Can Cristina Yang return to Grey Sloan Memorial?
Sandra Oh, who portrayed the beloved role on Grey’s Anatomy for ten seasons, has announced that she will reconsider donning the scrubs despite previously ruling it out.
The response has consistently been a resounding no. And it’s just… I’m not sure”. “I just don’t know,” she said to Entertainment Weekly while searching for the right words. “When you accomplish something, it’s a lengthy process… I can’t express enough… I can’t tell you enough how deliberately I tried to thoroughly understand leaving.”
“I do not feel the necessity to revisit, but I also have a profound understanding of the audience’s affection for this character, as I have observed it for the past decade,” she informed me. That’s the part that truly struck a chord with me.
The 53-year-old star of Killing Eve revealed that she approached her decision to leave the popular ABC medical drama with utmost seriousness, stating, “I had a deep-seated sense that I had reached my limit.”
“I really, really felt I did my job,” she stated. “I also was very, very cognizant that not many actors get to do this: create a full character and really live through their life, and then actually choose to come to a close.”
Finally, Oh revealed that the authors structured her leave “beautifully” when she notified them early on about her choice. “It also gave me the opportunity to bring the audience along to bid farewell to this character and wish her well,” Oh stated. “And I think—at least I hope—myself and the writers did that.”
Cristina has stayed involved in the program via text messages and letters after her departure, which has earned Oh’s approval.
“I am happy for the program to utilize the character anyway they see appropriate. Absolutely,” she said. “The character should still be there to service the story — and so, yay!”
Oh’s comments came almost four years after she denied the notion of resuming the role, telling the Los Angeles Times’ podcast Asian Enough that she had “moved on.”
“Perceiving a character’s influence in this way is truly unique, in my opinion,” she said at the time. “My God, I left that program about seven years ago. Therefore, it’s no longer present in my consciousness. But for many individuals, it remains very much alive. And, while I understand and appreciate it, I’ve moved on.”
“I love it, though,” she continued. “And this is also why I really appreciate the show… that I still get asked this.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last year, she acknowledged that “people still love Cristina.”
“When there is a 15-year-old girl — and she wasn’t even born [when Grey’s premiered in 2005]—who then comes to me and is like, “I’m in medical school because of Cristina,” I love it,” added the actress.
“I never, ever forget how important Cristina is,” she told me. “I never do because those 15-year-old girls find me, and now, a decade later, I have a much greater appreciation for their appreciation.”
Her former co-star Kevin McKidd, who portrays Dr. Owen Hunt on the show, recently told PEOPLE that his and Oh’s characters have unfinished business and that her return to the Grey’s set “would be really great television.”
“I was just talking about it the other night, and I was like, ‘I feel like we should try and get Cristina to come back,'” he added of Oh, who played his former on-screen wife in the series.
Grey’s Anatomy airs every Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.