A Lesbian Favorite

With Grey's Anatomy on hiatus we do not expect much "news" from Sandra during the summer, so in the mean time we will be digging in the archives and posting some of Sandra's old interviews every week.

The first one out is from The Advocate, September 26, 2006.

Oh, Sandra! She steals her scenes in Sideways and the show in Grey’s Anatomy. Emmy-nominated and a fixture in indie movies—see her this December in Thom Fitzgerald’s AIDS-related drama 3 Needles—Oh never fails to delight and surprise us.

Interviewed by Michele Kort

You have played some great lesbian roles. When are we going to get to see you play lesbian again?
I’m in The Night Listener with Robin Williams, and maybe my character’s a lesbian—I don’t know. I mean, his character is gay, so maybe his bookkeeper is a lesbian!

And in 3 Needles you play a nun.
Yeah, go figure that.

Another lesbian favorite.
Oh, my God, and I play a nun with two other probable lesbian favorites: Chloë Sevigny and Olympia Dukakis! That’s because Thom Fitzgerald, our director, that’s his taste as well.

Your role in Under the Tuscan Sun—a pregnant lesbian whose partner breaks up with her—was certainly not stereotypical.
Yeah, Kate Walsh—she’s my girlfriend [and also a costar on Grey’s Anatomy]—gives me a kiss and says hello, and then we say that we’re pregnant. It’s not as if the character comes on-screen and the second thing from her mouth is “lesbian.” It’s like being an Asian woman on-screen. I’m at the place where I feel I don’t need to justify why I’m there. What’s great about Grey’s Anatomy is that we have not really dealt with the races of our characters yet. I’ll be excited to see at what point we’re going to get into situations where we can explore race.

Speaking of race, some of us first saw you in the movie Double Happiness, in which you played a Canadian-Chinese woman caught between her own needs and her parents’ expectations.
Oh, God bless you! It always thrills me when people have seen my previous work, and some of it is the work that’s nearest and dearest to my heart.

How do you manage to be on a hit TV series as well as act in plays and in what you call “überindie” films?
Television is, like, my day job, and I moonlight in theater and films. It’s wonderful and challenging to play one character for years, but it’s also terrific to play different characters. I feel faithful to the indie world because they’ve always wanted what I have to offer.

Finally, on a personal note, you aren’t married [to Sideways director Alexander Payne] anymore. Are you single? Engaged in a new relationship?
I’m engaged in life. Life is engaging me.

Good answer.