WASHINGTON — Hollywood actor Sandra Oh recently opened up about how she handled the instant success from her time on the hit medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy.”
While appearing on “Sunday Today with Willie Geist,” the 50-year-old actor opened up about her “traumatic” experience becoming a household name after the success of the ABC medical drama, as per reports.
Oh played Dr. Cristina Yang for the show’s first ten seasons before announcing her departure in 2013. The performance earned Oh her first Golden Globe, as well as five Emmy nominations.
Despite the success of the ABC series, which launched her to critical acclaim, the actor told Geist the sudden fame was an adjustment.
“To be perfectly honest, it was traumatic. The reason why I’m saying that is the circumstances you need to do your work is with a lot of privacy,” she said.
“So when one loses one’s anonymity, you have to build skills to still try and be real. I went from not being able to go out, like hiding in restaurants, to then being able to manage attention, manage expectation, while not losing the sense of self.”
The actor then shared that she was able to cope with the fame and new lifestyle because she had a good therapist.
“I’m not joking. It’s very, very important. You just have to work at finding your way to stay grounded. And a lot of times that’s by saying no,” she said about dealing with her mental health.
Oh left “Grey’s Anatomy” seven years ago, and fans have been hoping she might make a return to the series one day as season 17 of the medical drama welcomed back several former stars.
Among those that returned was Patrick Dempsey as Derek Shepherd, T.R. Knight as George O’Malley, Chyler Leigh as Lexie Grey, Eric Dane as Mark Sloan, and Sarah Drew as April Kepner.
However, in May 2021, Oh shut down the possibility of reprising her role as Yang, noting on the Los Angeles Times’ podcast “Asian Enough” that she has “moved on.”
“It’s very rare, I would say, to be able to see in such a way the impact of a character,” she said at the time.
“In some ways, you do your work as a bubble, and you let it go. I left that show, my God, seven years ago almost. So in my mind, it’s gone. But for a lot of people, it’s still very much alive. And while I understand, and I love it, I have moved on.”
“I love it, though, and this is also why I really appreciate the show … that I still get asked this.”
Since her exit, Oh has moved on with other projects, including the hit series “Killing Eve,” which will return for a fourth and final season in 2022, and Netflix’s latest series “The Chair.”
She encouraged fans to follow along as she advocates for more representation of the Asian American community.
“Please come with me to ‘Killing Eve’ and on to ‘The Chair’ and on to the other projects. Come see the characters that I’m playing that are much more deeply integrated in the Asian American experience,” she said, as per reports.
(With inputs from ANI)
Edited by Anindita Ghosh and Nikita Nikhil
