Sandra Oh needed to see a doctor after she played one for 10 seasons on “Grey’s Anatomy.”
The 50-year-old Canadian native stopped by “Sunday Today” with Willie Geist and spoke about her rise to fame while starring in the ABC medical drama. Oh revealed she had to see a therapist to deal with her “traumatic” experience.
Oh portrayed Dr. Cristina Yang on the long-running series before announcing her exit in 2014. The role garnered several Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe win.
“To be perfectly honest, it was traumatic,” the “Killing Eve” star said. “The reason why I’m saying that is the circumstances you need to do your work is with a lot of privacy.”
Oh continued: ”So when one loses one’s anonymity, you have to build skills to still try and be real. I went from not being able to go out, like hiding in restaurants, to then being able to manage attention, manage expectation, while not losing the sense of self.”
In order to cope with her newfound A-list status, she found help from a mental health professional. “I’m not joking. [Mental health is] very, very important,” she said. “You just have to work at finding your way to stay grounded. And a lot of times that’s by saying no.”
While fans have been itching for Dr. Yang to make a guest appearance on the show, Oh previously stated she would never get back on set. She told the Los Angeles Times’ podcast “Asian Enough” that she has “moved on” from the character.
“It’s very rare, I would say, to be able to see in such a way the impact of a character. In some ways, you do your work as a bubble and you let it go,” she explained. “I left that show, my God, seven years ago almost. So in my mind, it’s gone. But for a lot of people, it’s still very much alive. And while I understand and I love it, I have moved on.
“I love it, though,” Oh added. “And this is also why I really appreciate the show … that I still get asked this.”
Oh has most recently been seen on the Netflix series “The Chair.” She stars in the six-episode dramedy as Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim, a 46-year-old single mom who’s named the first-ever female chair of the English department at Pembroke, an Ivy League-esque university that’s struggling with financial issues.