Sandra Oh On Life On The Big And Small Screens

This week's interview is from Flare magazine and was originally published in December 2006.

By Dagmar Dunlevy

Dagmar Dunlevy: What first lured you to TV?
Sandra Oh: I was on HBO's Arli$$ and I wasn't working enough. So I tried shooting television pilots and that's when Grey's Anatomy came up. I liked the script and I really felt loved and respected by [creator] Shonda Rhimes and [executive producer] Peter Horton. It was all a very positive experience. When a pilot gets picked up, you have to ask, "Would I like to spend the next six years of my life with you?" With the Grey's group, I had a very good feeling from the start.

DD: Does acting in pilots bring on a lot of nail biting?
SO: It's brutal, I have a friend who's done probably 15 pilots and, as soon as her pilot's over, she gets another pilot. You're constantly having to ask yourself, "Is this the script I really want to do?", because you do have to sign a contract that says, "I will dedicate seven years of my life to this." When it comes to filming, if you cannot deal with disappointment, you're in the wrong business.

DD: When you started out as an actor, did you have one clear goal in mind?
SO: One of my ways of dealing with the frustration of the acting profession was not to ever have one single goal in mind. To say that my goal was to be in a movie with Tom Cruise or some big action movie, I think that's a way of setting yourself up for disappointment. For me, it's always been about doing the best work possible and I'd be hard pressed to say that I've been offered a role as good as [the Grey's Anatomy role] yet.

DD: What about feature films? Have you received loads of scripts after appearing in Sideways?
SO: Honestly, no. I've been busy and can't really shoot during this time. Why I'm so happy about my work on Grey's Anatomy is that I'm able to play a wonderful character. I think that's the case in TV: there is a considerably larger pool of wonderful female characters to play, which is very scarce in independent film.

DD: Do you find a big difference between the mediums of television and film?
SO: Films usually are about one script, one storyline, one character arc. In television, it's more challenging because of the time difference--it's difficult to sustain.

DD: Why did you choose your most recent film, 3 Needles?
SO: It's one of those great stories--a wonderful discovery. I just saw it and it's so good! It was released in Canada and was cut in an Altman-esque way. It's a film about AIDS, and [director] Thom Fitzgerald follows three storylines. The first takes place in remote villages in China--which was actually shot in Thailand--and stars Lucy Liu, who's an amazing actor. Another storyline deals with three nuns--me, Chloe Sevigny and Olympia Dukakis--who go to South Africa and see the intense challenge AIDS has placed on the country. The final segment deals with the sex industry in Montreal and stars Stockard Channing. That story is about her son [played by Shawn Ashmore], who is infected and works in the sex industry and who knowingly infects other people. Thom shot this over a three-year period and we're set to release it worldwide on Dec. 1 to coincide with, World AIDS Day.

DD: Have you felt pressure from the Korean community to be a role model?
SO: Yes, but I don't take it on as something that's heavy. I am my own individual person. I'm going to do what I'm going to do, but I'm not blind to the fact that I carry some responsibility. As far as saying something to my Korean fans, I have really nothing to say except, I hope you enjoy the show and I hope you're enjoying my work.

DD: On Grey's Anatomy, how involved do you get with how the show is mapped out over the sea son?
SO: I feel like I've been able to have a fair amount of input; my relationship with the writers is extremely positive. I have felt a tremendous amount of collaboration on their part, insomuch as you can be. But they also plan things we don't know we're going to play, so in some ways, that's quite challenging.

DD: Why do you think Grey's Anatomy is so addictive to watch?
SO: Hospitals are natural places for drama. Layer that with people who are working and interacting with each other for very long hours--everyone can relate. The stress of having jobs that deal with life and death situations pushes people to extremes.

DD: What's your relationship with your own doctor?
SO: My doctor is a woman exactly like [Grey's character] Miranda Bailey! [Laughs] She actually looks like Chandra [Wilson, who plays Dr. Bailey], too. She's a short, black woman with hair like that. I really like her. She's very no-nonsense. She doesn't talk to me about my work. She just tells me what to do!

DD: Do you think you'd make a good doctor? Are you good at diagnosing yourself and others?
SO: Umm, no. I don't think I'd be a very good doctor. I have a more scattered personality and a personality that is emotionally involved. That's my job. I don't necessarily think that translates so well to being a doctor, particularly if we're talking about being a surgeon. Besides, science wasn't a favourite subject and I was terrible at math.

