'Grey's Anatomy' star Sandra Oh says she got 'very sick' during the early years of filming the hit medical drama

• Sandra Oh revealed she got "very, very sick" when "Grey's Anatomy" first began getting popular.
• "I learned that I had to take care of my health first," she told "Squid Game" star Jung Ho-yeon for Variety.

"Grey's Anatomy" star Sandra Oh recently revealed in a conversation with actress Jung Ho-yeon for Variety that she got "very, very sick" as her fame grew in the early years of filming the hit medical drama.

Around the 20-minute mark of the conversation, the 27-year-old "Squid Game" star asked Oh, 50, how she handled getting more notoriety in Hollywood.

While Oh acknowledged that her rise to fame was a lot more gradual than Ho-yeon's, she said "my life changed very much" after portraying the character Christina Yang for 10 seasons.

The "Killing Eve" star noted that while the business looks very different today than it did in 2005 when "Grey's Anatomy" premiered, "the stress" and "confusion" of a sudden rise to fame is the same.

"Honestly, I got sick. I think my whole body was very, very sick," Oh said. "Even though you keep on working."

She said she began to suffer from sleep deprivation, back pain, and issues with her skin.

Oh told Ho-yeon, "I learned that I had to take care of my health first." The "Chair" star was sure to clarify that she wasn't just referring to the physical body. "That is your soul, and that is definitely your mind," the actor said about what wellness encompassed.

"You can't ultimately depend on anyone else," Oh continued, explaining how every actor has to make decisions about their career and well-being.

"We are alone with ourselves," Oh added.

She played Dr. Cristina Yang on "Grey's Anatomy" from 2005 to 2014, and previously told Willie Geist for "Today" that her rise to fame was "traumatic."

"I have a good therapist," she said during the conversation in August. "I'm not joking, it's very, very important."

Oh revealed that sometimes being a public figure was so overwhelming that she would often be "hiding in restaurants" while trying to eat a meal.

Though Oh appreciates that her character is still a fan-favorite character on "Grey's" she's maintained she wouldn't return to the series.

"It's very rare, I would say, to be able to see in such a way the impact of a character," Oh said in a 2021 episode of the Los Angeles Times' "Asian Enough" podcast according to ABC News. "In some ways, you do your work as a bubble, and you let it go. I left that show, my God, seven years ago almost. So in my mind, it's gone."