Sandra Oh connects with ancestors through film
Intergenerational trauma explored in thriller ‘Umma’
Sandra Oh didn’t plan it this way, but she has spent 2022 so far helping Asian American audiences heal at the movies playing mothers learning to loosen up in their love.
In Pixar’s animated hit “Turning Red,” streaming on Disney+, Oh voices Ming Lee, the overprotective mom of precocious 13-year-old Meilin (Rosalie Chiang) whose coming of age coincides with her out-of-control ability to turn into a giant red panda.
Oh also stars in supernatural thriller “Umma” (out now via video on demand) as Amanda, a Korean American woman living happily in seclusion with her teenage daughter Chris (Fivel Stewart) on a remote bee farm — until the ghost of her own recently departed mother comes calling.
“I relate very much to both of the daughters who have to emancipate themselves!” said Oh recently. “But the tricky thing is to still be connected to our mothers as no matter what we all do, whether we want to or not, we are so profoundly connected to our parents — even if they are not present in our lives or physically there.”
Working with “Umma” debut writer-director Iris K. Shim in 2019, Oh began crafting her character, Amanda, whose painful past with her estranged Korean mother, aka Umma (MeeWha Alana Lee), has led her to create her own rural life in America, largely oblivious to her daughter’s burgeoning desire for independence.
Days before the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, Oh flew to Pixar in California to meet with “Turning Red” director Domee Shi, co-writer Julia Cho and producer Lindsey Collins. “I went up there to get that job, and the world changed,” said Oh.
After COVID-19 threw the schedule for the Sam Raimi-produced “Umma” into flux, she recorded her “Turning Red” role in a makeshift booth set up in her home.
This interview with Oh has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: “Umma” is centered on a concept that’s particularly frightening and relatable to many: the fear of turning into your own mother. A:
It’s visceral! One of the big themes that Iris and I were really interested in exploring was intergenerational trauma. The trauma through and post-immigration, and how when one does not deal with their history and also trauma, you inevitably will repeat it.
Q: And further — how do we break that chain? In some ways, it might even be easier for Amanda to do that for her daughter, rather than for herself. A:
Exactly. There’s also a specifically Asian American, very complicated loyalty bind — definitely
in “Umma,” but also in “Turning Red” — that I think many of us get into and have to pass through, if we have been able to have good relationships with our parents. There is so much love there and so much expectation. And it’s difficult for us to translate to other people who might not grow up in the same culture how difficult it is to say “no” or to disappoint our parents. It’s our own specific struggle.
Q: Watching “Umma” I wondered: Why did it take you so long to star in a horror movie? A:
Why? Because no one’s asked me to! I appreciate the question. I’ve been solidly on television for like 20 years and that takes up a lot of time, and I’m just busy making a living. But I am so interested in genre.
Q: So how did “Umma” make its way to you? A:
The script came to me first. Obviously, I was familiar with Sam’s company, and again, it’s meeting a young, passionate Asian American female filmmaker
who says, “This is what I wrote. This is what I want to explore. Would you help interpret it?” Iris and I were on the same page of using genre to explore unexplored areas in the Asian American psyche. I was very interested in that. What have we not dealt with?
Q: And what was that unexplored terrain? A:
We very much invoked own personal ancestors. We had this little table (on set) that was like a shrine, and we invited all the crew to bring in whatever image, whatever symbol of their ancestors to put on it. Because (“Umma”) is all about, in some ways, honoring our ancestors. We’re also dealing in a very mysterious, powerful, energetic world. In that space of creativity where you’re talking about unexamined trauma, horror and violence, you need protection. Because when you call on those forces to examine them, you need an equal protection to help you move through that. That was our table.
Q: These are very different stories and characters, but there is an interesting common thread between “Umma” and “Turning Red” in that your characters are in the middle of a multigenerational family between their own more traditional parents and their diaspora-born children. A:
The three creators are all women. Iris Shim is Korean American, and Domee Shi is Chinese Canadian, and Julia
Cho, Korean American. And it is that lens that I’m interested in. I thought something interesting was going on, because (the creatives) approaching me are young female filmmakers who have written their own stuff. It’s like the first story in some ways is about “mother.” … I was like, here are these millennial women, and they want to tell the story about mother-daughter, but basically about mother. And I was really interested in that.
Q: In a recent interview, Iris said that her mom still hasn’t seen “Umma” — and she’s not sure if she wants her to. Has yours? A:
I don’t think that my mom would! It’s too tense, this film. My dad might watch it. But I was on a show in the ’90s … called “Arliss” on early HBO, and there was swearing on that show, and they were like ... no. But I’ll tell you this: My mom and my dad helped me with my Korean (on “Umma”), as they also did on “The Chair.” I have a very, very, very basic understanding of certain things, but I feel also comfortable with it so if I know what the dialogue is, I will be able to pick that up. But the actual practice of being able to speak it was very different.
It was a wonderful thing to share. And when I was doing work on my own ancestors, I had to talk to them. My parents are elderly now, and their stories are going to leave us, and the history and the mystery is going to leave us. But I also realized through the film that their presence never leaves us. We just need to call on it. Like with all beings who leave us in this material world, it’s your choice how you want to still connect with them.