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Sandra Oh...One of the funniest Asians around
The Ottawa-born actor is just 28. "There
was this Sandra Oh retrospective -- Double Happiness, The Diary of Evelyn Lau
and a couple of short films," she says with an easy laugh. "I said,
'Guys, maybe you should call me in 25 years, when I have a body of work."'
Not that she's ungrateful, mind you. No actor is likely to turn down an
opportunity to hog the spotlight, if even for a night. "Those two movies,
Evelyn Lau and Double Happiness, were specifically Asian films," she says.
"Most of my other movies were non-specific. If the call is for anything
Asian, you're not allowed to be funny, or show off a specific talent."
Oh, a Canadian of Korean ancestry, already has been honoured with a U.S. Cable
Ace Award for Arliss, and a Genie and Woman in Film Award, from the Vancouver
International Film Festival, for Last Night, Don McKellar's dramatic study of
human behaviour on the eve of the Apocalypse. Oh is an example of an actor whose
presence in a film or television series no longer seems to be predicated on the
screenwriter's insistence on an Asian character. Neither are the people she is
being asked to play inserted merely to provide another hue. "You always
want to be judged by the quality of your work, not your skin colour," says
Oh. "If the studios are getting pressure to stick more minorities into
their projects, what they usually do is put you in the background with one line,
or they give you a role that perpetuates the stereotype ... which is OK, but
only if the story's about that. "I'll play a prostitute until the cows come
home, as long as it's about her. If she's in the background, and you don't learn
anything about her, then that's perpetuating a myth." Oh perhaps is best
known in the United States for her portrayal of the beleaguered assistant to a
high-profile sports agent in HBO's adventurous sitcom Arliss. Recently, however,
she has been seen in Guinevere, The Red Violin, Permanent Midnight and Bean,
none of which required her to be anything other than an attractive young woman.
"Obviously, all actors have barriers," she says. "You may be too
short, or too fat, or something. But then you'll be told, 'A lot of people won't
accept leading ladies who aren't white.' That's the first big hurdle you
face." Oh is busier than ever. After four seasons on Arliss, she used her
hiatus to work in the theatre, appearing in Dogeaters at California's La Jolla
Playhouse and Stop Kiss in New York. Although she can be very caustic and funny
when exchanging barbs with her boss on Arliss, played by Robert Wuhl, Oh points
out, "I didn't do any comedy until I came here. In Canada, everyone would
say, 'Lighten up, Sandra.' "In high school, I was extremely hyperactive,
and I did a lot of improv. That's probably where I developed my comedy
skills." After high school, Oh attended Toronto's National Theatre School,
where she came into contact with many of the other fine Canadian actors, writers
and directors who seem to pop up in each other's films with increasing
frequency. "We're all so interchangeable, it's like a Canadian mafia,"
she quips, pointing to her frequent presence alongside such talents as McKellar,
Sarah Polley, Callum Keith Rennie, Tracy Wright and Genevieve Bujold. Even
director David Cronenberg was enlisted for Last Night, which was released in the
U.S. to coincide with the millennial madness. In the 95-minute film, Oh plays a
woman who desperately wants to control her last moments on Earth and keep things
as normal as possible. Meanwhile, her car is turned upside-down by vandals, she
has to shop for last-meal groceries, and she must make her way back home through
streets littered with garbage.
Despite the many honours for this film and The Red Violin, Oh, who currently is
filming Michael Radford's Dancing at the Blue Iguana, wishes more
Genie-nominated pictures would find distributors. "Unfortunately, the
ownership of Canadian theatre chains is mostly American, and they won't play
Canadian films because, supposedly, they don't make money," she says.
"No one knows that Canadian films exist because the budgets don't allow for
posters, commercials and other marketing tools, so a film might just play in a
small theatre in Toronto." As for Arliss, which was revived last year by
HBO and has since benefited by its proximity to the hit comedy Sex and the City,
Oh is optimistic. "It actually was dead and rose again," she says. But
she admits she knows very few of the athletes who make cameos on the show.
"I can generally tell from the body type what kind of sport they
play," she says. One of her main roles is as a role model. "When I was
10, I didn't have anyone to look up to on the screen. Now I get a lot of letters
from first-generation children of immigrants -- and not just Asians -- who were
drawn to Double Happiness and empathize with my character," she says.
"The problem with most movies and television shows is that anyone who
doesn't look a certain way somehow has to be justified. We have to stop telling
the same story over and over again. We have to get beyond that. "The
prettiest girl in most schools is not blond and is not white. Maybe she looks
like Lauryn Hill." Or, more and more, Sandra Oh.
from National
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