Sandra Oh is embracing aging, even if it comes with a little bit of pain.
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the 54-year-old actress, who’s best known for her role as Dr. Cristina Yang in the hit TV drama Grey’s Anatomy, said that it’s “great” to be in her mid-50s, but there are certain challenges as well.
“Don’t let anyone fool you. It’s tougher on my body,” she said. “It’s tougher on my mind in certain ways. But it is great, because I feel balanced enough to really start digging into very important questions.”
The Emmy Award winner has also come to believe that “it is not up to anyone else to free you,” but rather, “it’s up to yourself.”
“So whether you have body issues, things about your past, how you grew up, your trauma — those are the things that now you have some space and are able to handle grappling with. But my joints hurt,” she said.
When The Chair star was nearing 50 in 2021, she spoke to AARP about her gratitude for being middle-aged.
“I’m extremely grateful to be in the midlife part of my life — being well into our lives and our careers — because you have a certain amount of agency, a certain amount of power and a certain amount of understanding what the deal is,” she said.
“You have an inner resilience. You realize, as we mature, there’s less and less that you can control. The only thing is, ‘Can I freak out differently?’ ”
Other celebrities who have shared their views on aging include actress Charlize Theron, who is excited about her 50th birthday on August 7.
“I told my mom that I was looking forward to 50, and she said, ‘Oh, honey, it gets so much better when you hit your 70s,’ ” Theron recently told USA Today. “So, yeah, I feel like I got lucky with good genes. I think life’s going to be OK for me from here on out.”
After model-actress Brooke Shields turned 60 in May, she talked to AARP’s The Girlfriend about reaching the milestone age.
“You know, it’s a little harder than I thought because it just sounded so old when I was younger,” she explained. “Sixty just sounded like an old lady. But then I got here and I feel so young, and I feel so excited by the future. I also feel so much more relaxed about things that used to stress me that there’s a youthfulness to it.”