After decades in supporting parts, Emmy nominee Sandra Oh plays the hero inKilling Eve.
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She took a seven-hour bus ride from Montreal to Toronto for a tryout with the director, Sturla Gunnarsson.
Before her audition, Oh slept in a bus station and went to a park to do breathing exercises.
I said, Ill just squeeze it until Im ready.
Who knows how long it was?
she says, laughing.
(Gunnarsson says it felt like ten minutes.)
Then she stood up and won the part.
The memory still impresses her.
Im going to lie down, Oh recalls.
That person took her time and was unapologetic about it.
She looks at me, amazed, like she cant believe shes here.
She clips and then unclips her hair that famous hair and her curls fall into place.
No, she says.
If she wins, it would be another history-making first.
Oh is loathe to discuss it.
Honestly, shes not even sure about the importance were attaching to this system of validation.
Maybe its just another distraction from the work that really matters.
Thinking ahead or thinking behind is not good for me, she says.
If it is to happen, then I promise [Ill say], This is what I feel!
Still, I think to myself, how incredible it would be if she won.
Sure, its just an award.
She never looked back after that.
AfterDouble Happiness, she went to L.A. and hit a wall.
A lot of people are going to lie to you.
But Ive got nothing for you here.
I have Suzy Kim Im just making up names she has an audition in like six months.
Theres nothing for a year, Oh recalls.
My best advice for you is to go back home and get famous.
The interaction affected her deeply.
Theres a lot of people in our community who can relate to this feeling, Oh says.
She gestures toward the nape of her neck.
Thats like, It is true.
And shes saying that shes not going to lie to me.
Other people are going to lie to you, but she wont lie to you.
She told the truth.
I used a pay phone to call [Gunnarsson] and was not able to stop crying.
It just cut me at the knees.
Im like, So Nancy, I dont understand, whats the part?
And Nancy goes, Sweetheart, its Eve, its Eve,Oh told meover the phone this spring.
Its like, how does racism define your work?
Being told to see things a certain way for decades, you realize, Oh my god!
A piece of my soul and a piece of Sandras soul wound around each other and placed on television.
(She never won.)
At the end of season nine, she decided to leave the show after the tenth season.
It just felt like I did all I wanted to do, she says.
It was actually, dare I say it, a sense of satisfaction.
For three years, Oh worked quietly, mostly on small personal projects.
I didnt realize how special it was that she didMeditation Park, says Shum.
She says no to everything.
I have an agent in the States, they were like, Oh, no.
She just wouldnt play the second banana.
Its not like there were tons of offers, says Oh.
Its not like I was, like [swats away invisible scripts with her hands].
People assume that theres more choices that came to me than there was.
She had really specific ideas about what she wanted to do next, says Vernoff.
When Oh got the script forKilling Eve, she knew this was it.
Eve is overlooked and underutilized at work; shes fallen into an easy groove and hungry for inspiration.
But after a number of high-profile killings across Europe, something shakes loose inside her.
Ohs performance anchors the show while inhabiting all of its humor and morbidity, its dangerous femininity.
Matt Zoller Seitz ofNew Yorkdescribes her performanceas a magic trick of a high order.
Its definitely the most deeply psychological piece Ive done, she says.
Also maybe the most collaborative: Oh is now a co-executive producer on the show.
In the climactic moment in the season-one finale, Eve approaches Villanelle and to their mutual surprise stabs her.
I remember straddling Phoebe, like, Okay, what if I do this?
Then do this [makes stabbing motion]?
Then the entire scene came to Phoebe.
She wants to be surprised, Shum says, of what its like to direct Oh.
[Oh] said, Give me something, I need something.
And I said the most horrible thing Youre born alone and you will die alone.
And she ran with that.
The work is apparent when you talk to her.
Ohs collaborators all mention how present she is, and in person, the result is magnetic.
She speaks vaguely, in that California way, about authenticity, self-care, and openness.
She practices Vipassana, a Buddhist form of meditation thats interpreted as seeing deeply.
She knows it all sounds terribly self-important, but shes also learned to lean into it.
Self-care doesnt necessarily mean jogging!
I dont really know how [Sandra] handled it.
Probably she ran home and hid because thats who she is.
I dont think she wants to live in the limelight like that.
Moreover, how should an artist be when her divorce is covered by TMZ?
I experienced it as traumatic.
Part of it was what celebrity becoming it, desiring it did to her creative process.
At least it did for me, she says.
Because I didnt feel like it was representing me, and it wasnt a good shot, she replies.
It was all about trying to control an image.
I was chasing after something, and I didnotget it.
She exorcised that insecurity with another magazine cover she did a few months later forNuvo, a Canadian quarterly.
She wanted it to be Korean and fashion-forward.
Oh wore modernized hanboks by L.A.-based designer Mehee Kim for the shoot.
It wasme, she says.
[When] I did my own thing, it didnt matter I stopped caring about images of myself.
I was plagued with it, honestly, for a long time.
These days, Oh tries to live in a kind of eternal present.
She doesnt dwell on what could have happened or speculate on what might happen.
Im interested in being who I am, she says.
I dont think I had that ability then.
Clear out the white noise.
This place, she says, is it.
Its a place that doesnt need magazine covers, beauty contracts, or gilded statuettes.
Its unbothered by racism or stupidity.
[Its] where no one can touch you.
No one can get to you,except you.
But you have to be worthy to go there.
No,worthyis not the right word.
That space is noteasy.
Its yours if you want it.Justyours.
Thats the place to create from.
That place, she says, her voice descending into a low whisper, hasrealjoy.
