Michelle Yeoh Reveals What She Hopes Fans Learn About Her from The Brothers Sun: 'I'm Quite Naughty' (Exclusive)

When fans watch Michelle Yeoh’s new action-packed series, she hopes they learn something new about her.

“Oh, I hope what they learn that behind this facade of being so nice, I'm quite naughty,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.

The prolific Oscar-winning actress, 61, stars in the new Netflix show The Brothers Sun as the smart and savvy Mama Sun, a Taiwanese gangster’s wife now living an ordinary existence in the U.S. with one of her sons Bruce Sun (Sam Song Li). But when her past eventually catches up to her, Mama Sun finds she needs to embrace many of the unsavory elements of her old life which she once fought to escape.  

The Brothers Sun marks a project Yeoh has never tackled before: a “contemporary action comedy” that blends tightly choreographed fights with plentiful moments of dark humor.

“I've not been in a contemporary action comedy show based on the world of gangsters,” Yeoh explains. “To be able to bring the East to the West in a big explosion of arms and legs was an opportunity I couldn't afford to miss out on.”

As with every TV and film project she embarks on, Yeoh brought her trademark rigor on-set. During a welcome dinner, she playfully issued her younger castmates a warning.

“The first night with all the young cast, we went around the table to introduce ourselves and to talk about what we hope to take away from this experience,” she recalls. “By the time it came to me, I was like, ‘Just don't waste my time or else I'm going to kick your butts. Okay?’ And everybody gave their 110 percent from day one.”

The Brothers Sun arrives less than a year after Yeoh took home an Oscar in April 2023 for her portrayal of Evelyn Wang, the multiverse hopping, butt-kicking Chinese immigrant in Everything Everywhere All at Once. The actress’ win was a watershed moment for the Asian community in Hollywood, marking the first time an Asian woman had won best actress.

“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities,” she said during her acceptance speech at the time. “This is proof that, dream big, and dreams do come true.”

While The Brothers Sun and Everything Everywhere All at Once are recent, promising examples of Hollywood projects featuring predominantly Asian casts, Yeoh contends there’s still much more work to be done when it comes to Asian representation onscreen.

“Everything ties back to the fact that there are so many Asian Americans here living the American way. They are Americans, so why do we not have stories that represent them on a greater level?” she explains. “I think we should now stop saying, ‘Oh, it should be more about this and more about that.’ Let's tell great stories. Let's tell stories where we can integrate with each other … It’s about collectively, how are we going to do this together to make it [representative of] America.”

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The actress, whose long resume already includes a wide range of roles, shows no signs of slowing down. Besides celebrating a second wedding with husband Jean Todt in December and announcing she had become a grandmother on New Year's Day, Yeoh stars as Madame Morrible in the upcoming film adaptation of Wicked, which is split in two parts — a performance her costar Jonathan Bailey recently teased to PEOPLE was “brilliant” and “amazing.”

She is also set to reprise her role as Philippa Georgiou in Paramount+’s movie Star Trek: Section 31 and signed on for the next three Avatar sequels.

“I'm always on the lookout for something new, refreshing to do," says Yeoh, adding, "If I don't find something that does that for me, then I'd rather be spending time with my family and my loved ones. ... But sometimes, I think you have to just open your heart to the universe and something, or someone, will come along. That's what I always try to do.”

For more on Michelle Yeoh, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here. 

 All episodes of The Brothers Sun are available to stream on Netflix.