Countdown to Killing Eve
Sandra Oh’s patience has paid off with a historic, Emmy-nominated performance
When she got the call from her agent that she landed the title role in the critically acclaimed BBC show Killing Eve, Sandra Oh couldn’t figure out at first what part producers wanted her to play.
“I was walking in Brooklyn and scrolling down the script and I was asking my agent, ‘what role?’ ” Oh says in an interview with the Star from London where she is filming season two of the series. “And she said ‘you’re Eve.’ It was a significant moment in my life, and heartbreaking that I couldn’t see myself in that script. I feel emotional just talking to you about this. But I’ve spent decades empowering my own community to be seen. Yet after all that I could not see myself in that moment.”
It’s a revealing admission, with a huge side order of humility, that despite being on a top-rated show for a decade, earn- ing five Emmy nominations in a row for playing surgeon Cristina Yang in Grey’s
Anatomy, the superbly talented Oh says she didn’t realize she was being offered what would be her first starring role in a prime-time drama.
“Can we talk Asian-to-Asian in a non-code-switchy way?” asks Oh, reaching out to make a personal connection.
“It was a moment of real heartbreak for me. It was really a moment of seeing how deeply racism had affected my mental state, and my belief in myself.” The Ottawa native, who turned 47 on July 20, has a little more affirmation now, since she was nominated last week for a historic Emmy Award for best actress in a drama, the first Asian woman to get the nod — and for a role she had believed herself unworthy.
In Killing Eve, Oh plays Eve Polastri, an agent in Britain’s MI5 who is on the trail of sociopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer). The series, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge ( Fleabag) and based on the books by Luke Jennings, is Oh’s best work yet.
It is also one of the most complex characters created on television this season, requiring Oh to produce a delightfully understated, complex in tone, and detail-filled bravura performance.
“One of my favourite moments that I fought to keep is just her by a microwave heating up her tea,” Oh says. “It’s the smallest things that you might not think are important. But she’s the type of woman who won’t be bothered to make herself a fresh cup of tea.”
The Ottawa native says she has been “actively waiting” in the four years since she last appeared on Grey’s Anatomy for this role, in which she felt free to turn down parts that she perhaps wouldn’t have earlier in her career.
Despite the accolades for the show, which premiered globally earlier this year, it is just being picked up in north of the border, where Canadians have yet to see the final results until now. The show airs Sundays on Bravo beginning July 22.
“Well, I think my parents were probably the first Canadians to see the show because I gave them a link,” laughs Oh, who recently posted an Instagram of her parents posing underneath a Killing Eve billboard in Los Angeles and the caption “Proud #immigrantparents. Just took me 30 years.” The endearing photo has been “liked” more than 140,000 times. “Mom and dad spend the winters with me, and that was taken right after church, so it’s my post-church Instagram,” laughs Oh. “But I really love how people have responded to that photo of my parents.”
Oh’s parents always valued education, and in the early years were never sure if this acting thing would pay off.
The billboard, tangible affirmation of Oh’s accomplishment, or at least that someone was willing to put up a giant poster of their daughter over the L.A. skyline, didn’t hurt, given that she has a sister who is a crown attorney and a brother with a PhD in medical genetics. In her early years, Oh rejected a four-year scholarship to study journalism at Ottawa’s Carleton University, against her parent’s advice, to take classes at the National Theatre School of Canada.
“P.S. I think my mother at this moment may actually be satisfied,” Oh said on Twitter after her nomination.
It has never been an easy road for Oh, who takes her time before answering each question before giving fulsome, reflective answers. I ask her about her Grey’s co-star Ellen Pompeo who signed a deal this year that will make her the highest-paid actress on television, earning more than $20 million per year. That’s in contrast to other actors such as Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, who left Hawaii Five O after not getting wage parity with their other costars.
“There is so much complexity in wage parity. It’s not quite black and white. But what I clearly see is CBS is showing they did not value these Asian American actors,” Oh says. “When you think of pay parity that’s one way you show value.”
As for Grey’s Anatomy, there’s one question Oh cannot escape. Will she ever return to the show that made her famous?
“I am absolutely grateful that for a decade in my life I got to play such a beautiful character, Cristina Yang. But it’s not where my life is now,” Oh says.
“It would be a heartfelt ‘no.’ Because right now I’m working on a show I’m completely in love with and I’m hoping others will like it too.”