Sandra Oh is fighting for Asian representation: 'When I was growing up, I never saw my face on the cover'

Sandra Oh doesn't take for granted that she is on the cover of People as one of the publication's 2021 People of the Year.

"It means so much to me to be on this cover," the 12-time Primetime Emmy nominee said for the accompanying cover story. "When I was growing up, I never saw my face on the cover. To be asked to be on the cover is a great privilege, because it normalizes things for my nephews and nieces. Hopefully, they're not missing something that I feel like I was always missing."

Oh also reflected on appearing at a Stop Asian Hate rally in Pittsburgh this March, where she gave an inspiring speech. The protest happened days after eight victims, six of whom were women of Asian descent, were shot and killed at three Atlanta-area spas.

"It was really just, 'I want to be with people,' and I'm not just talking Asian people," Oh, 50, told People, referring to how she felt then. "There was a lot of pain and outrage, and when that happens, you need to gather together. It's the only way to get through, is together. If you're standing side-by-side with someone who's not your gender or not your race, you can just go, 'Okay, we're standing beside each other for this. We have commonality here.' For me, it was mostly, I really will say that it was about trying to also move through fear."

Oh has broken barriers for on-screen Asian representation. In 2018, she became the first-ever woman of Asian descent to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy in the lead actress category for her work in Killing Eve. (She just finished filming the fourth and final season.) More recently, she played Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim in Netflix's The Chair—placing a Korean-American woman in a position of power usually occupied by white men at a prestigious university.

Watch Oh discuss it all below.