DD: Do you make a better patient now that you've played a doctor?
SO: Yes, I think I do. Not that I ever need to be demanding, but I think you constantly need to be as informed as possible because there are a lot of unseen factors that could change your outcome.

DD: You're also asked to be fluent in medical-speak. How do you get around the tongue twisters?
SO: Practice! That's the case for all of us. If I don't start memorizing that medical stuff at least a couple of days before, I have a hard time. You just really have to relate to it and know what you're talking about.

DD: With an ensemble cast, some actors worry that their stint won't last. Is it nerve-racking not really knowing where the characters are going?
SO: As an actor, you just never know--anything. The chances of getting a pilot are small, then having it picked up are even smaller. The chances of it being produced for more than a year are rare, so I don't think you can depend on anything--or expect anything. In a way, I really like that, even though it's extremely stressful at certain times. It keeps life really exciting and challenging. The only predictable thing about an actor's life is that it's always going to be unpredictable.

DD: Is your character on Grey's someone you relate to?
SO: I find it very satisfying to play Cristina because, for right or wrong, l actually don't think I'm a lot like her. I find it interesting to play someone who does not know how to express her feelings. That's one of the key things I was most interested in in playing this character because I don't feel I'm like that as a human being.

DD: Has it been cathartic to play a character going through so much emotional growth?
SO: That's another great thing to see how the relationship between Cristina and [Dr.] Burke continues to evolve, which I think is very real. It's nice again to see a woman who cannot commit and a woman who is emotionally stunted on TV. Also, here we are, 2006, and you see a character who is extremely career-driven and does not know whether this relationship is going to come in the way of her goals. One of the larger character arcs is to see how she will open up. I would say that, absolutely, my career is extremely important to me. I've always been an extremely focused person, but I have healthy relationships.

'The Gayest Music Of All Time' With Sandra

Sandra is set to host CBC's radio show Go! where the theme is The Gayest Music Of All Time. She has done it before and she is back with a new show tomorrow (June 27) at 10AM on CBC Radio One:

Get ready to dance! Guest host Sandra Oh spins the gayest music of all time. From Abba to Queen and George Michael to Liza Minnelli, it's all on the playlist.

To listen to the show live, click here for more information.

Source

Awkward

Today's random pic is a still from an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Here Sandra Oh is seen sharing an awkward hug with Mary McDonnell and Chandra Wilson.

ProSieben Interview

Brief interview with Sandra Oh where she talks about Grey's Anatomy with the German network, ProSieben.

'Chicago' In New York

Fresh gossip from Twitter:

ChicagoMusical: Sandra Oh was in the house last night seeing Chandra Wilson as Mama Morton!

Sandra's Grey's Anatomy co-star Chandra Wilson is currently playing Matron "Mama" Morton in the musical Chicago on Broadway.

Matt Roush's Emmy Wish List

TV Guide's critic Matt Roush shares his Emmy Wish List:

Supporting Actress

Reality check: Great choices overflow here, and narrowing it to six is purely personal preference. Look for In Treatment’s winner Dianne Wiest (and very likely Alison Pill) to make the cut, along with return Grey’s nominees Chandra Wilson and Sandra Oh (no argument here), Brothers & Sisters stalwart Rachel Griffiths, and maybe one of the Big Love wives (though Gennifer Goodwin, Chloe Sevigny and the nutty Grace Zabriskie would all be welcome). My preferences? Some of the above, but I’ll only be satisfied if Lost’s ravishing Elizabeth Mitchell and Friday Night Lights’ luminous Connie Britton are in the running.

Matt’s Wish List
Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights)
Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost)
Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy)
Chloe Sevigny (Big Love)
Chandra Wilson (Grey's Anatomy)
Alison Pill (In Treatment)
Very close runners-up: Katherine Heigl (Grey's Anatomy), Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad), Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica)

Source

Stellar

Actress Steph Song on Sandra from a recent interview:

Q: Do you have a mentor or role model?

A: I have always loved the work of Sandra Oh. She's stellar. She chooses roles that are so open, so brazen, so vulnerable, and so beautiful. She has a quiet grace about her onscreen.

Source

The Double Life Of Sandra Oh

It is Monday and time for the interview of the week. This one was originally published in Maclean's on July 31, 1995 and is with a young Sandra, having just shot her second movie, Double Happiness.

