| Born and raised in Ottawa, Canada, Sandra Oh started
ballet lessons at the age of four and performed in her first play at the age of
ten. She started working professionally at age sixteen in television, theatre
and commercials. After three years at the prestigious National Theatre
School of Canada, she beat out more than 1000 other hopefuls and landed the coveted
title role in the CBC telefilm The Diary of Evelyn Lau, based on the true story
of a tortured poet who ran away from home and ended up a drug addict and prostitute
in Vancouver. Her performance brought her a Gemini (Canada's Emmy) nomination
for Best Actress and the 1994 Cannes FIPA d'Or for Best Actress. Oh won
her first Genie (Canada's Oscar) for her leading role in Double Happiness, a bittersweet
coming-of-age story about a young Chinese-Canadian woman. She moved to Los Angeles
in 1996 to begin the first of six seasons as Rita Wu, the smart and sassy assistant
on the HBO comedy series, Arli$$, for which she won a Cable Ace Award for Best
Actress in a Comedy. Her additional television credits include HBO's Six Feet
Under, Showtime's Further Tales of the City and a recurring role on Judging Amy.
Her films include Sideways for director Alexander Payne, Under the Tuscan
Sun, with Diane Lane, and Rick, with Bill Pullman and Agnes Buckner. Other film
credits include Bean, Guinevere, The Red Violin, Waking the Dead, The Princess
Diaries and Pay or Play. She also starred in Michael Radford's improvised Dancing
at the Blue Iguana, a bleak and raw view of life in a strip club in L.A, and in
the independent Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity. Her performance in Last Night,
a Canadian film about the end of the world, led to her winning a second Genie
Award for Best Actress in 1999. Never straying far from her theatre roots,
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, a role for which she received a Theatre World Award. She was also
recently seen in the Vagina Monologues in New York. Oh will next star in
the independent films Cake, Wilby Wonderful and 3 Needles. She resides in Los
Angeles. - description by ABC.com |
