'The Interview': Sandra Oh Knows What's Great About Middle Age

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Speaker 2 From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro.

Speaker 2 One of the most freeing parts of being a woman in middle-age is letting go of all the stuff that weighed you down earlier in your life.

Speaker 2 By this point, we've achieved quite a bit, we've learned quite a bit about who we are, and we've also learned quite a bit about ignoring those who would try and limit us.

Speaker 2 We're kind of whittling ourselves down to what matters. Actor Sandra Oh knows all about that journey.

Speaker 2 She's best known for the 10 seasons she spent on Grey's Anatomy playing the career-defining role of Dr. Christina Yang.

Speaker 2 After she left the show, she then played Eve Pilastri in Killing Eve, an intelligence operative in the UK tasked with tracking an elusive and entrancing female assassin.

Speaker 2 And this summer, she'll be on stage in Shakespeare in the Park in New York City. She's playing Olivia in 12th Night.

Speaker 2 None of those characters were originally written written to be played by an Asian woman, but O has broken barriers and paved the way for many of the Asian actors who have followed.

Speaker 2 Even as she says, now in her 50s, she's still processing what it took to get there. As we do regularly on the show, I sat down with O twice.

Speaker 2 The first time was in front of a live audience at the Tribeca Festival. The second was a few days later, just the two of us.

Speaker 2 We talked about her career, aging, DEI, and for the first time publicly, she read from her personal diaries about key moments in her life and how she looks back on them now.

Speaker 2 Here's my conversation with Sandra O.

Speaker 2 This is exciting.

Speaker 5 This is how we were on the couch about stage.

Speaker 2 We just had a conversation on the couch, which was, we went deep fast.

Speaker 2 I was reading about you, of course, course, in advance of this conversation, and I came across this really great quote from 2019.

Speaker 2 You were one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people.

Speaker 2 Chondra Rhimes, who of course is the creator of Gray's Anatomy, wrote your entry and she said, and I'm quoting here, Sandra Oh is a virtuoso. She treats dialogue like notes of music.

Speaker 2 And then just recently, you met Megan the Stallion at a gala. And when she saw you, and I'm juxtaposing this for a reason, she said, the icon, the legend, wow, my whole year is made.

Speaker 2 I don't have to do anything else.

Speaker 2 How do you feel about that when people see you and are just overwhelmed?

Speaker 8 I really take that question to heart because it's taken me a long time to actually really receive it.

Speaker 15 I don't usually pay attention and I don't usually listen to it.

Speaker 20 And I've you know, coming into deep into our midlife, I'm needing to listen to things that somehow I felt like I need to protect myself from either because I want it so badly or I just don't believe it.

Speaker 18 And I think a part of being a full person in midlife is to actually hear the positive things or

Speaker 29 one's effect on people.

Speaker 22 And so

Speaker 17 I think I'm still working on it to receive it.

Speaker 12 You know,

Speaker 14 in 12th night, there is this one little passage that I've been working on, and I work on it.

Speaker 23 It's in Act 5, Scene 1.

Speaker 31 And Olivia is speaking to Viola, who's pretending to be Cesario.

Speaker 5 And she says, fear not, Cesario.

Speaker 12 Take thy fortunes up.

Speaker 8 Be that thou knowest thou art.

Speaker 10 And then thou art as great as that thou fearest.

Speaker 32 So for me, it's always a clue for me.

Speaker 27 I can't remember a line.

Speaker 17 Like I have to work on it, because there's something in the line that I need to somehow ingest or understand. I don't understand that line quickly enough.

Speaker 11 But in that is actually, I think, the answer to your question, which is what I'm trying to work with, which is to not be afraid and to take thy fortunes up.

Speaker 2 Were you afraid of it going to your head or were you feeling like you didn't deserve it?

Speaker 12 I feel like it threw me off balance.

Speaker 37 I feel like I couldn't keep focusing on just the work, that there was something about it that was

Speaker 12 sometimes it's you're dealing with a projection that can be a little overwhelming.

Speaker 39 And I think I needed to kind of build my interior self to be able to stand steady with it.

Speaker 2 So we're here in New York, but you live in Los Angeles. And you, like many people, had to evacuate your home during the wildfires earlier.

Speaker 14 Oh, no, we didn't have to evacuate, but we were on standby, yes.

Speaker 2 You were on standby. You were thinking about it.

Speaker 6 Oh, yes.

Speaker 2 And we chatted before this event, and you told me how you had to make this difficult decision about what to to take with you if you were going to have to leave.

Speaker 2 Can you tell me that story, what happened?

