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Earlier this year, the celebrated performer positioned herself behind a podium at a graduation ceremony in a New England location. The occasion demanded to offer university-leavers words of hope during a period of ongoing turmoil. Stepping up to the task, she opened up about her own previous struggles with mental health challenges and nervousness, then made a sincere case for accepting discomfort and empathy. “So we can meet hardship again and again and not lose our humanity,” she emphasized. This was vitally necessary, she added, when many political authorities “seek control through anxiety and domination.”

Then came the instant that would go viral. She urged everyone to rise and do something her famous character used to do when challenges arose. “Move through it!” she encouraged as a popular track washed over the audience. “Hold onto this moment!”

“I was very, very, very nervous about it,” she recalls. “I prepared extensively.” She had been placing herself into the outlook of young adults not just worried about their own prospects but about the global situation. “The world is burning!” she says, considering their anxious worries. “Conflict is widespread! The emotional burden results in constant negative consumption.”

Yet, essentially, her intention was her audience to find their way to joy – hence the movement. “Enduring suffering consciously,” she says, succinctly expressing the philosophy she shared that day, “assists in discovering how to be in the world.”

Currently available T-shirts emblazoned the words the actress shared at a major awards show: ‘I’m proud of my heritage’

That speech – with its openness and compassion, its consciousness of the world’s injustices while still embracing moments of celebration – feels truly representative for Oh. Born near Ottawa to parents who emigrated from Korea, the actor, whose breakthrough roles in popular shows made her the pioneering performer to win numerous major awards, has since earned admiration for her dedicated promotion of increased diversity in the industry.

Charming and energetic, the actress’s discussion is filled with plenty of laughs. “Hold on baby!” is the first thing noticed as she speaks by phone from New York, buying a moment as she attempts unsuccessfully to activate her camera. But she soon becomes more introspective, often pausing for lengthy silences as she talks about everything from the climate emergency to AI to social justice.

Appropriately, the actress’s current work – an independent movie – is about seeking hope amid the chaos. After an world-ending, computer-generated disaster hits Earth in the very deliberately chosen year of a coming time, society has been reorganized. It’s 2040: peace has been established. Workplaces, computers and mobile phones are relics of a damned civilisation. People spend their days cultivating plants. But there are conditions: they avoid journeys, power is limited and – the biggest catch – everyone must die a government-mandated death at fifty. She portrays someone who lived through the 2025 catastrophe, who is guiding her child into her new job as a “recorder” of these “end of life” ceremonies.

If your main emotional connection is a device, something is happening to you at an subconscious level

“What captivated me was the script’s reflection on mortality,” says the actress, in particular how the certainty of one’s approaching end would change one’s approach to life. It’s an increasingly urgent question, the actress explains, recalling an early screening last year while natural disasters spread across a urban area. It made clear the idea that the film is not really about the future. “We are living this presently,” she says. “Our world is already aflame.”

When they were making the project, she requested the creative lead to include AI in the script. How does she think technology is changing our lives? “Phones and social media,” she says, “reshape our behavior. When your primary source of love is the phone, a shift occurs to you at an deep level.”

The way she copes to this change – “It’s a challenge, and it’s not native to me” – is choosing to do “small, profoundly meaningful” projects such as this latest one, as well as live performance. She has been performing a theatrical part in an open-air theatre in New York’s Central Park. “I connect with many attendees in an open-air theatre. You can feel people really desire to come to the show to laugh, experience joy, for it to be joyous, out in nature. You’re united and you’re communing – through artistic expression.” In the age of the digital era, “authentic exchanges become way more important.”

Oh talks a lot about making deliberate actions, purposeful selections. “This is the gift of midlife,” says the actor, who has recently celebrated her next chapter. “Many elements in society, that you’ve been living in unconsciously. But you see that crack of light coming through – and realise that’s what you want to follow. I think that’s what this stage is about. And it’s very engaging.”

She has discussed rejecting the bias she absorbed from her early years, highlighting a hurtful incident with an representative when she moved to an entertainment hub in the mid-nineties. The figure suggested her to leave as there weren’t any opportunities for Asian actors there. Decades later, on receiving a career-changing role, she was unsure which secondary character was intended for her. “Honey,” her agent said. “You’re the star.”

More recently, she has dedicated her considerable heft into narratives from the global community, participating in major releases, thriller stories, and entertaining features. She’s also played diverse characters in period pieces and university settings. Such parts, unlike the ones that made her famous, actively include her character’s roots in the script.

“I remember being a industry celebration when a historic movie won big,” she says. “The moment mattered. To create change, you need a broad support network – to get traction, to learn and grow, to know how to support each other. When I started, performers like me – we’d crossed paths for ever, but we never shared on a stage or set, because we were always on our own. It’s still a tough industry, often dominated by, honestly, a {patriarchal white mainstream|traditional power structure|established