Sandra Oh is proudly pumping colour into Hollywood's veins

"I will remember that night. Forever." Sandra Oh is talking about the night she shattered glass ceilings by becoming the first woman of Asian descent to co-host a major entertainment award show, namely the Golden Globes.

She also beat out odds-on favourite Julia Roberts for Best Actress in a Drama Series for her role in Killing Eve, becoming only the second actress of Asian heritage to win in that category.

America is known as the home of the brave and the free, but in reality it is a segregated society with power pinnacles failing to represent the diversity of its people. Asians make up less than 4% of any power structure in the US, so it's a real achievement that Oh is not only a household name from her years as Christina Yang on Grey's Anatomy, but that she holds notations in quality projects in both television and film (such as Sideways and Under the Tuscan Sky).

WATCH | The trailer for Killing Eve

Her centre of gravity sits low to the ground. You get the feeling a tsunami could descend and Oh would remain standing. She holds herself erectly in her Mother of Pearl jumpsuit and Stuart Weitzman boots, gazing quizzically at the world, the expression magnified by thick black-rimmed glasses. Her answers are often circumspect, and she'll pause before a reply, round, jet eyes sliding sideways, composing the words before they come carefully from her lips.

One wonders if the guard is innate or due to her minority status in the halls of power of the who's who in entertainment. Some Asians say their way is to succeed by being invisible, Sandra has been anything but, and when one suggests that it's a heartbreaking perception, she pushes back.

"It's heartbreaking with an American gaze on it because that's not the way that Americans are. It's much more the individual than the whole. In many Asian societies it's the whole that is upheld above the individual, and there is great beauty and strength in that as well."

The Canadian-Korean is proud of her accomplishments. "Looking around," the ballroom packed with entertainment's A-listers on the night of the Globes, the daughter of Youn-Nam, a biochemist, and businessman Joon-Soo, asserts that it "helped me put things into context … of like, 'Oh, I know a bunch of people in this room.' I've been working for a long time. It's nice to see people and really feel their support."

She continues: "Why I was so pleased to co-host the Golden Globes, being the first person of colour to host the Globes, I knew that's significant. You put it in your back pocket because I can't worry about it because all I'm worried about is hitting the jokes. But I absolutely knew that it was significant and I knew I had to be ready to hit it out of the park, because we get one shot. Hopefully this shot will then lead to other people getting shots and then other people getting shots."

Getting a shot is important when one understands the micro-messages sent that you don't belong. "I remember the make-up artists didn't know how to do my make-up when I began acting." She didn't know how to deal with it. "I was young, 16, and vulnerable, not knowing how to say, 'I don't think this really looks right for my face.'" 

This is relevant because in Killing Eve her character appears to have a naked face which is important for the rawness of the character. "I just feel so responsible to uphold the truthfulness of Eve, I want her to look as vulnerable as possible. My make-up artist is half Japanese, so understands my face and skin."

Killing Eve has a John Le Carré feel, with a female sensibility - a contributing factor Oh attributes to the show's success. "When we actually hear a new fresh voice, we want it, we're missing it. We might not even be aware that we've just been listening to the same voice over and over and over again, and frankly, that is the white male experience.

"But in support of the new fresh voice? It's exactly where I want to be and who I want to be aligned with."

With all the talk of work and breaking barriers, Oh is deliberate about how she spends her downtime. To counteract her character's intensity, she has "a woman who does body work on me because it's important to get that stuff out".

"I spend a lot of time in the garden and with nature. I don't watch the news, but I definitely read my newsfeed daily, and I love musicals. I could probably quote all of Singing in the Rain and Casablanca. That is my happy place. I love old black-and-white films, the old storytelling of classic Hollywood … As much as I feel like I'm a part of the new Hollywood wave, I love the old stuff. There's so much joy in it."

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