Sandra Oh on continuing late screenwriter Audrey Wells’ legacy with Netflix film

The Killing Eve star, 49, voices a character in Over The Moon, a Netflix musical written by Wells, who died of cancer in October 2018.

The feature follows a girl named Fei Fei who is grieving the loss of her mother and builds a rocket to fly to the moon and meet the goddess Chang’e.

Oh, who voices the child’s stepmother, told the PA news agency: “Honestly, the most magnetic thing was Audrey.

“I have a long-standing relationship with her and to just be a part of her legacy was very, very important to me.

“She’s a great artist and so that was really the heart part of it for me.

“And of course, the setting and the storytelling and also the reach of an animated film and who might be watching it, particularly young people.

“It’s very, very important to me.

“So, those were the two factors of what really drew me to the project.”

Wells penned a number of screenplays before her death aged 58, including for the film The Hate U Give, which followed the fallout after a high school student witnesses a police shooting in the US.

Voiced by an all-Asian cast, Over The Moon features Hamilton star Phillipa Soo, The Hangover’s Ken Jeong and newcomer Cathy Ang in the lead role.

Oh said she had been aware of the casting when she took the part.

She said: “I’ve spent my whole career being conscious of that, you know?

“So it’s really nice to be a part of this project and to see…at least this far in my career to feel there is a slight move, a slight increase of projects that are in the pipeline that are to do with representation and have to do with different settings and storylines.

“It’s very, very encouraging, but it also takes a really, really long time to make an animated film, so the idea of Gennie and Peilin and Glen to usher this forth whatever, three to four years ago, it’s also their foresight and their drive to get this story.”

She also described the process of promoting diverse voices in the film and TV industry as “a grind”.

She said: “It’s a grind. Let me tell you, it’s a grind, because it’s not one thing or another, it’s in all – and you don’t win, you don’t win half the time.”

Over The Moon is in cinemas now and released on Netflix on October 23.