SANDRA OH Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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SANDRA OH

Name: Sandra Oh                                                                         
Born: 20 July 1971 Nepean, Ontario, Canada                                               
                                                                                         
Sandra Oh (born July 20, 1971) is a two-time Genie Award-winning, Golden Globe           
Award-winning and a three-time Emmy Award-nominated Canadian actress. She is             
known to American audiences for her role as Dr. Cristina Yang in the ABC series         
Grey's Anatomy, her roles in the feature films Under the Tuscan Sun and Sideways,       
and her supporting role on the HBO original series Arli$$.                               
                                                                                         
In 2005, Oh made People magazine's list of the 50 Most Beautiful People. Oh             
has also won the Screen Actors Guild's award and Genie Award twice each.                 
                                                                                         
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 late 1960s. Her father is a         
businessman and her mother a biochemist. Oh grew up living on Camwood                   
Crescent in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean, Ontario, where she began dancing and           
acting at an early age. For example, at the age of 10, she played "The Wizard           
of Woe" in a class play, "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.         
                                                                                         
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 bio-pic       
of Clarkson's life.                                                                     
                                                                                         
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 also won FIPA d'Or         
Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival for her role in The Diary of Evelyn Lau.           
                                                                                         
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 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 2007, she           
received her third 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, American Dragon: Jake Long, 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.             
                                                                                         
Sandra hosted the 28th Genie Awards on March 3, 2008 Oh is currently dating             
musician Andrew Featherston.                                                             
                                                                                         
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.