By Brian D. Johnson

It is a movie in which life and art contain each other like a series of Chinese boxes. Sandra Oh, who took up acting against her parents' wishes, plays Jade, who takes up acting against her parents' wishes. Vancouver writer-director Mina Shum based Double Happiness on her own adolescent struggle for independence, but Jade's role fit Oh like a second skin. In one scene, Jade says that what she wants most is ``to win the Academy Award--I'd get nominated for a really dramatic part, something really hard, something I had to, like, gain weight for.'' Last year, Oh won the Best Actress Genie for Double Happiness and reduced audience members to tears with one of the most emotional acceptance speeches in memory--a Genie speech worthy of an Oscar. Backstage, Sturla Gunnarson, who directed Oh in the 1994 CBC movie The Diary of Evelyn Lau, grinned and said, ``Well, she is an actress, you know.''

Sitting at a restaurant patio last week, around the corner from her home in midtown Toronto, Oh laughed off any suggestion that her Genie performance was anything less than genuine. But it was really her character who received the award, she said. ``People ask what happens to Jade at the end of the movie. It's great--she wins a Genie!''

Oh, who turned 24 last week, has emerged as one of Canada's most exciting young actors. Fresh from three years of rigorous training at the National Theatre School in Montreal, she burst on the scene with a visceral performance in Evelyn Lau, a Vancouver writer's harrowing true story of her teenage years as a prostitute. And onstage, Oh won acclaim last January in a London, Ont., production of Oleanna, David Mamet's gruelling drama about a female student who charges a professor with sexual harassment. ``She throws herself into roles so completely,'' says Shum. ``Stage presence--she's got it coming out of her ears.''

In person, Oh comes across as a vivacious free spirit, a young woman ready to take on the world on her own terms. The actor, who became an irrepressible presence on the party circuit at last fall's Toronto International Film Festival, clearly enjoys a good time. ``I love drinking. I love eating--I just love it!'' she says, after agreeing to split a bottle of wine over lunch.

But Oh is dead serious about her work. Gunnarson, who cast her in Lau, says, ``Sandra is a rare combination of a method actor with great craft. She plays everything from the inside out--the sense of suffocation, the desire to do something that isn't really accepted, the cultural split, being a first generation Asian-Canadian.'' The director recalls that when Oh auditioned for Lau, she had the nerve to ask for 10 minutes to get into the mood. ``She hijacked the part,'' he says. ``Sandra is able to reach deep down inside herself and project incredible vulnerability. But the reason she's able to do that is that she has a character of steel.''

Born in Nepean, Ont., to Korean immigrant parents, Oh is the second of three children. Her mother, Young-Nam Oh, is a biochemist; her father, John Oh, has his own business. As a child, Sandra was a reluctant piano student (she would play tapes of scales while pretending to practise), but was devoted to her ballet classes. In her teens, she branched out into acting, running a gauntlet of auditions for Asian faces. On one TV show in which she was the only non-white actor, she recalls, ``the director called me `lotus blossom' and `quota child.' ''

Oh's parents tried to dissuade her from acting. She recalls, ``My mom would always say I'd end up in the street--that actors are all drug addicts and prostitutes.'' And as Lau, she was acting out her mother's worst nightmare. Oh tried to shield her parents from the movie's raw content. When they finally viewed an early video cassette, she says, ``they sat and cried together. I think they realized this wasn't a fanciful hobby--that there was meaning in it.''

Inhabiting Lau's abused character was traumatic for Oh, whose portrayal cut chillingly close to the bone. ``You put yourself in dangerous situations just for the experience,'' she explains. ``You get self-destructive.'' Says Gunnarson: ``She went to hell and back.''

After the ordeal of playing a teenage prostitute, Double Happiness offered some comic relief. Oh recalls that ``it was a lot of fun to shoot.'' But then, playing the vengeful student in the controversial Oleanna, she faced another trial by fire. ``You'd get screamed at, you'd get hissed at. People would yell, `Kill the bitch!' My sense of purpose became so clear. You think, `This is about 800 people hating me, this is about life and death.' ''

For the moment, there is an intermission in the drama of Oh's career. She finds herself in that curiously Canadian position of being an out-of-work star. She is slated to star in Shum's next movie, Drive, She Said, if it goes into production. Meanwhile, she auditioned for the lead of The Diary of Anne Frank last week at Toronto's Young People's Theatre. This week, she planned to be in Los Angeles, shopping for an agent and promoting the U.S. premiŠre of Double Happiness. From the boards of a small Toronto theatre to the bright lights of Tinseltown, Sandra Oh still leads a double life. But for someone so good at abolishing the line between life and art, Hollywood could well become a second home.

