Award-winning actress Sandra Oh, who has spent the last 10 years on ABC's "Grey Anatomy," said she is looking forward to opportunities in film and theater once her series role ends this season.
Oh told Katie Couric on her daytime talk show that her character Christina Yang on "Grey's Anatomy" is onto the next chapter, even though she said it will be difficult to leave the character as well as the cast.
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"I can't even talk about it now because there's so much work that needs to be done," Oh told Couric, nearly tearing up at the thought of leaving the show. "It makes my heart full and heavy at the same time. I have so many long-term relationships there."
Oh told Couric that creator and producer Shonda Rhimes did choose how Christina Yang will exit the show, leaving the decision "completely up to her."
When she officially announced her departure in August,
Oh told The Hollywood Reporter that leaving was a natural progression of her ambitious, but prickly, character.
"Creatively, I really feel like I gave it my all, and I feel ready to let her go," Oh said. "It's such an interesting thing to play a character for so long and to actually get the sense that she wants to be let go as well. (Cristina) wants to be let go, and I am ready to let her go. We have to start the process, story-wise, for the Grey's writers to think of why she's going to go."
She said she has enjoyed working opposite of Scottish actor Kevin McKidd, who played Yang's love interest Owen on "Grey's Anatomy," joking that the two will have to go through therapy once Oh leaves the show.
Oh said she thought about leaving the show two years ago, but it took her awhile to actually do it.
Rhimes told The Hollywood Reporter that Oh's character was the one that most resembled her — a driven doctor who repeatedly puts her professional life before her personal life. Yang was the second character created for the series after lead Meredith Grey, who is played by Ellen Pompeo.
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