TELEVISION: Doctor without borders

Sandra Oh attacks the role of surgical intern Cristina Yang on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy with the same Type A tenacity her character is noted for. But while the work has earned her a Golden Globe, two Emmy nominations and a level of fame she’d never before experienced, network television isn’t necessarily where the actor feels at home. The reluctant TV star spent the summer starring Off Broadway in Satellites and was seen all too briefly on the big screen in The Night Listener. She’s back in the box September 21, when the gang from Grey’s returns to the OR. Calling from her L.A. home, Oh, 35, casually took on some hot-button issues—over a plate of cheese toast—before heading to the studio to shoot a new episode of her megahit medical melodrama.

What did you think of your character when you first read the script?

Actually, I went in to audition for Chandra Wilson’s part—Dr. Bailey, who oversees the interns—but that didn’t work out, because I just really wanted to play Cristina. There were elements in the pilot where I thought, Oh, she’s a really, really unsympathetic character, and I was very excited to play that.

Audiences are routinely reduced to tears on Sunday nights watching Grey’s. What’s the mood like on set?

The subject matter is never a problem. No one ever gets bummed out or takes anything too seriously, and no one ever gets grossed out. Patrick [Dempsey] complains because he always has brain surgery to do with the exact same small movements. At least Isaiah [Washington] has a lot of things he can do with heart surgery. As interns, all we do is hold clamps. I’m hoping that we graduate next year so we can start doing our own surgeries. That also sets up failure, and I’m all for that, dramatically. My character feels she’s infallible, and she needs to be humbled.

You were on HBO’s Arli$$ for seven seasons. How has working on a smash hit at a major network been different?

I am constantly aware that I am working for a giant corporation, and that’s frustrating. In the first season, my character became pregnant and she wasn’t going to have the baby. But she couldn’t have an abortion; she had to lose the baby. And whenever you see a character on TV lose a baby, it’s because someone is saying you can’t have an abortion on television. You can’t even say the fucking word. You have to call it a procedure. I find it all so intensely frustrating and limiting—it’s like the current administration and the religious right vilifying things that are real and shouldn’t be judged.

Is now a good time to be in television?

The pressure to perform and sell ads is very strong, and I’m learning that it’s foolish to expect that it would be any different. You can’t ask a dog to be a cat, and to come to television expecting lofty creative goals is misleading yourself. But that doesn’t deny the exceptional power of the medium and what you can do in small steps that have a tremendous impact.

Like the multiracial casting on Grey’s Anatomy…

Yes, I think it’s extremely effective. The casting is an intense political and artistic statement. Not only does it give a chance for all kinds of people to work, I think it can also change people’s minds.

Is the show going to directly address the racial identities of its characters?

I hope so. The first two seasons have really been about introducing the characters and making viewers feel like they know them. Usually when you have a nonwhite character, there has to be an immediate explanation of why they’re there, like a “This is so-and-so, who just came from Africa” kind of thing. If we can really explore [racial identity] three or four years into the show, that’s fantastic.

It still doesn’t exactly sound like this is your dream job, though.

Television is just really difficult work and it’s hard to have a life [while you’re doing it]. I don’t think I’ll ever do an hour-long drama again. It seems easy to say, because I’m actually on a successful show, but this is what I have learned.

The new season of Grey’s Anatomy premieres September 21 at 9pm on ABC.

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