Co-Star Hug

The Grey's Anatomy finale ended with a cliffhanger, but it has now been announced that while T.R. Knight is leaving the show, Katherine Heigl is staying on for another season.

We found this old picture of Katherine Heigl and Sandra Oh at the ABC network Upfronts in New York City on June 24, 2004.


Related posts:

• Rowrr!

Co-Stars No More

In lieu of the latest news that T.R. Knight is leaving Grey's Anatomy...

Today's random picture is T.R. Knight and Sandra Oh at a party celebrating The Public Theaters Presentation of Satellites at Manhattan on June 18, 2006 in New York.

Source

Movie Rumors Update

It has yet to be officially confirmed, but it seems that Ramona And Beezus is not just a rumor anymore. As we posted earlier, Sandra Oh was recently spotted on the set of the movie in Vancouver. According to a reader of our blog, Sandra is reportedly playing the role as Ramona's school teacher.

Dr. Oh

This week's interview is from Entertainment Weekly and was originally published on April 1, 2005.

From Canada to Sideways to a...hospital? The costar of ABC's medical drama Grey's Anatomy makes a weird trek through Hollywood.

Sandra Oh is sitting in the back of a truck, nestled behind stacks of dusty black packing crates. While enjoying a rare break on the Los Angeles set of ABC's new medical drama, Grey's Anatomy, the Sideways star is explaining her decision to move from indie movies to the 3,000th TV series set in a hospital. "I was choosing only films I thought were important," she says. "I was working maybe two months out of the year, and that was just not enough." A crew member interrupts to deliver script pages to Oh and laughs at finding her chilling in a truck bed. "This is so Sandra," he says. "Meet at the Four Seasons for the interview? No, we've got the prop truck."

Clearly, Oh is no pampered Hollywood diva. While filming Anatomy over the last six months (the series debuts March 27 at 10 p.m., after Desperate Housewives), the 33-year-old Canadian actress has gotten used to mixing grit with glamour. Take the day of the Critics' Choice Awards in January: After finishing a scene at the Northridge, Calif., VA hospital that doubles as the show's Seattle facility, she doffed her scrubs, slipped into a Galliano gown, and primped in the limo on the way to L.A. After the ceremony, during which she gave an acceptance speech for one of Sideways' five wins, she changed back into her work gear in the limo and arrived on set in time to start another scene.

Though the two projects will be inextricably linked on her résumé, Oh signed on to play Anatomy's cynical, snarky Cristina--one of five surgical interns whose work and personal lives intertwine--well before Sideways was released last fall. Oh shot the pilot a year ago, when she was still best known as Robert Wuhl's assistant on the HBO comedy Arli$$. After that show was canceled in 2002, she toiled in independent films and a few showy bit parts in mainstream fluff like Under the Tuscan Sun. Then in 2003, she married writer-director Alexander Payne, who eventually cast her--no audition required--in her career-making role as a sexy single mom in Sideways. (The couple announced their separation on March 12.) "I'm finished with the time in my life where I play someone's snappy assistant," Oh says. "In Sideways, I have maybe 15, 20 lines. But because of the way the film is written, you never see anyone as a sidekick or a girlfriend."

Although the actress has yet to experience a post-Sideways rush of bigger movie roles, she's thankful to be part of Anatomy's ensemble, which includes '80s heartthrob Patrick Dempsey. Although she was originally cast as the residents' tough supervisor, Miranda Bailey, she asked for--and got--the more colorful role of Cristina, who strikes up a complicated interracial romance with a cocky surgeon, Preston (Hollywood Homicide's Isaiah Washington). "She's got a really original, fresh take on everything," says coexec producer Peter Horton (yes, of thirtysomething fame), who directed the pilot. "There's something about her that's innately complex." Washington is equally enamored. "We try to give our characters levels and not just be the taboo people of color screwing," he says, "and she can really do that."

Oh has been honing those acting chops for much longer than her newfound fans may realize: Shortly after graduating from Montreal's National Theatre School in 1993, she became one of Canada's hottest new stars ("uh, as much as you can be in Canada, anyway," she says), scoring a double play with the TV movie The Diary of Evelyn Lau and the feature film Double Happiness. "In one year, there were two lead characters who were 20-year-old Asian women, and I got them both," she recalls. "I'm just out of theater school, and I'm like, Oh, this is how it's gonna be! It never would've happened if I were here in the States."

