

"Isn't it ironic that it was a spinal injury that got me to where I am now?" asks Michelle Yeoh, one of Asia's top female action stars, who is famed for doing her own stunts. The Malaysian-born actress, however, didn't always have her heart set on starring in action and martial arts films. From the age of four, she trained in ballet, later relocating to England with her family after winning a place at London's Royal Academy Of Dance when she was 15-years-old. But a dislocated vertebra led her to switch careers, and today Yeoh has one of the most dangerous jobs in the business. "If it wasn't for my spinal injury, I'd still be in ballet today, although I'd probably be teaching by now," reflects the 46-year-old, whose career as an action star - while not easy - has given her an amazingly fulfilled life.

"Ballet was the first great love of my life," Yeoh says. "It's a very disciplined art form and I enjoyed that. In London, I was at an advanced level, so the class was physically very demanding. But I have no one but myself to blame for my injury. I went back home to Malaysia for an extended holiday, and when I came back, I jumped straight back into the dancing, but I didn't go through the warm up process. The problem is, when you're a dancer, you learn to work through the pain. So when I hurt my back, I didn't even realise. I was working through the pain until a few weeks later when the ballet's doctor examined me and told me that I'd hurt my back. He basically turned around to me and said, 'Have you ever considered a different career?'"

Yeoh returned to Malaysia where, at 21-years-old, she won the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant, and then competed in the 1983 Miss World contest. From there, she began filming commercials, and won a small part in the 1984 action film, Mao Tou Ying Yu Xiao Fei Xiang, which co-starred stuntmen Sammo Hung and George Lam, who showed the young Yeoh the ropes. "I was watching them work and I thought how much it looked like a dance piece," she explains. "Having spent many years as a ballerina, I was thinking that I wouldn't mind trying it myself because I loved sports as well. Hong Kong was either doing martial arts movies or comedies at that time, and since my Cantonese was really bad, comedy was out of the question. I told my manager that I'd love to try some martial arts instead. So I went into training right away: if you're going to do an action film, then you have to do it yourself. There's nothing worse than when the stunt double obviously comes in. Where's the fun in that? As a dancer, I was able to watch people and mimic the movements that they did. I began training with the stunt boys in Hong Kong, and everything that I can do today is due to them. At first they were a little bit curious, but I was running with them and trying to box and spar with them. What got their interest up was that I could mimic all their moves so quickly, so it became fascinating for them as well. So that was how I got into it."

Signed to a management company run by her future husband Dickson Poon, Yeoh regularly worked with action giants Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat, yet she all but retired upon her 1988 marriage, returning to acting in 1992 after the couple divorced.
Single and single-minded, Yeoh focused all her energies on her career, eventually breaking into Hollywood as a Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies eleven years ago.
In the West, her most famous roles have been Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sunshine, Children Of The Silk Road and Memoirs Of A Geisha, although she regrets having to turn down the role of Seraph in the two Matrix sequels due to scheduling conflicts. Now, Yeoh stars opposite fellow martial arts legend Jet Li in The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, which puts a decidedly eastern spin on the popular franchise.

And once again, Yeoh finds herself in the thick of the action. The actress now accepts injury as part of her profession after being hurt on numerous film sets, including Royal Warriors, Magnificent Warriors, Wing Chun and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where she tore her left knee ligaments. "But Ah Kam in 1995 was my worst injury," she recalls today. "I had a very bad fall and hurt my back again. It was odd because Ah Kam was actually my tribute to the stunt people. Normally you never hear of the stunt people getting hurt; it's the stars that are more protected. In a horrible sense, the stunt people can be replaced, but the actors have to be who they are; if they're hurt, the whole production is put on hold. So we wanted to show the audience the hardship of the stunt people and what they go through. In one scene, I was pushed off a ledge maybe 13 feet high. The stunt went wrong and I was actually toppled over. So instead of landing flat, I nose-dived into the mattress. My head went in first and then my legs came from the back, and I literally heard my back go 'snap'. But I was very fortunate because I was so flexible and all the right things came into play. I cracked my ribs and I tore all the ligaments in my back. I was in a neck brace and back brace for two months, and then I finished the movie."

The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor is released on September 11.