We've not exactly been quiet about the fact that we're rooting for Sandra Oh this Emmys season. The star is the first Asian-American actress nominated for Lead Actress In A Drama Series for her role on Killing Eve. Her work on the adored Phoebe Waller-Bridge show, which was quickly renewed for a second season, brought a new wave of praise and admiration toward Oh, but it's not her first time in the spotlight. She originally shot to fame thanks to Grey's Anatomy, but back then the attention wasn't all good. In a profile for Vulture, Oh remembered the constant attention she received due to her role as Cristina Yang, which included documentation of her 2006 divorce from Alexander Payne in outlets like TMZ. It's easy to write this off as the price of fame, but it's something Oh had to figure out how to navigate.
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“There’s a certain type of perceived success, but I can also see how that causes stress, how that can cause conflict, and how that can cause people to lose their way," she said. "I experienced it as traumatic."
While acting and fame can go hand in hand, Oh was careful not to have one cloud the other, which meant figuring out how she wanted to represent herself in the spotlight.
"If you choose to step into that persona, I think it’s harder to get back to your base level to create from an authentic place. At least it did for me," she explained. Her best advice is to step away from the fame game completely.
“It takes a long time to free oneself from chatter — goals, social media, image, persona,” she continued. “And if you’re able to move through in that way, you can actually start trying to create from a different place.”