“Grey’s Anatomy” has welcomed back a number of former cast members this season, including Patrick Dempsey, T.R. Knight and Sarah Drew, but don’t expect to see Sandra Oh’s Cristina Yang back on the show anytime soon.
When asked about returning to the ABC medical drama on the Los Angeles Times’ “Asian Enough” podcast, Oh replied with a decisive “No.”
“This is also why I really appreciate the show … that I still get asked this,” she said.
Oh said that while she is grateful for having had the opportunity to be part of the show, she has “moved on” from the role. “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 very much alive,” she said.
“I so appreciate [Cristina] and that character. It was just such a privilege to play that for a decade, it really really was,” she said. “As time goes by and I’ve gotten further away from her, I’ve been able to appreciate that even more.”
“Grey’s Anatomy” broke barriers when it premiered in 2004 with its diverse cast, and the show was hailed at the time for its color-blind casting process. But Oh noted that as a result, Cristina’s cultural background never became a point of focus for the show or the character.
“It wasn’t the time, and it wasn’t part of the show,” she said.
Oh invited fans to follow her work on other projects, like “Killing Eve” and Netflix’s “The Chair,” characters she described as “much more deeply integrated in … the Asian American experience.”