Sandra Oh

At 53 years old, Sandra Oh has this physical status:

Sandra Miju Oh (born July 20, 1971) is a Canadian-American actress.

She is best known for her appearances as Cristina Yang on ABC's Anatomy (2005–2014) and Eve Polastri in the BBC America spy drama series Killing Eve (2018–present).

She has received many accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Oh first gained fame for her role as Rita Wu on HBO's Arliss (1996–2002).

Judging Amy and American Crime, as well as voice roles on American Dad!, American Dragon: Jake Long, The Proud Family, Phineas and Ferb.

She has appeared in films including Bean (1997), Last Night (1998)), The Princess Diaries (2001), Under the Tuscan Sun (2004), Sideways (2005), Blindness (2005), Rabbit Hole (2010), and Catfight (2016). Oh appeared in the Asian-Canadian films Double Happiness (1994), The Diary of Evelyn Lau (1994), Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity (2001), and Meditation Park (2017).

She was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series for The Diary of Evelyn Lau's Last Night and Double Happiness, and she received a Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. On March 3, 2008, Oh became the first Asian woman to host the Golden Globe Awards at the 76th ceremony in 2019.

She became the first Asian-Canadian woman to host Saturday Night Live in March 2019, and she was only the third actress of Asian descent after Lucy Liu in 2000 and Awkwafina in 2018.

She is the first Asian woman to be nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and the first Asian woman to win two Golden Globes.

Oh! was ranked as one of the 100 most influential people in the country in 2019 by Time magazine.

Early life

Sandra Miju Oh was born in Nepean, Ontario, on July 20, 1971, the daughter of middle-class South Korean immigrants Oh Young-nam, a biochemist and Oh Jun-su (John), a businessperson. In the early 1960s, her parents immigrated to the area. She has a brother, Ray, and a sister, Grace, and she grew up in a Christian household, living on Camwood Crescent in Nepean, where she began acting and dancing ballet at the age of four to improve her pigeon-toed appearance. Oh was one of the few people of Asian descent in Nepean growing up.

In a class musical called The Wizard of Woe, Ohye performed The Wizard of Woe at age ten. She founded BASE, the Environment Club at Sir Robert Borden High School, later promoting a campaign against the use of styrofoam cups. She was elected president of the student council while in high school. She also performed flute and acting studies, but she quickly realized she was "not strong enough to be a professional dancer" and eventually concentrated on acting. She took drama classes, performed in school plays, and joined the drama club, where she competed in the Canadian Improv Games and Skit Row High, a comedy group. She turned down a four-year journalism scholarship to Carleton University to study drama at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, paying her own way.

Oh told her parents that she will try acting for a few years and that if it didn't, she'd return to university if it went well. "She is the only one in [her] family who doesn't have a master's degree in something" when considering leaving college. She appeared in a stage production of David Mamet's Oleanna in London, Ontario, shortly after graduating from the National Theatre School in 1993. Evelyn Lau, a Vancouver author who appeared in two major female Canadian films, as well as Adrienne Clarkson in a CBC biographical portrait of Clarkson's life.

Personal life

Oh was in a five-year relationship with filmmaker Alexander Payne. They married in January 2003, separated in early 2005, and divorced in late 2006.

Mayor Jim Watson gave Oh the key to Ottawa, Ontario, on July 8, 2013.

Oh practises Vipassan, a Buddhist method of meditation. Her acting career is informed by a loosely knit group that teaches "creative dream work," which, according to reports, blends Jungian dream analysis with method acting and aims to bring one's "subconscious work into focus."

In 2018, Oh became a resident of the United States. She spoke about it on the first anniversary of her citizenship when hosting Saturday Night Live and referring to herself as a "Asian-Canadian-American."

In 2019, the Governor General of Canada announced the National Arts Centre Award as part of the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.

Oh was named an officer of the Order of Canada in June 2022. She was one of a number of recent inductees into the Order to be admitted in the Canadian delegation to Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral later this year.

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Career

Oh came to fame in her native country for her lead role in the Canadian film Double Happiness (1994), in which she plays Jade Li, a twenty-something Chinese-Canadian woman negotiating her wishes and the interests of her parents. Roger Ebert praised Oh's "warm appearance" in the film, earning critical praise. "Ms. Oh's appearance makes Jade a smart, spiky heroine you will never forget," Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised her performance, adding, "Ms. Oh's appearance makes Jade a swanky heroine you will not soon forget." Oh, for the role, she received the Genie Award for Best Actress. She appeared in the Canadian film Little Criminals in 1995 with a multi-scene but uncredited performance.

Bernice, the art gallery's PR manager, appeared in the film Bean in 1997, playing the supporting role. Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity, and Last Night (1998), which she also received a Best Actress Genie award. She was cast in the drama Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000), playing a stripper at an adult dance club opposite Daryl Hannah. The film received mediocre reviews, but Oh was lauded for her role. "Oh make[s] the most of [her] opportunity to explore [her] characters' hard-edged surface," the New York Times said. She appeared in Waking the Dead the same year. Oh appeared in the family comedy Big Fat Liar in 2002, followed by a small role in Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal (2004).

