Celebrating her first starring TV role in a thirty-year career, actress Sandra Oh recently reflected on the racism in Hollywood she feels has held her back and continues to impact actors of color.
This year, Oh, whose most notable role was as Dr. Cristina Yang on the TV drama Grey’s Anatomy, has earned another Emmy nomination for her new BBC America series, Killing Eve. Indeed, Oh is the first Asian actress to ever receive the nomination for Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Oh joins Rita Moreno, who’s 1979 nomination made her the first Hispanic woman to receive the nomination, and six black women to receive the nod. The six black women include Viola Davis, who, in 2015, became the only black woman to win the Emmy.
The Canadian-born actress born to Korean immigrants has enjoyed a long career featuring dozens of appearances in TV and movies since 1989 but came to the forefront in 2005 in the Shonda Rhimes-created TV medical drama. Oh has done cartoon voices, TV movies, and numerous series, but never in a starring role. It has, she told Vulture, been a thirty-year journey to star status.
Oh has also won several awards for minority achievement in film. She won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role and the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series. She also won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2007. But Emmy wins have been elusive even as nominations have grown.
For Oh, the loss of Emmys and the decades of work without a starring role is evidence of a certain amount of racism in Hollywood.
In a recent interview with Vulture’s E. Alex Jung, Oh says she has tried very hard not to assume every set back is a result of racism.
“I work really hard to not think that way,” Oh said when asked if she feels like she has gotten the acting opportunities she feels she deserves. “I’m interested in reframing what I know you’re asking me. Because wondering what if or why … being in the well-worn path of a belief system I don’t want to be in, I worked really, really hard to move myself out. Because it’s taken a long time to accept the reality of where we are.”
Oh added:
And it can’t. And it’s also about me believing that. So it’s just like “oh, so at a certain point in your career, you think A, B, C, or D is supposed to happen?” Thinking of it that way just causes me suffering. But being aligned to it to say, How do I stay creative? How do I still connect? How do I practice access? That you can do every day. Whether you’re on a set or not. And that is just preparation for when something actually does come that you’re fully prepared for. Does that make sense?
Still, the actress insisted that the racism exists no matter how positive actors of color try to think:
Yes, because you know what, not only is shit hard, it’s extremely unfair. And racism exists. Let’s start there. I felt it, and I have felt it deeply. And I’m extremely fortunate. So I’m not going to not say that it’s not there, because it is.
Oh insisted that actors must “change their mindset” to a certain degree:
But it’s changing the mindset that being an actor of color, person of color, that you’re at a disadvantage in the creative life. That you don’t have opportunity. It’s all how you see the opportunity. And the clearer and deeper you get into what you really want, you just become a better artist. If that’s what you really want — becoming a better artist — does that include access? Does that include having 5 billion Instagram followers? I don’t know. That’s for you to decide. But if what you want is to connect, if what you want is to be a great artist, I think you can find your way. Even within this giant paradigm that a lot of times doesn’t include people who look like us.
However, despite her concerted effort to keep a positive outlook, she still found herself “fooled” into thinking she wasn’t star material. Indeed, Oh noted that when she was first sent the script for Killing Eve, she didn’t understand she was being offered the starring role.
One thing I will share with you — when I got the script for Killing Eve, I remember I was walking around in Brooklyn, and I was on my phone with my agent, Nancy. I was quickly scrolling down the script, and I can’t really tell you what I was looking for. So I’m like, “So Nancy, I don’t understand, what’s the part?” And Nancy goes “Sweetheart, it’s Eve, it’s Eve.” In that moment, I did not assume the offer was for Eve. I think about that moment a lot. Of just going, how deep have I internalized this? [So] many years of being seen [a certain way], it deeply, deeply, deeply affects us. It’s like, how does racism define your work? Oh my goodness, I didn’t even assume when being offered something that I would be one of the central storytellers. Why? And this is me talking, right? After being told to see things a certain way for decades, you realize, “Oh my god! They brainwashed me!” I was brainwashed! So that was a revelation to me.
In the end, though, Oh also felt that Asians should be more proactive in connecting with society at large.
“I’ve been thinking about us and our community a lot,” Oh said about Asians in film. “How do people understand us more? How do we connect? Something I feel we need to explore more in our own communities, ourselves, is to know who we are.”
Killing Eve airs on Sunday nights on BBC America and has recently completed its inaugural season.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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