Sandra Oh shares rare insight into her ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ exit
Sandra Oh stands by her decision to quit “Grey’s Anatomy” over a decade later.
The actress explained on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s “Dinner’s On Me” podcast this week that she walked away from the ABC medical series after ten seasons in 2014 because she felt she fully fleshed out her beloved character, Dr. Cristina Yang.
“When it came to end of season eight, or nine, [creator Shonda Rhimes] took me aside because we were all renegotiating and she goes, ‘What do you want to do?’” Oh recalled.
“I said, ‘Let me think about it.’ And I really, really thought about it.”
Ultimately, Oh, 55, acted on her gut feeling to leave the show despite its massive popularity.
“I felt very much like I did my job. I really did my job,” she shared. “I feel like I created a full character. I feel I grew the character [in] 10 years time, where it’s a believable growth.”
Oh added, “People grow in 10 years, and I think she really did grow.”
Cristina was written off the show at the end of Season 10 after taking up a new job at her ex Preston Burke’s (Isaiah Washington) advanced research institute in Switzerland.
Oh said the “biggest privilege” in her exit was that the writers were able to create a proper storyline that gave Cristina a satisfying send-off.
“And I know that it is extremely rare to have,” Oh noted. “So, that was a real, real gift.”
Earlier in the podcast, Oh spoke about how she originally auditioned for Chandra Wilson’s role as Miranda Bailey, but when she heard about Cristina, she knew that was the part for her.
“I was like, ‘That’s it. That’s the antagonist,’” Oh explained. “Clearly Meredith is the protagonist. That’s the antagonist, at least in the pilot. And I’m like, ‘I wanna do that.’”
Oh said her audition involved “a work session” that helped her shrug off her “jitters” and prove to Rhimes, 56, and the producers that she was right for the job.
But things took a turn when Oh’s manager demanded the actress walk out of the audition.
“My manager said, ‘Leave.’ Marsha said, ‘Leave. Leave. We can’t close your deal,’” Oh recalled.
“And I was just like, ‘Oh, okay. I guess I’m supposed to leave. Bye-bye.’ And then so I left, and I did not audition for the network.”
However, the show’s creative team didn’t give up on Oh and “just cast” her.
“It’s because I had that work session,” Oh explained. “So they could see what I could do.”
She added, “And that’s all that mattered was that Shonda, Betsy [Beers] and Peter [Horton] could see what I was and see what I could do.”
