Sandra Oh

Infobox actor
name = Sandra Oh


caption = Oh at a Writer's Guild of America protest, November 2007
birthdate = birth date and age|1971|7|20
birthplace = Nepean, Ontario, Canada
yearsactive = 1989 - present
spouse = Alexander Payne (2003-2006)
goldenglobeawards = Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or TV Movie
2006 "Grey's Anatomy"
sagawards = Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture
2004 "Sideways"
Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series
2006 "Grey's Anatomy"
Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama Series
2007 "Grey's Anatomy"
awards = Genie Award for Best Actress
1994 "Double Happiness"
1998 "Last Night"

Sandra Oh (born July 20, 1971) is an award-winning Canadian actress. Oh has twice won a Genie Award and a Screen Actors Guild award, once won a Golden Globe Award and four-times been nominated for an Emmy Award. She is primarily known to American audiences for her role as Dr. Cristina Yang in the ABC series "Grey's Anatomy". 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$$". In 2005, Oh made "People" magazine's list of the 50 Most Beautiful People.cite news | last=Goldberg | first=Nathaniel | title=People's 50 Most Beautiful People | work=People Magazine | date=27 April 2005| url=http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,1046248_1054061,00.html?cid=redirect-articles | accessdate=2007-05-31]

Biography

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.cite web | title=Sandra Oh Biography | publisher=Film Reference | url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/44/Sandra-Oh.html | accessdate=2007-05-31] Oh grew up living on Camwood Crescent in the Ottawacite web | title=The Winding Career of Sandra Oh | publisher=NPR | date=23 Nov 2004 | url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4183846 | accessdate=2007-05-31] suburb of Nepean, Ontario, where she began acting and dancing ballet at an early age.cite news | title=Sandra Oh on the Challenge of Being Korean in Hollywood | work=The Chosun Ilbo | date=13 April 2007 | url=http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200704/200704130012.html | accessdate=2007-05-31] 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. While in high school, she 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" 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.cite news | last=Posner | first=Michael | title=Sandra Oh's Doing Just Fine: Profile | pages=R6-R7 | work=Toronto Globe and Mail | date=12 May 2007 | url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070512.wxoh12/BNStory/Entertainment | accessdate=2007-05-30] 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 Carelton University's journalism programme.

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.

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. 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 popular 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". 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 2006 Golden Globe Award for and a 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. In July 2008, she received her fourth 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 ', "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. Although Oh remains active in feature films, the critically acclaimed "Grey's Anatomy" remains her primary current occupation.

Oh was host of the 28th Genie Awards on March 3, 2008. [cite news|url=http://www.genieawards.ca/Genie28/host.cfm|title=Awards Ceremony Host biography]

Personal life

Oh and "Sideways" filmmaker Alexander Payne, were in a relationship for five years, including two years of marriage; they married on January 1, 2003. Payne and Oh separated in early 2005 and divorced in late 2006.cite news | last=Lee | first=Ken | coauthors=Stephen M. Silverman | title=Sandra Oh's Marriage Is Officially Over | publisher=People Magazine | date=27 Dec 2006 |url=http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20005420,00.html | accessdate=2007-05-31] Oh is currently dating musician Andrew Featherston.cite news | last=Glock | first=Allison | title=Sandra Oh Talks Life, Family, and Grey's Anatomy | publisher=Marie Claire | date=2007 | url=http://www.marieclaire.com/hair/celebrity/sandra-oh | accessdate=2007-05-31] cite web | author=TMZ Photo Galleries | title=Celebs Swappin' Spit | url=http://www.tmz.com/photos/celebs-swappin-spit/180222 | publisher=TMZ | accessdate=2007-08-04]

Oh's brother, Ray, is completing a Ph.D. in medical genetics at the University of Toronto and Ontario Cancer Institute. Her sister Grace is a crown attorney and mother of two children in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Filmography

Features

*"Double Happiness" (1994)
*"Bean" (1997)
*"Bad Day on the Block" (1997)
*"Last Night" (1998)
*"The Red Violin" (1998)
*"Permanent Midnight" (1998)
*"Guinevere" (1999)
*"Waking the Dead" (2000 )
*"Dancing at the Blue Iguana" (2000)
*"The Princess Diaries" (2001)
*"The Frank Truth" (2001) (documentary)
*"Big Fat Liar" (2002)
*"Full Frontal" (2002)
*"Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity" (2002)
*"Rick" (2003)
*"Under the Tuscan Sun" (2003)
*"Wilby Wonderful" (2004)
*"Sideways" (2004)
*"Mulan II" (2004)
*"Hard Candy" (2005)
*"Break a Leg" (2005)
*"Cake" (2005)
*"3 Needles" (2005)
*"Sorry, Haters" (2005)
*"The Night Listener" (2006)
*"For Your Consideration" (2006)
*"" (2007)
*"Blindness" (2008)

hort 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

*"Denim Blues" (1989) (canceled after one season)
*"" (1992)
*"The Diary of Evelyn Lau" (1993)
*"" (1995)
*"Arli$$" (1996–2002)
*"Popular" (2000)
*"Date Squad" (2001)
*"Six Feet Under" (2001) in Episode 01x05 An Open Book
*"Tales of the City" (2001) (miniseries)
*"Grey's Anatomy" (2005–present)
*" as Sun Park
*"Sesame Street" (2008) as "herself".

References

External links

* [http://www.sandraoh.com/ Sandra Oh official website]
* [http://www.sandra-fan.com/ Sandra Oh website]
*imdb name|0644897
*people.com
*tvtome person|16597
*ymovies name|1800022923
* [http://abc.go.com/primetime/greysanatomy/index?pn=bios#t=actor&d=90165 Sandra Oh "Grey's Anatomy" actress profile]

###@@@KEY@@@### s-achsuccession box
title = Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
years = 1995
for "Double Happiness"
before= Sheila McCarthy
for "The Lotus Eaters"
after = Helena Carter
for "Margaret's Museum"succession box
title = Cable ACE Award for Best Actress - Comedy Series
years = 1997
for "Arli$$" succession box
title = Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress - Drama Series
years = 2005
for "Grey's Anatomy"
before= Jennifer Garner
for "Alias"
after = Chandra Wilson
for "Grey's Anatomy" succession box
title =
years = 2006
for "Grey's Anatomy"
before= Anjelica Huston
for "Iron Jawed Angels"
after = Emily Blunt
for "Gideon's Daughter"

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