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This is a Korean name; the family name is Oh.

Sandra Oh
Oh at a Writer's Guild of America protest, November 2007
Born	July 20, 1971 (1971-07-20) (age 38) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1989–present
Spouse(s)	Alexander Payne (2003-2006; divorced)

Sandra Oh (born July 20, 1971) is a Canadian actress. She is primarily known for her role as Dr. Cristina Yang in the ABC series Grey's Anatomy, for which she has won a Golden Globe award. She also played notable roles in the feature films Under the Tuscan Sun and Sideways, and had a supporting role on the HBO original series Arli$$.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 4.1 Short subjects 5 Television 6 References 7 External links

Early life

Oh was born in Nepean, Ontario, to middle-class Korean immigrant parents Joon-Soo (John) and Young-Nam, who had come to Canada in the early 1960s. Her father is a businessman and her mother a biochemist ¹ Oh grew up living on Camwood Crescent in the Ottawa² suburb of Nepean, where she began acting and dancing ballet at an early age.³. At the age of 10, she played The Wizard of Woe in a class musical, The Canada Goose.

Later, at Sir Robert Borden High School, she founded the Environmental club BASE (Borden Active Students for the Environment), leading a campaign against the use of styrofoam cups. While at Sir Robert Borden High School she was Student Council President. She also played the flute and continued both her ballet training and acting studies; however, she knew that she "was not good enough to be a professional dancer"³ and eventually focused solely on acting. This interest led her to take drama classes, act in school plays, and join the drama club where she took part in the Canadian Improv Games and Skit Row High, a comedy group. Against her parents' advice, she rejected a four-year journalism scholarship to Carleton University to study drama at the prestigious National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, paying her own way. She told her parents that she would try acting for a few years, and if that failed, return to school ⁴. Ironically, while studying at the National Theatre School, she portrayed a waitress in the made-for-television film, School's Out, in which her co-worker, Caitlin Ryan (Stacie Mistysyn) also considers turning down her acceptance into Carleton University's journalism program.

Soon after graduating from the National Theatre School in 1993, she starred in a London, Ontario stage production of David Mamet's Oleanna. Around the same time, she won roles in biographical TV films of two significant female Chinese-Canadians: as Vancouver author Evelyn Lau in The Diary of Evelyn Lau (Oh won the role over more than 1,000 others who auditioned); and as Adrienne Clarkson in a CBC biopic of Clarkson's life.

Oh has one brother Ray, and two sisters Grace and Kelly.

Career

Oh became even more widely known in Canada for her lead performance in the Canadian film Double Happiness, for which she won the Genie Award for Best Actress. She then went on to star in the 1997 international feature hit film Bean playing the supporting role of Bernice, the art gallery P.R. manager. Her other Canadian films include Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity and Last Night, for which she again won a Best Actress Genie.

Oh is most familiar to American audiences from her roles in the films Under the Tuscan Sun and Sideways. She considers Sideways to be one of the two best movies she has made, along with Evelyn Lau.⁴ In the less well-known Dancing at the Blue Iguana, she played a poetry-writing stripper, performed several nude dance routines and received the movie's best reviews. On American television, she is renowned for her current role in the hit ABC medical series Grey's Anatomy, for which she has won both a 2005 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series and a 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. In July 2009, she received her fifth consecutive Emmy nomination for her work on the series.

Oh received critical acclaim for her six seasons as Rita Wu on the HBO series Arli$$. She received an NAACP Image Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and a Cable Ace award for Best Actress in a Comedy for her work on Arli$$. In theatre, Oh has also starred in the world premieres of Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters at the La Jolla Playhouse and Diana Son's Stop Kiss at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre in New York City. She made several guest appearances on the series Popular (1999) playing a humanities teacher. She has also guest starred in the television series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Judging Amy, Six Feet Under, and Odd Job Jack.

In 2006, she costarred in the film The Night Listener as "Anna," alongside Robin Williams and Toni Collette. In her only audiobook, she played Brigid O'Shaughnessy in a Grammy nominated dramatization of The Maltese Falcon (2008), which also featured Michael Madsen and Edward Herrmann.

She also has done a few voice roles in animation, including a few guest appearances in American Dragon: Jake Long and the voice of Doofah in The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends.

