As co-host of the 2019 Golden Globes, Sandra Oh achieved the enormous milestone of being the only host ever to make me cry with their opening monologue. But Oh also made a more significant kind of history. To be exact, she made history three different times, with three different major milestones.
Sandra Oh made history 3 times at the Golden Globes
Sandra Oh is the first actress of Asian descent in 39 years to win the Globe for best leading TV actress.
Constance Grady is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater.
1) Sandra Oh was the first person of Asian descent to host the Golden Globes
The Golden Globes hosting gig has a tendency to go to someone white and male (there are exceptions, most notably when Tina Fey and Amy Poehler co-hosted the awards three consecutive times from 2013 to 2015).
While that demographic was ably represented in 2019 by Andy Samberg, Oh’s presence represented the first time a person of Asian descent hosted the awards. Oh nodded to that history during the pair’s opening monologue, saying, “I said yes to the fear of being on this stage tonight because I wanted to be here to look out into this audience and witness this moment of change.”
She would witness that moment of change again later that night, when she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Drama for BBC America’s Killing Eve.
2) Sandra Oh is the first woman of Asian descent to win multiple Golden Globes
Oh won her first Golden Globe in 2006 for her role as Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy. By winning this year for Killing Eve, she became the first woman of Asian descent to rack up more than one Golden Globe trophy. And because she was winning in a new category (her previous award was for a supporting role), she found herself positioned to pull off her third milestone.
3) Sandra Oh is the first woman of Asian descent in 39 years to win a Golden Globe for best actress in a TV drama
The last actress of Asian descent to win in that category was Yoko Shimada for Shogun in 1980.
Oh will follow up her history-making accomplishments at the 2019 Golden Globes by returning to season two of Killing Eve, premiering on BBC America on April 7.
