Oh adds to her body of work with new ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

Sandra Oh, who played a freewheeling single mom in the movie “Sideways,” gets tough as a surgical intern in ABC’s medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy.”

But Oh, who spent six years on the cable TV series “Arli$$,” first had to dissect “more corporate input” than she expected in her first major project for a broadcast network.

“I was lucky on ‘Arli$$,’ ” she says. ” I basically got to do whatever I wanted because HBO is great for that.”

Still, she says, the role of Christina Yang on “Grey’s Anatomy” (debuting tonight at 10) proved too good to resist.

“I get to play a woman who is extremely ambitious and unapologetic and driven, and sometimes not very sympathetic,” Oh says.

“So you weigh the opportunity to actually do good work, but understanding the medium and who you’re working for.”

Oh, 34, returns to television after a series of films that included “The Princess Diaries,” “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “Sideways,” for which her husband, director/co-writer Alexander Payne, won the adapted screenplay Oscar. (They’ve since separated.)

Raised in Canada by her Korean-immigrant parents, Oh began studying ballet at 4.

“I had pigeon toes, and my mother heard that that was a good way to straighten them out,” she recalls.

She got into theater at age 10 and, despite her parents’ disapproval, began a professional acting career before she was out of her teens.

“In many Asian households, to not go on to higher education, that’s like a big no-no,” Oh says.

By 1993 she’d landed the title role as a teenage prostitute in the CBC television drama “The Diary of Evelyn Lau.”

After winning numerous awards including two Genies – Canada’s Oscar – Oh came to Los Angeles in 1995.

A year later, she landed on “Arli$$,” winning a best-actress CableAce Award for comedy.

She appears in a number of upcoming independent features, including “Hard Candy,” “3 Needles” and “Cake,” and in May she films Grace Lee‘s “Smells Like Butter” in Korea.

Still, big-budget American films offer her little more than supporting parts “where I’d come in for two or three days to play the best friend or their bookkeeper,” she says.

Even “Sideways” hasn’t caused a flood of starring offers.

“It’s been difficult for her being a Korean-Canadian to garner work in America,” says “Grey’s Anatomy” co-star Isaiah Washington.

“And that she’s only one of a (small) percentage of Korean actors in the forefront, besides Margaret Cho, that’s a huge responsibility.”

One which is not lost on Oh.

“I grew up never seeing myself onscreen, and it’s really important to me to give people who look like me a chance to see themselves,” she says.

“I want to see myself as the hero of any story. I want to see myself save the world from the bomb.”

The birthday bunch

Actor Michael York is 63. Director Quentin Tarantino is 42. Singer Mariah Carey is 35. Singer Fergie (Black Eyed Peas) is 30. Actress Emily Ann Lloyd (“Something So Right”) is 22. Actress Taylor Atelian (“According to Jim”) is 10.