This past summer, the award-winning actor positioned herself behind a podium at a commencement event in a New England location. Her purpose was to deliver new alumni encouraging messages during a time of ongoing turmoil. Answering to the occasion, she shared personally about her own personal fights with emotional difficulties and worry, then made a heartfelt case for welcoming discomfort and compassion. “Enabling us to meet cruelty again and again and not lose our humanity,” she stated. This was especially crucial, she noted, when many global figures “claim power through intimidation and suppression.”
Then came the instant that would capture global attention. She urged everyone to get on their feet and do something Cristina Yang used to do when life became difficult. “Dance it out!” she commanded as an energetic melody washed over the crowd. “Remember this feeling!”
“It was incredibly nerve-wracking about it,” she recalls. “It took serious effort.” She had been placing herself into the perspective of young adults not just worried about their own futures but about the larger picture. “Society faces immense challenges!” she says, envisioning their pessimistic outlooks. “Conflict is widespread! The weight is overwhelming, leading to endless scrolling.”
Yet, essentially, she aimed her audience to find their way to happiness – which inspired the dance. “Facing hardship directly,” she says, succinctly expressing the belief she shared that day, “will help you figure out how to be in the world.”
Currently available merchandise displaying the phrase she expressed at a major awards show: ‘I’m proud of my heritage’
Her address – with its honesty and empathy, its awareness of the world’s hardships while still seeking moments of happiness – feels particularly on-brand for the artist. Originating near Canada’s capital to Korean immigrant parents, the performer, whose star turns in hit series made her the pioneering performer to win multiple industry accolades, has since gained fans for her strong advocacy of greater inclusion in the entertainment world.
Engaging and lively, Oh’s conversation is filled with plenty of humor. “Hold on baby!” is the first thing noticed as she chats by phone from New York, gaining a second as she tries and fails to enable her camera. But Oh soon becomes more thoughtful, often pausing for lengthy pauses as she talks about everything from the planetary challenges to artificial intelligence to social justice.
Appropriately, Oh’s current work – an thought-provoking feature – is about finding salvation amid the chaos. After an world-ending, technology-driven disaster hits Earth in the very deliberately chosen year of a coming time, human life has been restructured. By a future date: harmony has been attained. Workplaces, devices and handheld technology are relics of a fallen civilisation. People spend their days tending to their gardens. But there are restrictions: they stay local, energy is controlled and – the central condition – everyone must accept a scheduled end at fifty. The actress embodies someone who lived through the 2025 catastrophe, who is assisting her child into her new job as a “documenter” of these “end of life” ceremonies.
Where you seek affection is a device, an effect is taking place to you at an subconscious level
“What captivated me was the script’s reflection on mortality,” says Oh, in particular how the knowledge of one’s impending death would change one’s perspective to life. It’s an ever more pressing question, the actress explains, referencing an early screening last year while environmental emergencies spread across a populated region. It highlighted the idea that the film is not really about the future. “It is what’s happening right now,” she says. “Our world is already aflame.”
While filming the project, Oh asked the director and writer to include artificial intelligence in the script. How does she think digital tools is changing our lives? “Screens and networks,” she says, “alter our nature. When your primary source of love is the phone, an impact is felt to you at an unconscious level.”
How she responds to this shift – “It’s a challenge, and I didn’t grow up with this technology” – is choosing to do “intimate, deeply significant” films such as this newest endeavor, as well as theatre. She has been embodying a renowned character in an open-air theatre in a natural setting. “It involves 2,000 people in an outdoor venue. You can feel people really seek to come to the show to laugh, experience joy, for it to be uplifting, out in nature. You’re united and you’re connecting – through artistic expression.” In the age of the technology, “genuine connections become incredibly valuable.”
The actress emphasizes making conscious choices, thoughtful moves. “This is the gift of midlife,” says the actor, who has just turned her fifth decade. “Many elements in culture, that you’ve been accepting without thought. But you see that moment of clarity coming through – and realise that’s what you want to follow. I think that’s what midlife is about. And it’s very engaging.”
She has discussed rejecting the prejudice she absorbed from her youth, highlighting a painful memory with an professional when she moved to an entertainment hub in the mid-nineties. The figure advised her to return as there was no work for artists like her there. Years after, on receiving a pivotal project, she was unsure which lesser role was intended for her. “Honey,” her agent said. “You’re the star.”
Lately, Oh has put her substantial platform into projects from the global community, participating in family features, thriller stories, and lighthearted stories. She’s also played diverse characters in serious projects and university settings. Such parts, unlike the ones that made her famous, actively include her character’s heritage in the script.
“I remember being a prestigious event when a landmark film swept the awards,” she says. “It was so important. To build something, you need a wide collective – to get traction, to get the experience, to know how to work together. When I started, colleagues like me – we’d crossed paths for ever, but we seldom worked together on a project, because we were always isolated. It’s still a tough industry, veering towards, honestly, a {patriarchal white mainstream|traditional power structure|established