Occasional affirmations of Canadian pride haven't kept Oh from pursuing U.S. fame. Aside from Anatomy, she has three independent movies in the can: the Sundance thriller Hard Candy; Sorry Haters, with Robin Wright Penn; and Cake, with Heather Graham (she'll also shoot two more this summer). And if Anatomy is DOA, what then? Well, Oh is still gunning for a role in a Broadway show (a lifelong dream) or an even bigger part in another Oscar-caliber movie. "I know that I can accomplish good work on a very high level," she says. "I'm still waiting for my big break."

By Jennifer Armstrong

Winner

It is random pic day!

Sandra Oh is pictured here in the press room, having just won her award for Best Female Actor in a Drama Series for 'Grey's Anatomy' at the 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on January 29, 2006 in Los Angeles, California.

Father's Day Ad

Sandra Oh appears in an ad for Father's Day with her dad, John. The ad was featured in the Canadian newspaper, National Post on June 13th, 2009.

Caption:

My parents started me in dancing to correct my pigeon toes but I caught the acting bug instead. In a family of scientists, lawyer and academics, becoming an actor was a bit of a head-scratcher. But in his own way, my father understood. Thanks Dad.

Source: National Post, 13 Jun 2009

'Imagine' - Video

Visit Childrens Hospital LA to watch the TV special 'Imagine' hosted by Sandra, about the hospital and its patients .

Related posts:

• Sandra Oh Hosts Next 'Imagine'

Movie Rumors

So far it's just a rumor but we hear that Sandra Oh was seen in Vancouver on the set of the movie Ramona and Beezus, which is based on a popular children's book series by Beverly Cleary.

The movie stars Selena Gomez, Ginnifer Goodwin, John Corbett and Bridget Moynahan.

Save The Date

Mark your calenders, set your VCRs...

The date for the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy has been announced. It is Thursday, September 24 at 9PM on ABC.

That's all for now folks.

The Story Of Oh

This week's interview is from Maclean's, a Canadian weekly magazine. The interview was originally published in August, 2005.

Her marriage is in ruins, but with a kiss from the Emmys her career is on fire.

Photo by Steve Carty

By Brian D. Johnson

SANDRA OH has offered to cook me breakfast, which surprised her publicist. The Canadian actress -- best known as the single mother who falls for a womanizer in Sideways, and as the grasping intern in the ABC hospital show Grey's Anatomy -- has kept her home off limits to journalists. It's still tender territory. The rambling north Hollywood house is what's left of her two-year marriage to Sideways director Alexander Payne, who moved out last spring. The breakup left her shattered. But with an Emmy nomination to her credit and her career on fire, things are looking up. As actor Adam Reid, a lifelong friend, says, "It's like the year of the phoenix for her -- she's rising out of the ashes."

Sandra and Alexander Payne attend the
premiere of Sideways in LA, October 12, 2004.

Late on a Saturday morning, Oh answers the door looking sleepy, and says she just woke up 20 minutes earlier. The previous night she had some serious fun at a barbecue with the cast of Grey's Anatomy. Oh wears an aqua-blue singlet with "California" written across it and a matching cotton skirt that falls to bare feet. Her dark hair, cinched in a ponytail, is streaked blond -- until later in the day when a hairdresser will come to remove the streaks for Anatomy's fall season.

Dropped into ABC's prime-time schedule last March as a mid-season replacement, this breezy soap opera has become a sleeper hit. It follows five interns in the boot-camp residency program of a Seattle hospital. With pyjama-party bounce and a confectionary soundtrack of girl-band pop songs, it's Friends meets E.R., with a dash of Sex and the City. Oh plays Cristina Yang, an ambitious intern who's the first to admit she's "not a people person" -- in the words of a patient treated to her blunt bedside manner, she's an "aggressive little witch." It's not surprising Oh has been singled out with an Emmy nomination. Hers is the most compelling character in the show's multiracial ensemble. And her character stands at the plot's most dangerous intersection -- at the end of last season, she was secretly pregnant with the child of an African-American surgeon (Isaiah Washington), and contemplating abortion.

After seeing Oh beat a guy to a pulp with a motorcycle helmet in Sideways, and treat surgery as competitive sport in Grey's Anatomy, you might expect her to be scary. But in person she has a playful, almost giddy exuberance -- although the whimsy is cut with a punk edge of profanity. "The f---ing thing I hate about this city," she says, as she puts the kettle on, "is that I had to go to Calgary to get a f---ing tea cosy." Somehow she makes this sound like a passionate expression of Canadian identity.