Speaker 40 Sure, it was a tough time for everyone.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 31 we were close to one of the fires.

Speaker 6 So then it was like, what are we going to pack in our car?

Speaker 40 And the first thing that I thought was I went to, honestly, my journals.

Speaker 6 I have journals.

Speaker 25 I have journals since 1982.

Speaker 23 So there's a lot of them.

Speaker 12 And then I thought, I can't take them all. Which Which ones do I take?

Speaker 8 Do I take the first ones? Do I take the past 10 years, the last 10 years?

Speaker 28 And, you know, it just makes you think, what are the things that are very, very important to you?

Speaker 41 And I think that was the first thing that I thought about.

Speaker 2 After you told me that story, I did ask you to bring some of those diaries with you. And we're going to be reading from some of them.
And I want to start.

Speaker 2 with an excerpt from a momentous day in your career. This was your last day on Gray's Anatomy, which you were on for 10 seasons.

Speaker 6 10 seasons, yeah.

Speaker 22 It's amazing. It was amazing.

Speaker 2 And so please.

Speaker 26 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 37 April 25th, 2014.

Speaker 30 Yesterday was my very last day of work on Grey's Anatomy.

Speaker 10 It was joyous.

Speaker 37 I waited for my call time.

Speaker 31 I felt excited and jumpy to get to work.

Speaker 34 I had my hug from Laura and my first last makeup from Norm. Desiree and I danced to Michael Jackson in the trailer.

Speaker 24 It was fun.

Speaker 34 I passed everything out and wrote some more cards, grabbed a lousy lunch at the screening, took lots of pictures, lots of hugs.

Speaker 35 Then after lunch, they surprised me with a ceremony thingy for me, Tony and Joan, cake sheet and cider.

Speaker 41 Very lousy, cheap, and wonderful.

Speaker 2 Chris said words.

Speaker 31 Nicole and Brian and Carla gave me a frame call sheet, and I got two boxes filled with notes and gifts from the crew.

Speaker 12 I was deeply moved.

Speaker 40 We shot my last scene in the OR with my Kev.

Speaker 37 I was in the gallery alone, tapping on the glass.

Speaker 24 I'd tap on the glass, wave goodbye, and then I'd fold to the ground and close the work.

Speaker 43 Then afterwards, Kev threw a little get-together with food and margaritas back in Tony's office area.

Speaker 21 We ended the evening all in a circle, gabbing and gabbing, telling such fun and horror stories.

Speaker 2 So I'm interested in you saying that it was joyous. I don't hear maybe a lot of sadness.
This is the end of the biggest thing in your career. Why were you so happy?

Speaker 8 No, no, no.

Speaker 11 It's because, like,

Speaker 42 you know,

Speaker 8 I'm still working on and figuring out what that decade of my life was.

Speaker 17 Not everyone gets to know that they're leaving a show.

Speaker 34 Yeah. And I was in, I think, a very, very

Speaker 41 fortuitous position.

Speaker 10 And I took advantage of it fully, meaning that

Speaker 17 I wanted to leave well.

Speaker 39 And I think that for me, one of the proudest things that I have in my life is how I left the show, because I was as conscious as possible with all the crew members and actually even with the public.

Speaker 17 I think I joined Instagram then.

Speaker 11 And it was basically to help people say goodbye as I was saying goodbye. It was very, very, very thought out.

Speaker 12 It's really, anyone who does like TV and R stuff, it's really, really hard to say goodbye because stuff is fast.

Speaker 18 You leave, you know, you know, you end, you cut, and then you kind of go.

Speaker 38 But I actually

Speaker 25 really worked to say thank you to everyone and to leave on my own terms.

Speaker 2 Okay, I want to break some news early here because you gave an interview this year where you said there's a chance you'd go back.

Speaker 3 What would it take?

Speaker 2 Are we talking guest appearance or is Christina moving back to Seattle, Grays?

Speaker 7 You know what?

Speaker 45 I got to tell you, let me redefine that for a second.

Speaker 41 What I have noticed, you know, this is 10 years out from leaving the show, is

Speaker 11 the deep appreciation that I have for the people who appreciate Christina.

Speaker 8 And it is that love that has made me go, oh.

Speaker 41 The fans really, really, really want it.

Speaker 16 And that for the first time, that's when I started opening up the idea but for me

Speaker 11 I think to really be true to the people who enjoy your work you have to be true to yourself so at this point

Speaker 19 I don't think so

Speaker 6 okay

Speaker 6 sad face

Speaker 2 I want to go back to your roots you grew up in Canada your parents moved there from Korea your mom was a biochemist

Speaker 2 your dad was a businessman clearly both very driven people

Speaker 2 how did they influence some of your early ambition?

Speaker 43 You know, I think that's a part about when you grow up a child of immigrants, right?

Speaker 18 You know,

Speaker 31 I don't know, maybe I can't say that because you grew up a child of immigrants, like you see your parents work so hard.

Speaker 2 There is something to that. I grew up as a child of immigrants, and there's something to that.

Speaker 27 And you know what you have, and you know what you don't have.

Speaker 12 And then you can also see that what you want in your life, and that you realize you cannot bother people for that.

Speaker 31 You have got to go do it yourself.

Speaker 17 I'm not sure.

Speaker 11 You You know, I would say that I think that I did get a very high dose of ambition and drive.

Speaker 14 I actually think that comes a lot from my dad.

Speaker 23 But also my parents are very religious.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 17 there's something equal in that because

Speaker 11 their belief that you do something for the good of humanity was a big thing in our family.

Speaker 12 How you grow up, what you're supposed to do, and the responsibility that you have to do good. And I think that also really, really influenced us.

Speaker 2 You've described yourself as a very emotional child.

Speaker 2 And you brought another diary entry that speaks to that. Can you explain when this is from?

Speaker 40 Yes, this is my very first entry.

Speaker 14 And I just want to actually maybe prompt it with, don't worry.

Speaker 17 Sunday, the 3rd of October, 1982.

Speaker 28 Dear Ari, like diary.

Speaker 34 I hate myself.

Speaker 48 That's all.

Speaker 41 Oh, yeah, I also think I'll commit suicide.

Speaker 33 Spelt S-U-C-I-C-I-D-E.

Speaker 12 Nothing is worth living for.

Speaker 18 I'm no good at anything.

Speaker 30 I'm never happy anymore.

Speaker 23 I try so hard, but I never succeed.

Speaker 33 Spelled S-U-C-C-I-D-E.

Speaker 3 Mom and dad always laugh at me when I try.

Speaker 12 I do stupid mistakes. Mom always yells at me.

Speaker 34 I have no no self-confidence.

Speaker 17 I don't believe in myself.

Speaker 9 I can't do anything.

Speaker 32 Someday I'll run real far, so far that no one will ever find me.

Speaker 49 I have a lot of thoughts, but I can't write them all down.

Speaker 30 I hate myself.

Speaker 41 Monday, the 4th of October.

Speaker 39 A great day.

Speaker 27 Don't worry, I turned out okay.

Speaker 2 When you were revisiting this,

Speaker 2 were you surprised?

Speaker 10 I gotta tell you, I just have so much compassion for that young person.

Speaker 17 And honestly, I'm so pleased with myself that at 11, with so much feeling, that I unconsciously found some place to regulate myself, which was writing.

Speaker 27 I remember my mom didn't like it because I would always be writing, and she knew it was about her.

Speaker 6 You know what I mean?

Speaker 45 She knew. I was like, What are you always writing?

Speaker 10 And I think that has just been

Speaker 10 a receptacle that started out as an unconscious place to feel safe, but eventually has helped me figure it out who I am.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 there is a sense of a little girl who is just figuring herself out, possibly having a bad day, but also someone who feels deeply and connects deeply with herself and maybe the world around her.

Speaker 2 Did you know that you needed to have like artistic expression, that you needed to sort of have that kind of creative outlet when you were a kid?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 34 Yes. I think I knew it

Speaker 28 real young.

Speaker 9 I know that I love performing and I love dancing and I started ballet when I was four.

Speaker 8 And I loved it. I loved it.

Speaker 17 And I just had so much feeling.

Speaker 42 It was very hard to manage.

Speaker 12 But I really remember my mom with this, like, she would just let it all happen

Speaker 12 and just let it run its course.

Speaker 44 But I think that when I think about or try and feel that young person,

Speaker 10 I think it was a natural thing that I found an avenue to be able to express that because I just had so much of it inside.

Speaker 2 So there's a fun fact. At age 15, you were in an improv group called Skid Row High.
That's true. A pun on Skid Row.

Speaker 2 And Alanis Morissette was briefly in the group because, of course, were you two friends? I mean, do all Canadian famous people kind of come from the same place?

Speaker 17 Well, Canadians, we all know each other.

Speaker 12 I mean, that is kind of true.

Speaker 11 But, you know, Alanis came in very, very briefly to

Speaker 6 this group.

Speaker 11 Oh, my gosh, it's so great.

Speaker 37 Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 11 It's so great.

Speaker 29 Yeah, she came in, but she was also in the midst of like really a burgeoning music and musical career.

Speaker 12 So she just came in for like a couple of shows and we did,

Speaker 41 gosh, we performed shows where she would sing and some of us would be her backup singers.

Speaker 8 I'm not joking.

Speaker 21 Gosh, does anybody know her song, Fate Stay With Me?

Speaker 47 Fate, Fate, Fate Stay With Me.

Speaker 5 I wanna be wanna be wanna.

Speaker 7 I can't believe it.

Speaker 43 I haven't thought about that since I was in the past. I impressed.

Speaker 5 But we would be on stage with her kind of like singing backup.

Speaker 11 It was actually a really super creative time.

Speaker 29 You know,

Speaker 29 there were these guys who were in

Speaker 29 Second City in Toronto and they moved to Ottawa and they created this amazing

Speaker 10 improv games for kids.

Speaker 17 And it started in Ottawa and then it grew to nationwide.

Speaker 16 And I learned a lot.

Speaker 6 I learned a lot from them.

Speaker 2 You became an American citizen in 2018, and you're now a dual citizen. And you became a citizen so you could vote in the U.S.
elections after Trump came into office.

Speaker 2 I want to ask you about talking politics in this moment.

Speaker 6 Oh, boy.

Speaker 2 Do you think there's a chilling effect now that people don't in Hollywood want to express themselves politically because

Speaker 2 things have changed? Absolutely.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 2 Do you think it's coming from a place where actors are self-censoring because they don't want to alienate certain groups?

Speaker 2 Or do you you think it's coming from overhead where studios are sort of afraid of being penalized by this administration?

Speaker 14 Oh, I don't think it's, I don't think it's as conscious as that.

Speaker 18 You know,

Speaker 28 I think when you're a public figure,

Speaker 18 you understand

Speaker 22 that there are systems that are larger than you.

Speaker 5 You know what I mean?

Speaker 11 And I think what's so difficult is that when you lose your story and you lose your narrative and you have no control over that, That is a very, very distressing place to be.

Speaker 12 What you're always thinking about: am I going to lose my livelihood or then not feel safe?

Speaker 10 Am I someone gonna dox me or all that stuff?

Speaker 6 And so, I think, again, people who are have a public profile are always kind of managing that.

Speaker 11 But it's really because it's so easy to have things out of context, be misunderstood, and mostly losing

Speaker 25 losing one's own identity in someone else's or some other system's story.

Speaker 2 Do you think we're losing something by actors and actresses and others feeling afraid to actually be able to express themselves? Or do you think actually it's better that they're not like repining?

Speaker 15 The thing is, some people can, and some people want to.

Speaker 27 And I understand that right now we're in the middle of an interview, right?

Speaker 25 But my work is not to give an interview.

Speaker 35 It's a part of it, right?

Speaker 18 My work for me is not to make statements.

Speaker 19 My work is to be an artist and to create stories, be a part of stories, make you feel things, make you feel connected, connect with material that you might not have thought about.

Speaker 8 That's my work, right?

Speaker 34 I try and concentrate on that because that's my job.

Speaker 12 My job is to make you feel something.

Speaker 2 Then let's talk about your work because you're going to be in Shakespeare in the park here in New York, in one of my own favorite Shakespeare plays, 12th Night. I played Mariah in high school.

Speaker 6 Love you. Happy to know.

Speaker 2 This one is very starry. It has you, Lupita Nyongo, Peter Dinklage.
So, how is the rehearsal going?

Speaker 26 You're not yet.

Speaker 6 You haven't started. Yeah,

Speaker 2 then how are you looking forward to it?

Speaker 30 Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 31 I mean, I will say I started learning this very early.

Speaker 29 Finding myself deep into my midlife, the way that I learn things now and the way that I work is totally different.

Speaker 47 I need to, it doesn't stay in my head.

Speaker 14 It needs to enter my body.

Speaker 6 So I started learning these lines like probably in February.

Speaker 3 Very slow.

Speaker 43 I'm slow.

Speaker 18 And in February, and it's just been a joy.

Speaker 11 And again, as I brought up earlier, that quote, like when you have time to kind of just really, really play with and wonder what's underneath these words to my own life, it's just been joyous.

Speaker 2 I mean, you play interesting women who are complicated, idiosyncratic. And a lot of Shakespeare is up to the actor's interpretation.
So what are you thinking about for Olivia?

Speaker 41 Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 23 I don't know.

Speaker 27 Oh, you don't know? I don't, no, no.

Speaker 49 it's also like this.

Speaker 31 I want to be very, very facile with the dialogue, right?

Speaker 33 And then all you want to do is like to be as present as possible to whoever you're acting with.

Speaker 12 It's impossible to know kind of what you're going to do without the other person.

Speaker 10 That's the thing about theater, right?

Speaker 21 It's like, you know, when you're on film, like, I don't know how many times I've acted to a piece of tape.

Speaker 33 You know what I mean?

Speaker 29 Because that's just it is, or you can't see the angle, you can't see the person. So, you know, you're acting to it like a piece of tape on a tennis ball, right?

Speaker 31 But the theater is all about

Speaker 35 like all I'm doing is reacting to what you're saying and the questions that you're asking me, right?

Speaker 14 So, I don't know what I'm going to say, I don't know how it's going to be, and I don't want to settle into anything before I know,

Speaker 29 oh my God, how Lupita's going to say something.

Speaker 45 So, I'm so excited.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, when you say that you don't know who Olivia is yet for you, I'm thinking of other female characters that you've played that are so iconic.

Speaker 2 The through line that I see in these characters, if you think about Christina and you think about Eve, Pilastri,

Speaker 2 and now Olivia, is that a lot of these roles are about relationships with other women.

Speaker 6 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, clearly you're drawn to that.

Speaker 44 Yeah.

Speaker 11 I mean, you don't, I don't choose it for that, right? But like,

Speaker 18 well, you're right.

Speaker 18 But,

Speaker 15 but eventually, then it becomes that.

Speaker 32 I think also for me, like

Speaker 3 the life of a woman, do you know what what I mean?

Speaker 32 The fullness and the wholeness of our psyche.

Speaker 9 I'm always interested in that.

Speaker 32 I'm always wanting to play in that field, not only for myself, but just for us to see it.

Speaker 25 You know what I mean? To see it, that it's not in service.

Speaker 32 And this is also what I'm very, very, very grateful for.

Speaker 41 It's not, but the characters, a lot of the characters I've played are not in service for the typical structure of, you know, the husband or the hero man or whatever.

Speaker 23 I'm never cast in that, by the way.

Speaker 35 I'm never cast in that.

Speaker 49 You know, I was always so hurt by that because it's like, I want to get parts.

Speaker 2 I want to get parts in big things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 32 But really, sometimes those characters are not full-fleshed characters and full-fleshed women.

Speaker 27 And I think I am

Speaker 19 absolutely, I guess I am drawn to that, yeah.

Speaker 2 You've actually brought up something that is interesting, which is the parts that you have been cast in and the parts that you haven't been cast in.

Speaker 2 And I want to ask you here to read from a moment moment in your life when you encountered real discrimination in Hollywood.

Speaker 3 I can't believe all those prompts.

Speaker 45 I was like, oh my God, I have something for that.

Speaker 2 Because you've talked about this in other interviews. You had just arrived from Canada and were looking for representation and you took a meeting with a big agent.

Speaker 34 August 1st, 1995.

Speaker 23 You just don't know what's ahead of you.

Speaker 10 That's the good and the bad of it. You just can't see what lies ahead.

Speaker 27 So says Sheila, calming me with her faith.

Speaker 14 Like Joel said as I wept into the payphone outside the building where my appointment canceled out on me.

Speaker 34 Just when you think you can handle the rejection, something comes along that's new or different and it's the same.

Speaker 22 The pain's the same and overwhelming.

Speaker 42 And you try not to take it so personally or cosmically, but you feel it.

Speaker 19 Nothing she could think of to send me out on?

Speaker 6 Nothing?

Speaker 13 There's nothing there for me?

Speaker 6 Why am I here?

Speaker 35 What do I have to do to make a place for me in this world?

Speaker 18 She goes, people aren't open.

Speaker 41 Basically, there are no parts for you because you're Asian, so you're better off getting famous in Canada and living there.

Speaker 25 You need tape and a movie with that.

Speaker 6 I have all that.

Speaker 38 Now what do I do?

Speaker 5 And then,

Speaker 41 where is the art?

Speaker 25 Through all this shit, putting on makeup and armor to make it through the day.

Speaker 41 And where is the work?

Speaker 35 And I can feel myself starving, starving for the work, the growth of the working kind.

Speaker 6 And not beat yourself up for wanting to go home.

Speaker 42 Yes, it's a new place. Yes, it's hard.

Speaker 39 But thinking, I've got to do this.

Speaker 27 Do what, San?

Speaker 39 Do what?

Speaker 32 So much further to go.

Speaker 14 Is this what it is to be an artist?

Speaker 25 To try and be one?

Speaker 17 I feel uncomfortable and would never call myself one confidently.

Speaker 46 Artist, actor, yeah, but artist, there's something greater in that, something to do with time, with skill, with

Speaker 34 I want to be one.

Speaker 19 Patience, says Sheila. I know you have enough faith, but it's patience.

Speaker 3 And what if this is it?

Speaker 32 Isn't there more I'm supposed to do?

Speaker 35 Isn't there more I'm supposed to become?

Speaker 2 When you revisited that,

Speaker 6 what was that like?

Speaker 5 You know,

Speaker 25 that experience of meeting that agent and being told a bunch of stuff,

Speaker 9 it's taken me a long time to untangle that.

Speaker 24 It's taken me a very, very long time.

Speaker 17 The saving grace, I think, for me was that question.

Speaker 49 Or was that desire?

Speaker 18 I want to be an artist.

Speaker 27 I want, what is this?

Speaker 10 What am I supposed to do?

Speaker 6 Because Because I think ultimately, that's how I figured it out.

Speaker 11 Because I followed that.

Speaker 27 Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 12 I didn't follow what that lady said, right?

Speaker 40 I followed the question that I think I've always had, or that drive that was there to say, what am I supposed to do?

Speaker 10 It doesn't feel like what she just said.

Speaker 17 I know I'm here for something.

Speaker 15 I don't know what.

Speaker 44 So I think that so much of how

Speaker 9 who I've become kind of stems even from that entry.

Speaker 2 What

Speaker 6 helped you say, that's not me?

Speaker 2 I won't internalize that, that's not me.

Speaker 12 No, but I did.

Speaker 34 I think I did internalize that profoundly.

Speaker 46 I think that there's so much internalized

Speaker 10 self-hatred and I mean, not to get too much of a downer, but there is a lot of internalized hatred, racism, sexism that I think, you know, again, this is the great thing about hitting midlife.

Speaker 17 For me, it's just been something that it's taken a long time.

Speaker 15 And I think I can't be the only one that it takes this long to try and untangle.

Speaker 2 In your previous entry on that terrible day outside that agent's office said, Would you consider yourself an artist? You know, you were grappling with that question. Have you come to an answer now?

Speaker 2 Can you feel confident in the answer now?

Speaker 31 I do.

Speaker 21 I do. I feel confident as an artist.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 18 I don't,

Speaker 9 I think

Speaker 9 it takes time.

Speaker 19 So the Sheila I'm talking about is beautiful Sheila Benson.

Speaker 22 She was the film critic of the LA Times for many, many years.

Speaker 15 And she's no longer with us.

Speaker 16 And I,

Speaker 9 anyway.

Speaker 5 But she was older than I when I stayed with her.

Speaker 10 And it's just the way that she says, you can't see what's going to come.

Speaker 19 And you need patience.

Speaker 15 You cannot see that when you're 24.

Speaker 33 you cannot and that's okay but what i see now through patience of not patience but actually going through 30 years of life is that like if your aim is true i just when you do that with devotion and you gain skill and practice it for a long time i do think that's what develops a life as an of an artist

Speaker 2 You're now in your 50s and you've been talking about middle age and I'm wondering how you're settling into that.

Speaker 12 It's great.

Speaker 45 It's great.

Speaker 37 Don't let anyone fool you.

Speaker 17 Like, seriously, don't let anyone fool you.

Speaker 37 I feel it's tougher on my body.

Speaker 46 It's tougher on my mind in certain ways, but it is great.

Speaker 33 Let me tell you, it is great because

Speaker 17 I feel balanced enough to really start digging into very important questions when you realize that it is not up to anyone else to free you.

Speaker 32 It's up to yourself.

Speaker 36 So it's just like whether you have body issues, whether, again, things about your past, you know, how you grew up, your trauma, those are the things that now you have some space and are able to kind of handle grappling.

Speaker 34 Because those things stay down, repressed for a very long time.

Speaker 42 And I think you have to grow in an interior sense to be able to handle those things that come up.

Speaker 12 But my joints hurt.

Speaker 26 My joints hurt now.

Speaker 2 I want to to end with your journal. You chose something that you wrote in the last few weeks.

Speaker 17 Oh, I will say I think I write a little differently now because basically all my journal entries are kind of, it's rarely now just kind of like a straight journal entry.

Speaker 17 It's much more poetic and it's much more, there's images and there's drawings and scribbles.

Speaker 35 But I'll share this.

Speaker 18 May 21st, 2025.

Speaker 21 I know I'm jumping all around with my journals and I'm not sure why that matters much, seeing that I'm probably not going to get around to reading all this, like putting together all the clues of my life or figuring out myself as an artist.

Speaker 22 I think somewhere, maybe always,

Speaker 12 I wanted a record so that sometime in the future I could, or someone else, could figure out who I am or was,

Speaker 41 have one fell swoop.

Speaker 14 to see all the patterns, where I grew, how I didn't, what was going on, putting together all the clues from my daytimers, what I was doing, where was I traveling, what I was thinking to remember or to imagine.

Speaker 2 I want to thank you for opening your diaries to all of us.

Speaker 2 It is an act of intimacy and

Speaker 2 I think it really helped us understand you better. So thank you, Sandra O.

Speaker 19 Thank you, Lulu.

Speaker 27 Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 After the break, I talked to Sandra again, this time just us, one-on-one, and we do wade into politics.

Speaker 4 The words diversity, Equity, and inclusion are good things.

Speaker 4 To be awake is a good thing. Those are words that I take to heart and that have now been co-opted and now vilified.
It's heartbreaking to me.

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Speaker 52 Are you ready to get spicy?

Speaker 51 These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.

Speaker 52 Sriracha sounds pretty spicy to me.

Speaker 51 Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet.

Speaker 45 Maybe it's time to turn up the heat.

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Speaker 2 Hi, Sandra. How are you?

Speaker 42 I'm so happy to see you. Hi, hi, hey.

Speaker 6 Hi, hi, hi.

Speaker 4 I got a little bit of a cold at the commencement speech.

Speaker 2 Yeah, since we spoke, you gave a commencement speech at Dartmouth.

Speaker 4 I did.

Speaker 4 Like I said, the commencement speech was very stressful for me. I'm not stressful.

Speaker 39 That's not the right word, but then I got sick.

Speaker 2 You

Speaker 2 had been talking to me about how stressed you were about it. Why was it stressful actually doing it?

Speaker 4 You know, I think it's the call to speak to young people, especially at this moment, that, you know, when Shonda presented the offer to me, it was actually last year, at the end of September in 24.

Speaker 4 And so many things have changed since September 24.

Speaker 4 And as things kept on ramping up, the depth of where I felt like I had to go to be able to speak honestly to this group of graduates became much more serious.

Speaker 4 And so I think that's why, I don't know if nervous is, yeah, I think it was. I think I was nervous, but I think I do this.
I think this is my tendency to do this. I

Speaker 4 put a lot of pressure on myself to be able to really deliver something

Speaker 4 that will hopefully be useful to them.

Speaker 2 You know, you've just touched on something which I wanted to ask you about because, in our first conversation, you really didn't want to talk about politics, but in your speech, you did nod to this political moment.

Speaker 3 And here's what you said: What if I say the wrong thing?

Speaker 7 What if I were to talk about

Speaker 2 diversity,

Speaker 2 equity?

Speaker 48 Okay, okay.

Speaker 41 What if I change the words?

Speaker 7 Like

Speaker 47 including diverse equalness

Speaker 40 or diverting equitable inclusivity.

Speaker 2 Would that still be bad?

Speaker 2 Could I get deported? See, that should be a bad joke.

Speaker 44 And it is,

Speaker 14 but it's not.

Speaker 2 What it made me think about was that you've said before that part of the reason that you were initially cast in roles early in your career in Canada was because the government there had mandates for multiculturalism.

Speaker 2 And I was wondering like what mandates for inclusion have done for you personally. Oh,

Speaker 4 huge.

Speaker 2 Are you kidding me?

Speaker 4 Oh my gosh, like when I was cast, you know, my early days of cutting my teeth, of being in front of a camera, that was when I was in high school in Ottawa.

Speaker 4 And because I am myself, I am an Asian woman, and I also speak French. Oh my gosh, I've ticked out so many boxes.

Speaker 4 You know, it's a double-edged sword because, you know, I couldn't move up so high up the ladder because the structure of casting and racism is entrenched, right?

Speaker 4 But because Canada is

Speaker 4 the way that the country is set up, there is more inclusion.

Speaker 4 There's more understanding that people have come from someplace else to come to this country and that this country was, you know, taken from our Indigenous people and First Nations people, right?

Speaker 4 And during that time,

Speaker 4 it wasn't like I didn't know it. And that causes itself things that you have to figure out as someone who benefits from DEI.

Speaker 4 But it gave me... a foot in the door and it also gave me a lot of experience.

Speaker 2 Through your own experience, I'm wondering what you think think we might have lost with this push against DEI.

Speaker 2 And then because you talked about that double-edged sword, might there be gains because we are re-examining how we deal with this very persistent problem of structural racism?

Speaker 4 This is like such a huge question, those two points of it, that I also speaking to

Speaker 4 you know, another woman of color, it's really important conversation, you know, because I'd say probably I would imagine,

Speaker 4 you know, both of us were in a similar age. There's a lot of time that we just spent with our heads down and doing the work,

Speaker 4 and then eventually the work rising to get to the place where we are at. And that did happen for the both of us.
Yeah, it did.

Speaker 4 But meanwhile, there's a lot of things that either we benefited from, or a lot of the things that we had to bat away, or a lot of the things that we are still internally wrestling with.

Speaker 4 But I want to start at the beginning of your question, which is what is lost?

Speaker 4 For me, what is lost is

Speaker 4 the real beginning of

Speaker 4 a recognition that I thought was happening in the past five to seven years, that there was a recognition that racism actually exists and it's a structural issue.

Speaker 4 And from my point of view, it is not a blame game. It just is.

Speaker 4 But it's kind of trying to come to a truthful or an agreed-upon upon reality that in the larger picture of what we know, life is not fair.

Speaker 4 And so the words diversity, equity, and inclusion are good things.

Speaker 4 To be awake is a good thing. Those are words that I take to heart and that have now been co-opted and now vilified.
It's heartbreaking to me. because

Speaker 4 what's being lost or what's being dismantled is a recognition that life is not fair. So that's the thing that I think is really painful.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think one of the things that I've found hardest when a discussion

Speaker 2 about DEI and what it means has sort of surfaced is that it has been increasingly hard. to find the language to talk about the realities that many

Speaker 2 black, brown, Asian people deal with every day. There had been a language for that and that language seems no longer to be available.

Speaker 2 And so it's made it, I think, very hard for people to really talk about their experience in the world and see that experience of racism and discrimination validated.

Speaker 4 I totally agree. I totally agree, but I also feel like it's always going to be talked about.
We'll always find community. And it's also, I think the real muscle around it is being okay with yourself

Speaker 4 and or in our industry, having a relationship with your creative self.

Speaker 4 Because that relationship will ground you as all these waves of whatever disappointment, whatever you get harassed, whatever, I mean, it's going to happen.

Speaker 4 And the more you have a relationship with that and can concentrate on that,

Speaker 4 the stronger you will be to figure out your language with others and to keep grounded and your heart open.

Speaker 2 So, we ended our first interview with one of your journal entries, and there's a line in there. I want to come back to you.

Speaker 2 You wrote that you thought maybe the journals could be one fell swoop to see all the patterns where I grew and how I didn't.

Speaker 2 Where do you feel like you still need to grow?

Speaker 4 Oh,

Speaker 4 Lila, I want to ask you the same question because I feel like we are at very similar points in our life. You know, women who are deep into this very rich middle part of your life.

Speaker 4 And I really appreciate this time because I also think that only now do you have enough strength and hopefully curiosity to go into the places of asking the question, why did I do that?

Speaker 4 Who has been steering this ship? Because now on this back half of my life, I'm the captain of this ship. I am me,

Speaker 4 right?

Speaker 4 Now

Speaker 4 I am really working with the internalization of

Speaker 4 my own issues, like, which by God, we all have what it is to live in a patriarchal society, what it is to live as a person of color in a predominantly white society, how How that has made me who I am now, and now what I need to do to free myself from it as much as I can for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 That's Sandra Oh. She'll be in 12th night at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park starting August 7th.

Speaker 2 This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sophia Landman, original music by Pat McCusker, Rowan Nemisto, and Marian Lozano.
Photography by Devin Yalkin.

Speaker 2 Our senior booker is Priya Matthew, and Wyatt Orm is our producer. Our senior video journalist is Paula Neudorf.
Our executive producer is Allison Benedict.

Speaker 2 Special thanks to Davey Gardner and the whole Tribeca team.

Speaker 2 Also thanks to Christina Josa, Rory Walsh, Renan Barelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddie Mastiello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dulhick.

Speaker 2 If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to the interview wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com slash the interview. And you can email us anytime at theinterview at nytimes.com.

Speaker 2 Also, we have a new YouTube channel where you can watch many of our interviews. Subscribe at youtube.com slash at symbol the interview podcast.

Speaker 2 Next week, David talks with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reisch.

Speaker 53 I'm asked very often, should the Democrats move to the center? I don't even know what the center is.

Speaker 53 Where is the center

Speaker 53 between

Speaker 53 democracy and dictatorship, which is what we're really now facing?

Speaker 2 I'm Ludo Garcia Navarro, and this is the interview from the New York Times.