Oh was host of the 28th Genie Awards on March 3, 2008.⁵

Personal life

Oh and Sideways filmmaker Alexander Payne were in a relationship for five years. They married on January 1, 2003, separated in early 2005 and divorced in late 2006.⁶

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1994	Double Happiness	Jade Li	Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
1997	Bean	Bernice Schimmel
	Bad Day on the Block
1998	Last Night	Sandra	Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Vancouver International Film Festival for Women in Film Award Nominated - Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress
	The Red Violin	Madame Ming
	Permanent Midnight	Friend
1999	Guinevere	Cindy
2000	Waking the Dead	Kim
	Dancing at the Blue Iguana	Jasmine
2001	The Princess Diaries	Vice Principal Gupta
	The Frank Truth	Herself (actress)	(documentary)
2002	Big Fat Liar	Mrs. Phyllis Caldwell
	Full Frontal	Fourth Fired Employee
	Rick	Michelle
	Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity	Kin Ho Lum
2003	Under the Tuscan Sun	Patti
	Owning Mahowny	Craps Player	(uncredited)
2004	Sideways	Stephanie	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cast Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
	Wilby Wonderful	Carol French	Nominated - Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
	Mulan II	Ting Ting
2005	Hard Candy	Judy Tokuda
	Break a Leg	Young Turk
	Cake	Lulu
	3 Needles	Mary the Nun
	Sorry, Haters	Phyllis MacIntyre
	Kind of a Blur	Joe
2006	The Night Listener	Anna
	For Your Consideration	Marketing Person
2007	The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends	Doofah
2008	Blindness	Minister of Health
2009	Defendor	Dr. Park
	Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey	Gal 2000
2010	Ramona and Beezus	Mrs. Meacham
	Rabbit Hole	Gabby

Short subjects

• The Journey Home (1989)
• Prey (1995)
• Cowgirl (1996)
• Three Lives of Kate (2000) (narrator)
• Barrier Device (2002)
• 8 Minutes to Love (2004)
• Falling (2007)

Television

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1989	Denim Blues	Gwen
1992	Degrassi High: School's Out	Waitress	(uncredited)
1993	The Diary of Evelyn Lau	Evelyn Lau	Nominated - Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series
1995	If Not for You		2 episodes
	Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years	Ming Li	1 episode
	Cagney & Lacey:The View Through the Glass Ceiling	Officer Angela Lum
1996	Kung Fu: The Legend Continues	Mai Chi	1 episode
1996-2002	Arli$$	Rita Wu	CableACE Award for Actress in a Comedy Series Nominated - NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
1999	Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child	Breadcrumb	(voice)
2000	Popular	Humanities Teacher	2 episodes
2001	Date Squad	Alpha Baby
	Further Tales of the City	Bambi Kanetaka
	Six Feet Under	Porn Starlet
	Judging Amy	Detective Shelly Tran
2001-2002	The Proud Family	Marsha Mitsubishi	5 episodes
2005-2009	American Dad!	Katie/Toshi's Mother
2005-present	Grey's Anatomy	Dr. Cristina Yang	Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
2006	Odd Job Jack	Vanessa	2 episodes
2006-2007	American Dragon: Jake Long	Sun Park
2008	Phineas & Ferb	Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Girlfriend	2 episodes
2009	Robot Chicken	Kate Winslet/Sarah Connor

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sandra Oh

• Official website
• Sandra Oh at the Internet Movie Database
• Sandra Oh at People.com

v • d • e Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film Piper Laurie (1990) · Amanda Donohoe (1991) · Joan Plowright (1992) · Julia Louis-Dreyfus (1993) · Miranda Richardson (1994) · Shirley Knight (1995) · Kathy Bates (1996) · Angelina Jolie (1997) · Faye Dunaway/Camryn Manheim (1998) · Nancy Marchand (1999) · Vanessa Redgrave (2000) · Rachel Griffiths (2001) · Kim Cattrall (2002) · Mary-Louise Parker (2003) · Anjelica Huston (2004) · Sandra Oh (2005) · Emily Blunt (2006) · Samantha Morton (2007) · Laura Dern (2008) · Chloë Sevigny (2009) Complete List · (1970–1989) · (1990–2009)

v • d • e Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series Kathy Baker (1994) · Gillian Anderson (1995) · Gillian Anderson (1996) · Julianna Margulies (1997) · Julianna Margulies (1998) · Edie Falco (1999) · Allison Janney (2000) · Allison Janney (2001) · Edie Falco (2002) · Frances Conroy (2003) · Jennifer Garner (2004) · Sandra Oh (2005) · Chandra Wilson (2006) · Edie Falco (2007) · Sally Field (2008) · Julianna Margulies (2009)

Persondata
NAME	Oh, Sandra
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Canadian actress
DATE OF BIRTH	1971-07-20
PLACE OF BIRTH	Nepean, Ontario, Canada
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH