Born in Nepean (suburb of Ottawa), Canada in 1971.

Growing up, she began her career by studying and performing ballet (for fourteen years).

In 1991, she left home to attend the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, where she performed in eight plays.

Participated in the Canadian Inprov Games.

Won the 1994 FIPA (Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels) d'Or for Best Actress for her role in the CBC production "Runaway: The Diary of Evelyn Lau."

Achieved a Special Mention at the Turin (Italy) International Festival of Young Cinema (Nov. 18-24, 1994) for her role in "Double Happiness."

Won the 1995 Canadian Genie Award for Best Actress for her role in the movie "Double Happines."

Won the 1997 CableACE Award for Best Actress in a comdey series for her role in "Arli$$."

Won the 1999 Canadian Genie Award for Best Actress for her role in the movie "Last Night."

The following paragraphs are text taken from articles about Sandra.

From Maclean's magazine:

"I got an HBO pilot!" she announces breathlessly. "And what's great," she says, punching the air with her fists, "is that I didn't have to screen-test!"

On-screen and off, Oh behaves with disarming candor and spontaneity.... There is something about her--a vulnerability and the strength to reveal it--that charms the camera, and almost anyone who meets her.

From The Detroit News:

Double Happiness brims with such telling details and sly touches, and it finally belongs to Sandra Oh, who by the time the film is over, has emerged as an actress as formidable as she is funny.

From the The Ottawa Citizen:

Double Happiness left an image of the 24-year-old Oh as a comedic actor with a light touch. Hollywood casting directors, who would no doubt be shocked to see her as the abused, drugged-out, prostitute-poet Evelyn Lau, have mentally filed Oh in the same folder with Margaret Cho, the young Korean-American standup comic who made an unremarkable switch to sitcoms a couple of years ago.

Arliss's ham-handed approach, full of obvious jokes and double-takes, doesn't live up to its potential... Oh makes the most of her sketchily drawn role on the show, and doesn't mind a bit that "Rita Woo" is a character in progress.

From NAATA/CrossCurrent Media:

In this line of work you can't expect that if you get something, some kind of recognition [such as a "Genie" award] for your work, that you'll work again. That's the insanity of being an actor; who knows when you're going to work again?

From The Toronto Sun:

[Director Bill] Harrar has crafted a careful and compelling tale that eschews pat answers as his story careers through a web of double-sided prejudice and misunderstanding. In a better production, it would be easy to see this script as flawless, but [Factory Theatre artistic director Michael] Springate's lackadaisical direction instead underlines the shallowness with which Harrar embues the senior members of the force. In the hands of [David] Fox and [Layne] Coleman, these are two dimensional cut-outs, full of twitches and posturings that diminish, rather than complement the story. Unfortunately, it is to these more experienced actors and his director that [Christopher] Marren turns for guidance, rather than following Oh's much simpler and more effective lead. She doesn't play a cop -- she just is one, proving once again that the best acting is of the invisible variety.

It was no accident that Sandra Oh won the Genie Award as best actress for her splendid star turn in Mina Shum's Double Happiness. The effervescent Sandra Oh really is star material. Her performance is both sublime and explosive.

Oh, a Korean-Canadian actress celebrated for her stage and TV work, literally glows on the silver screen. As much as she works with an in-your-face energy, she can also be incredibly subtle.

From The Seattle Times:

Sandra Oh, the actress, does not have a perfect face, like say, Gong Li or Joan Chen... It is, however, a most captivating face for the one thing it does: it moves.

From The New York Theatre Experience:

Miss Oh has some showy moments after the attack has left Sarah [a character she portrayed in the play Stop Kiss] partially paralyzed, and she plays them honestly and courageously; throughout she brings a good-natured eccentricity to the role that is appealing and interesting.

An additional article from the Associated Press.

From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website:

"As an actor," says Oh, "as a working actor, all I want to do is work. That's it. It's terrifying when you don't work. It's very hard when you don't work. There have been times when I've been out of work for like six months. I feel theatre to me is like manna. It's just - I feel like after that, I can do anything."

See the entire interview in Real Video.