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Cristina Yang Sandra Oh was born on July 20, 1971 in Ottawa, Canada. As a child, Sandra studied and performed ballet. While she was a student at Sir Robert Borden High School, she founded Borden Active Students for the Environment (BASE), a club that rallied against the utilization of styrofoam cups, was the President of the student government and played the flute. Her artistic pursuits prompted her to attend drama classes, participate in school productions and become a drama club member.
At the age of sixteen, she professionally appeared in theater, television and commercials Her education in the famous National Theater School of Canada paid off as she beat about a thousand actresses for the starring role in the show The Diary of Evelyn Lau, which is based on a true story of a poet who ended up a drug addict. Her excellent performance acquired a nomination for a Gemini Best Actress, which is similar to an Emmy. She also won a Genie, Canada's Oscar equivalent, for her leading role in Double Happiness. Her exposure led to her inclusion in such films like Under the Tuscan Sun, The Red Violin, The Princess Diaries, Sideways and The Night Listener. On stage, Oh landed title roles in productions of Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters and Diana Son's Stop Kiss.
To add to her accomplishments on the small screen, Oh earned an NAACP Image Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and a Cable Ace Award for Best Actress in a Comedy for her stellar work on the HBO series, Arli$$. Furthermore, her present role on the drama series, Grey's Anatomy, won Oh a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series and a Screen Actors Guild Award from Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series in 2006. In the same year, Oh and her filmmaker husband Alexander Payne ended their marriage after four years.