Rita Wu, the assistant to a major sports company on the HBO series Arliss, received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and a Cable Ace award for her role. She has appeared in many guest appearances on the television series Popular (1999), including a humanities tutor and guest starring Amy, Six Feet Under, and Odd Job Jack.

Oh has appeared in the world premieres of Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters and Diana Son's Stop Kiss at Joseph Papp's Public Theater in New York City, as well as in the dance.

She appeared in Under the Tuscan Sun's 2003 supporting role as Diane Lane and then in Alexander Payne's drama Sideways (2004). She finds Sideways and The Diary of Evelyn Lau to be the two best films she has produced.

Oh appeared in many films in 2005, including David Slade's controversial thriller Hard Candy; and the independent anthology drama 3 Needles (2005), opposite Chlo Sevigny and Olympia Dukakis, in which she plays a Catholic nun in a AIDS-stricken African village. Oh was also played as Cristina Yang in the first season of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, the first year. Oh's long-running appearance on the show earned her both a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series in 2005 and a 2006 Screen Actor Guild Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. She received her fifth consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nomination in a Drama for her appearance on the series in July 2009. Oh's tenth season would be her last season in August 2013.

Oh continued to appear in films in addition to her Grey's Anatomy role. She co-starred in the drama The Night Listener (2006) with Robin Williams and Toni Collette; in the superhero film Defendor (2009); Ramona and Beezus (2010); and in the critically acclaimed drama Rabbit Hole (2010), starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy appeared in a Grammy-nominated dramatization of The Maltese Falcon (2008), which also featured Michael Madsen and Edward Herrmann. She has also appeared in a few animations, including a few guest appearances in American Dragon: Jake Long, the voice of Princess Ting-Ting in Mulan II, and Doofah's The Wisdom of Friends.

On March 3, 2008, Oh was the host of the 28th Genie Awards. Oh appeared in The People Speak, a documentary feature film based on historian Howard Zinn's book A People's History of the United States, in 2009. During an off-season absence from filming Grey's Anatomy in 2010, Oh played Sarah Chen in the British crime drama Thorne. In order to portray her British persona, she underwent intensive dialect training.

Oh On June 28, 2011, it was announced that she would be a guest on Canada's Walk of Fame; she was inducted on October 1 at Elgin Theatre in Toronto. Oh revealed in 2013 that she would leave Grey's Anatomy at the end of the tenth season. With the season ten finale, Oh!

Oh revealed in October 2014 that she would be working with Canadian director Ann Marie Fleming on an animated feature film titled Window Horses. She appeared in Tammy (2014), playing the wife of Kathy Bates' character.

She appeared in the Refinery29 comedy web series Shitty Boyfriends in 2015. In December 2015, Oh began filming Catfight (2016) in New York City. In 2017, Oh appeared in the third season of the anthology drama series American Crime.

Starting in April 2018, Oh played a leading role in the BBC intelligence thriller series Killing Eve, starring British intelligence agent Eve Polastri, whose quarry is psychopathic assassin Villanelle (played by Jodie Comer), with the two women sharing a common fascination. Oh didn't know she was being considered for a leading role after being typecast as the leads' best friend by years of being typecast. The series was reimagined for a second season ahead of its debut, and a new one was announced less than a day after the second premiered in the United States. Killing Eve was also renewed for a fourth season just after.

Oh has been lauded for her role in Rolling Stone, with Jenna Scherer describing her as "a compulsively watchable actress" blending wit and deep pathos. "It's a tour de force show, but it's also so self-effacing and invisible in its effects that you leave feeling you've seen a crackling yarn with compelling characters rather than a cultural landmark," critic Matt Zoller Seitz wrote about it when Vulture announced Oh, the best actress on television. This is a magical trick of a high order." Oh, also known as the first Asian woman to be nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2018. She received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama, becoming the first Asian descent woman to win two Golden Globe Awards. In a Drama Series at the SAG Awards in 2019, Oh received Outstanding Achievement by a Female Actor in a Drama Series.

Oh performed Castaspella in the animated superhero film She-Ra and the Princesses of Power from 2018 to 2020. Andy Samberg and she co-hosted the 76th Golden Globe Awards in 2019. Oh was the first woman of Asian descent to host the awards show. She became the first Asian-Canadian woman to host Saturday Night Live, and only the third actress of Asian descent after Lucy Liu in 2000 and Awkwafina in 2018. In the Disney animated film Raya and the Last Dragon, Oh voiced Virana, the chieftess of the Fang tribe.

In the animated superhero drama series Invincible, Oh plays Debbie Grayson. In 2021, the series, which is based on the comic book series of the same name, premiered on Amazon Prime Video.

Oh served as executive producer and was in charge of the Netflix comedy-drama series The Chair in 2021.

Ming Lee, the main character in the Pixar animated film Turning Red's strict and overprotective mother of the principal character, was born in 2022. Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's short story collection Stone Mattress was a success.

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