Slicing mushrooms on a massive antique island that runs the length of the kitchen, Oh prepares a complicated omelette, with spinach, goat cheese and bacon on the side ("Ahh bacon!" she sighs, "the candy of meats.") The arts-and-crafts-style house is full of dark beams and wooden wainscotting. Clad in clapboard and wooden shingles, it dates back to 1911. She says she chose it because it reminded her of the houses on Palmerston Boulevard in Toronto, the city she left a decade ago for L.A. And it's true. If you took away the towering palm tree out front, the house wouldn't look out of place on that elegant Toronto avenue.

Against a wall in the kitchen is an empty aquarium, with the box it came in still sitting on top of it. "Are you going to get some fish?" I ask. Not yet, she says. I wonder if the fish are an abandoned project from the marriage, but don't dare ask. The marriage is the elephant in the room. We talk for an hour before she mentions her husband's name, and then it's in professional terms -- a great director she once worked with.

We take breakfast out to the deck, overlooking a lush, jungly garden full of birdsong. Oh lights a Natural American Spirit cigarette. She talks about the dilemma of committing to a network series, and signing a lengthy contract that restricts her options to pursue film and stage roles. "But I'm happy I'm working," she says. "I've been playing a lot of supportive characters who are dry and have authority -- the assistant, the teacher, the this the that. I wanted to play someone who didn't have authority. Cristina wants things so badly she has to rein in her ambition and desire. One thing I like about her is she has absolutely no sense of humour. She's super literal. But that makes her f---ing funny."

Cristina Yang.

Working with a U.S. network, however, does involve certain "constraints." Although her character is considering abortion, "you can't really say the word. You can't say 'vagina' or 'penis' with an adjective in front of it. Like 'large penis,' or whatever. And just niggly things like how you dress and how you look. I can't stand having someone else telling me what to do. Or when you have great ideas, they'll say, 'They'll never let you do that.' " For example, she thought her character should smoke. "It would be hilarious, the hypocritical smoking doctor. So many doctors drink and smoke and take drugs."

Despite the frustrations, after 10 years in L.A. Oh feels she's "finally starting to hit a place where I've wanted to be." She's got a hit series. She's appearing in four upcoming movies -- with Robin Williams in The Night Listener, Heather Graham in Cake, Robin Wright Penn in Sorry, Haters, and Chlo' Sevigny in 3 Needles. And on this summer morning, she's just days away from turning 34. "I'm so excited! I've never been so excited for a f---ing birthday!"

"What's so great about 34?" I ask.

She lowers her voice to a stage whisper. "Because 33 was sooooo bad. It's been a very, very, very difficult year." Her expression turns suddenly fragile, and for a moment it looks like she might cry. Then, getting up to find a cigarette, she gives out a whoop. "I'm turning 34!" When I ask if she'll explain what happened, she firmly declines. "I've come a long way to be able to invite you to my home and talk to you. So let's leave it at that."

THE DAUGHTER of a biochemist mother and entrepreneur father, Oh was born in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean. Margo Purcell, a childhood friend now living in Calgary, remembers Oh acting in a school musical. "She played the villain. And you couldn't take your eyes off her. When she walked on a stage, there was a light around her almost." Sandra shocked her traditional Korean parents by choosing the National Theatre School over university. Right after graduating, in 1993, she starred in The Diary of Evelyn Lau, a CBC TV movie based on the raw memoir of a junkie prostitute in Vancouver -- confirming the worst fears of her parents who saw acting as a gateway to drugs and prostitution. The same year she played future Governor General Adrienne Clarkson in a CBC biopic and landed the lead in Double Happiness, as a daughter estranged from Chinese parents -- her performance won a Genie.

Sandra as Rita Wu in Arli$$.

Moving to L.A., and accepting a steady role as an assistant in HBO's Arli$$, Oh continued to star in Canadian movies, such as Don McKellar's Last Night (1998) -- accumulating a level of experience unavailable to her American peers. She still looks back on Evelyn Lau as the creative highlight of her career, although making Sideways was the "ultimate filmmaking experience." Because it's so hard to make films in Canada, she says, "you feel that only hard work is good work. But Sideways was so relaxed. I didn't really feel I was acting." And even now, she has only good things to say about her husband. "He's a phenomenal director. He's a great writer. And he inspires everyone on set."

