ABC

"Grey's Anatomy's" Sandra Oh

Sandra Oh has five Emmy nominations under her belt for her role as Grey's Anatomy's meticulous Dr. Cristina Yang, but it's the ABC medical drama's recently concluded eighth season that the actress feels has provided her best material yet.

This past season on the Shonda Rhimes-created show, Cristina faced the emotional fallout from an abortion when her marriage to Owen (Kevin McKidd) crumbled after the couple swept their baggage under the rug for too long. The story arc, which slowly progressed over the season's 24 episodes, culminated with an emotional scene in which the stoic doc threw a bowl of cereal in her husband's face before they were able to address his infidelity and begin moving on.

As if that weren't already enough, the drama also concluded its year with a plane crash that left claimed the life of one of Seattle Grace's own and left Cristina, Meredith, Derek, Mark and Arizona stranded and facing injuries both big and small. The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Oh to discuss Cristina's challenging moments of the season, saying farewell to two castmembers and the benefits of filming on location.

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The Hollywood Reporter: This season has been particularly grueling for Cristina: an abortion, a broken marriage and infidelity, all topped off by a plane crash. Which scene did you grapple with the most? Sandra Oh: It has been an extremely challenging year that has had a lot of ups and downs, both challenging and exhilarating. A lot of the scenes that Kevin McKidd and I did of Owen and Cristina arguing in their apartment was like its own story line. We would shoot all our scenes for a day or two straight, and that was extremely challenging because emotionally and physically it becomes really exhausting. Our finale was extremely challenging physically and emotionally. So, I'd say two things -- our finale and those apartment scenes where Cristina and Owen lock themselves in and just go at it.

Cristina tosses a bowl of cereal on him, which isn't a reaction that Cristina is typically prone to. Wasn't that good? Kevin had to have cereal thrown on him eight, 10 times for that one because we did a bunch of angles. There is that one shot -- and we only did it once -- which was his close-up, which was also my best and most direct hit. He was a great sport about that. Mark Jackson directed that episode, so we had special effects make a soft bowl because I'm not actually throwing an actual ceramic bowl at him. But that was real milk and Grape Nuts. I really liked that scene because that's her first actual moment of connection with him after he tells her the truth. Even though it's physical and it's violent, it's also a connecting moment between them where she looks at him and connects again.

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Cristina rarely expresses so much emotion, which she did a lot of this season. It was a slow burn that started with the season premiere and carried throughout the season, which is different that the Grey's we've seen in the past. You see her express her emotions with only two people: her best friend Meredith and her husband Owen. To see someone being pulled apart so intensely, which honestly most everyone goes through in their life in some ways, if you're lucky you're completely pulled apart and then you have to pull yourself together, which hopefully will be the exploration within hopefully the next season. It's not like we played this in a couple of episodes; we've played this throughout the entire year, and the reality of the resentments building and things not being dealt with building and betrayals happening is closer to real time in the way that we played it. Being on a show for this long, you don't have to do things boom-boom-boom because you have eight years of history and developing the character. So you can take your time with things and let it soak in, in a different and deeper way. I'm super-proud of this year. Having been on a show eight years, for me to have the richest storyline now, I'm extremely grateful.

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Emmys 2012: 'Grey's Anatomy's' Sandra Oh on Cristina's Emotional Season