Looking back on Sandra Oh’s best movies and TV shows, the vast majority of her filmography is dramatic work. However, with Jessica Yu’s Quiz Lady, she got to let her comedic skills shine! There are so many moments in the movie that prove Oh should be in more comedies, and it turns out she really wanted to push herself and bring the funny. And she did, as the director of the movie about two sisters’ quest to get on a quiz show told CinemaBlend about the scene where the actress wanted to keep “pushing that gag.”
The scene in question begins when the two sisters, Anne (Awkwafina) and Jenny (Sandra Oh), end up at the hospital, after Oh’s character falls off the top of the bar, into a TV and onto the floor. While they’re sitting in the waiting room, Jenny takes an ice pack off her wrist to reveal that it’s totally floppy. Anne then has a visceral reaction to it, and it turns out that flipping and flopping her wrist around to get it back into place was all the Grey’s Anatomy alum’s idea. Yu broke down shooting the scene, and how funny the actress was as she flailed her arm around while speaking with CinemaBlend. She said:
So there's the point where Sandra's wrist, or Jenny's wrist is dislocated. Right? So it’s a physical gag, and so when we were looking at this prosthetic hand, there's always an attempt to just make sure that it still moves like an actual hand. And she was like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, it's gotta go much farther. There’s gotta be another way to make it floppier.’ She just kept pushing that gag.
In the movie, you can see Oh pushing it, and seeing how far she can take the bit. It totally works too! Jessica Yu noted this as well, and she explained why the over the top bit paid off, saying:
And so we got this ridiculous hand, that still looks like a real hand. And so the way she was just like flapping it around, and everything of teasing her sister, we were just dying. Awkwafina was having a hard time not laughing at it, because Sandra is just milking it. I think that that was a good example of how far you can take a joke as long as you still believe in the relationship between the sisters.
The scene goes from being super funny to quite dramatic quickly, and both Sandra Oh and Awkwafina handle both elements masterfully. Yu said seeing that range from her actors was one of the reasons why this scene was a favorite of hers. She said:
That's probably one of my favorite scenes in the film, because you have those tonal shifts, and watching them be able to carry that out was really, really rewarding.
Yu went on to explain another example of Sandra Oh cracking everyone up on set as she recalled shooting the scene in the Philadelphia hotel. She said the Killing Eve star was doing “this whole thing with her leg,” and it led to the entire crew cracking up. The director told me:
And of course, we weren't able to use 99% of it, but I'll just remember that as a day when you couldn't drink something because it might come spurting out of your nose. It was really, really hilarious.
Overall, seeing Sandra Oh in this comedic role was so much fun, and it’s clear as day that she was having a blast making this movie. It turns out she was also making everyone involved with Quiz Lady laugh really hard because of her ability to keep pushing a gag.
Along with Sandra Oh, Quiz Lady’s cast is stacked with comedic legends. Oh and Awkwafina lead the charge, and they are supported by Jason Schwartzman, Tony Hale and Will Ferrell (who asked to be in the movie). Talk about a comedy dream team!
If you want to see how Sandra Oh rocks the movie with her comedic skills, you can stream Quiz Lady right now with a Hulu subscription. After you watch the wonderful comedy, make sure to check out the 2023 movie schedule to see what other hilarious films are making their way to theaters and streaming soon.
