Oh, Maybe Just The One

Occasionally, though, small victories in the battle to eliminate ethnic stereotypes and other forms of racial pigeonholing can be reported.

Sandra Oh, a Canadian of Korean ancestry, is an example of an actor whose presence in a film or television series no longer seems to be predicated on the screenwriter's insistence on an Asian character. Neither are the people she is being asked to play inserted merely to provide another hue.

"You always want to be judged by the quality of your work, not your skin color," says Oh, who is featured in "Last Night," Don McKellar's dramatic study of human behavior on the eve of Apocalypse opening Friday. "If the studios are getting pressure to stick more minorities into their projects, what they usually do is put you in the background with one line, or they give you a role that perpetuates the stereotype . . . which is OK, but only if the story's about that.

"I'll play a prostitute until the cows come home, as long as it's about her. If she's in the background, and you don't learn anything about her, then that's perpetuating a myth."

Oh perhaps is best known for her portrayal of the beleaguered assistant to a high-profile sports agent in HBO's adventurous sitcom "Arliss." Recently, however, she has been seen in "Guinevere," "The Red Violin," "Permanent Midnight" and "Bean," none of which required her to be anything other than an attractive young woman.

"Obviously, all actors have barriers," she says. "You may be too short, or too fat, or something. But then you'll be told, `A lot of people won't accept leading ladies who aren't white.'

"That's the first big hurdle you face."

At 28, the Ottawa native already has been honored with a Cable Ace Award for "Arliss," and a Genie (Canada's equivalent to an Oscar) and Woman in Film Award, from the Vancouver International Film Festival, for "Last Night." Incredibly, she also has been the subject of a salute to her burgeoning career.

"I was invited to an Asian film festival in Chicago, and there was this Sandra Oh retrospective -- `Double Happiness,' `The Diary of Evelyn Lau' and a couple of short films," she says with an easy laugh. "I said, `Guys, maybe you should call me in 25 years, when I have a body of work.' "

Not that she's ungrateful, mind you. No actor is likely to turn down an opportunity to hog the spotlight, if even for a night.

"Those two movies, `Evelyn Lau' and `Double Happiness,' were specifically Asian films," she says. "Most of my other movies were non-specific. If the call is for anything Asian, you're not allowed to be funny, or show off a specific talent."

Oh is busier than ever. After four seasons on "Arliss," she used her hiatus to work in the theater, appearing in "Dogeaters" at the La Jolla Playhouse and "Stop Kiss" in New York.

Although she can be very caustic and funny when exchanging barbs with her boss on "Arliss," played by Robert Wuhl, Oh points out, "I didn't do any comedy until I came here. In Canada, everyone would say, `Lighten up, Sandra.'

"In high school, I was extremely hyperactive, and I did a lot of improv. That's probably where I developed my comedy skills."

After high school, Oh attended Toronto's National Theater School, where she came into contact with many of the other fine Canadian actors, writers and directors who seem to pop up in each other's films with increasing frequency.

"We're all so interchangeable, it's like a Canadian mafia," she quips, pointing to her frequent presence alongside such talents as McKellar, Sarah Polley, Callum Keith Rennie, Tracy Wright and Genevieve Bujold.

Even favorite-son director David Cronenberg was enlisted for "Last Night," which is being released in the U.S. to coincide with the millennial madness. For McKellar, who has written "Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould" and "The Red Violin," "Last Night" represents his first directorial effort and, for it, he's been awarded with prizes at festivals in Toronto and at Cannes.

In the 95-minute film, Oh plays a woman who desperately wants to control her last moments on Earth and keep things as normal as possible. Meanwhile, her car is turned upside-down by vandals, she has to shop for last-meal groceries and she must make her way back home through streets littered with garbage.

Despite the many honors for this film and "The Red Violin," Oh, who currently is filming Michael Radford's "Dancing at the Blue Iguana," wishes that more Genie-nominated pictures would find distributors.

"Unfortunately, the ownership of Canadian theater chains is mostly American, and they won't play Canadian films because, supposedly, they don't make money," she says. "No one knows that Canadian films exist because the budgets don't allow for posters, commercials and other marketing tools, so a film might just play in a small theater in Toronto."

As for "Arliss," which was revived last year by HBO and has since benefited by its proximity to the hit comedy "Sex and the City," Oh is optimistic.

"It actually was dead and rose again," Oh says.

But she admits she knows very few of the athletes who make cameos on the show. "I can generally tell from the body type what kind of sport they play," she says.

One of her main roles is as a role model.

"When I was 10, I didn't have anyone to look up to on the screen. Now I get a lot of letters from first-generation children of immigrants -- and not just Asians -- who were drawn to `Double Happiness' and empathize with my character," she says.

"The problem with most movies and television shows is that anyone who doesn't look a certain way somehow has to be justified. We have to stop telling the same story over and over again. We have to get beyond that.

"The prettiest girl in most schools is not blond and is not white. Maybe she looks like Lauryn Hill."

Or, more and more, Sandra Oh.