Sideways marked a turning point in Oh's life and career. As she was walking the red carpet at the Oscars, her marriage to Payne was in ruins. The film, meanwhile, put her on the map. "It's better to be known as the girl from Sideways," she says, "as opposed to the girl who's that assistant."

But Oh has fought a constant battle with typecasting. It's not just that she's Asian, it's that she doesn't fit a certain Asian stereotype. Or as she puts it, "I don't look like Gong Li." There was a time when she wished she looked different. "You come to town and wish you had everything that everyone else seems to want. But in the past few years I've been happy I don't look like anyone else. If my face is onscreen -- just at a standstill, doing nothing -- it's subversive. It taps into something that's not the norm."

Canadian native actress Waneta Storms, a friend since theatre school, says, "What makes Sandy distinctive is that she's successful as she is without pandering to the white image of what an Asian should look like. Most Asian women we see onscreen have had their eyelids done. She hasn't decided to have the surgery to look like a Caucasian Asian." Storms points out that Oh is "politicized, intelligent and well-read," but her emotions run close the surface -- "she's a tender nerve of a woman."

On camera, Oh defies clichs of beauty, Asian or otherwise. Her face is a quicksilver mask. You can see the moods pass over it like fast-moving weather. And if her look is unconventional, so's her approach to glamour. When I ask her about being star-struck, she doesn't mention Robin Williams, or Jack Nicholson, who starred in Payne's About Schmidt. She mentions Eugene Levy. Then Julie Andrews, who worked with her on The Princess Diaries. She says she was once in a room with Carol Burnett -- "my all-time, ultimate hero." And her favourite actor is Paul Giamatti, who redeemed nerds everywhere in Sideways.

Eugene Levy, Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett.

That evening in Los Angeles, Oh joins me and a friend for dinner at a restaurant. She chooses a wine bar that hosted a couple of events for Sideways. Like most of the cast, she developed a passion for wine while shooting the film. With the discerning eye of a sommelier she selects a superb bottle of French burgundy. The restaurant is the kind of place where you expect to see celebrities. No one bothers her, but people notice. You can see them stealing glances. Over there, Sandra Oh. You couldn't mistake her for anyone else.

Underneath It All

Today's random pic is from Allure magazine's annual naked issue. Sandra was featured in their May 2005 issue.

Caption:

Sandra Oh may have exuded sexual confidence in Sideways, but that didn't make her immune to a case of nerves at the prospect of posing nude.

"I called my trainer and said, 'You have to make me look perfect...in a week,'" says Oh, who plays a doctor in the new TV drama Grey's Anatomy.

She was so concerned about taking it all off that she brought an enormous box of orchids to the studio in hopes of covering herself with them.

"I'm not the kind of actress who is asked to take off her top all the time," the 33-year-old confides. "I'm a double AA in a top-heavy society. But I would like to think that I'm made of stronger stuff than what society says being a woman means."

Sandra Oh Hosts Next 'Imagine'

Sandra Oh hosts the next installment of Imagine: A Celebration of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Among several stories, this special includes some really brave and articulate teens from CHLA’s Teen Impact program. Imagine airs on Saturday June 6 on ABC7 Los Angeles at 6:30PM.

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McKidd Talks Oh And Yang

Co-star Kevin McKidd talks Sandra and the relationship between their characters on Grey's Anatomy :

These days though McKidd is enjoying his role as Dr. Owen Hunt in Grey's Anatomy, especially because he is romantically involved with Cristina Yang (played by Sandra Oh).

"It's really fun being the new kid on the block, and so far everyone has been really nice to me. They didn't have to be, so I'm grateful for that. I expected it to be different" he laughs.

"As soon as I heard I'd be working with Sandra Oh, that was the main pull to come to Grey's Anatomy," he says.

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Now in season five, his relationship with Yang is a little troubled and his personality is somewhat of a mystery. "I don't think their relationship is going to be easy. It gets explosive between them, but Owen has a lot of stuff going on right now." Hunt is dealing with his post traumatic stress disorder after his experience in the Iraq War. "It's a touchy subject and he doesn't want to drag her into his hellish world. He should try and a have a little more fun, but I think that will come back. I keep meeting people in the supermarkets who say, 'We miss the Owen Hunt from the premiere episode.' But I assure them that I think we'll get back to that guy."

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