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Earlier this year, the celebrated performer positioned herself behind a speaker's stand at a graduation ceremony in a New England location. Her purpose was to share new alumni words of hope during a period of ongoing turmoil. Answering to the occasion, she spoke candidly about her own previous struggles with depression and nervousness, then made a sincere case for embracing discomfort and empathy. “So we can meet cruelty again and again and not lose our decency,” she stated. This was vitally necessary, she noted, when many political authorities “claim power through anxiety and suppression.”

Then came the instant that would spread widely. She urged everyone to get on their feet and do something her famous character used to do when challenges arose. “Move through it!” she commanded as a popular track energized the crowd. “Hold onto this moment!”

“I was very, very, very nervous about it,” the performer shares. “I worked really hard.” She had been placing herself into the perspective of recent graduates not just concerned about their own futures but about the larger picture. “The world is burning!” she says, considering their dark thoughts. “Violence is rampant! The weight is overwhelming, leading to endless scrolling.”

But, crucially, she aimed her attendees to find their way to positivity – which inspired the dance. “Enduring suffering consciously,” she says, clearly capturing the outlook she shared that day, “will help you figure out how to live fully.”

You can find apparel printed the statement the actress shared at a televised ceremony: ‘It’s an honour just to be Asian’

That speech – with its vulnerability and compassion, its awareness of the world’s injustices while still embracing moments of joy – feels deeply authentic for the performer. Raised near a Canadian city to parents who emigrated from Korea, the actress, whose breakthrough roles in acclaimed programs made her the trailblazing artist to win multiple major awards, has since built a following for her dedicated promotion of wider representation in the film and television.

Warm and sparkling, Oh’s discussion is filled with plenty of humor. “Wait please!” is the opening line noticed as she speaks by phone from the bustling city, playing for time as she attempts unsuccessfully to turn on her camera. But Oh soon becomes more thoughtful, often pausing for lengthy pauses as she discusses everything from the climate emergency to AI to racial equality.

Relevantly, her newest film – an indie Canadian sci-fi film – is about seeking hope amid the burning. After an apocalyptic, computer-generated disaster hits Earth in the carefully selected year of 2025, society has been restructured. The story fast-forwards: tranquility has been attained. Corporate spaces, machines and mobile phones are artifacts of a fallen civilisation. People spend their days cultivating plants. But there are conditions: they stay local, energy is controlled and – the main twist – everyone must die a government-mandated death at 50. Oh plays a survivor the 2025 catastrophe, who is supporting her offspring into her new job as a “documenter” of these “final chapter” ceremonies.

Where you seek affection is technology, an effect is taking place to you at an deep level

“The central theme that drew me the script’s meditation on death,” says Oh, in particular how the certainty of one’s impending death would change one’s perspective to life. It’s an critically important question, Oh says, referencing an early screening last year while wildfires raged across a urban area. It made clear the idea that the film is not really about the future. “It is what’s happening right now,” she says. “The crisis is ongoing.”

While filming the project, Oh asked the director and writer to include artificial intelligence in the script. How does she think modern devices is changing our lives? “Devices and platforms,” she says, “reshape our behavior. When your primary source of love is the phone, a shift occurs to you at an unconscious level.”

How she responds to this retraining – “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 stage acting. She has been playing a renowned character in an community space in a famous urban park. “It involves many attendees in an public space. You can feel people really seek to come to the show to enjoy themselves, experience joy, for it to be uplifting, out in nature. You’re united and you’re sharing – through artistic expression.” In the age of the machine, “authentic exchanges become increasingly essential.”

Oh talks a lot about making conscious choices, purposeful selections. “An advantage of experience,” says the actor, who has entered her fifth decade. “There is so much in the world, that you’ve been experiencing passively. But you see that glimmer of hope 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.”

The performer has shared unlearning the bias she accepted from her youth, singling out a painful memory with an representative when she first came to an entertainment hub in the past decade. The figure advised her to go back as there weren’t any opportunities for Asian actors there. Years after, on reading a pivotal project, Oh couldn’t work out which lesser role was intended for her. “Listen,” her representative said. “It’s the lead.”

Lately, she has dedicated her substantial platform into stories from the global community, participating in animated films, horror projects, and lighthearted stories. She’s also played diverse characters in serious projects and campus-based shows. All these roles, unlike the ones that made her famous, specifically consider her character’s heritage in the script.

“I recall attending a industry celebration when a landmark film received top honors,” she says. “It was so important. To create change, you need a larger community – to get traction, to learn and grow, to know how to work together. When I started, colleagues like me – we’d crossed paths for ever, but we seldom worked together on a project, because we were always isolated. It’s still a challenging field, leaning into, honestly, a {patriarchal white mainstream|traditional power structure|established