Sandra Oh Praises the Power of Beyoncé’s Homecoming at TIME 100 Gala

Oh, thank you all. It’s such an honor and an extreme pleasure to be in this room with this — are you kidding me, are you kidding me, Nancy Pelosi. I literally glanced this way and this is who I see, it’s fantastic.

Now, growing up in a small town in Canada, TIME, a copy of TIME was always on the tea table, it was a mainstay in my parents’ home for over 40 years. So when I got the news and found out about this honor of TIME 100 and the opportunity to be on the cover, I told my mom, right, and she put both of her hands on my shoulders and she said, ‘You’re famous.’ So thank you, TIME, because of this honor, my mother recognizes I’m famous.

I was actually going to do this toast, I was going to toast my mother, and all immigrant mothers, and I had written a lot of warm and grateful, loving words, but ladies and gentlemen, I just watched Beyonce’s Homecoming, and mommy, I love you, but I got to talk about Queen Bey for a second, okay?

Homecoming is Beyonce’s documentary of her Coachella concert in 2018, and I just think it’s such an important piece of work. I encourage you all to see it, because you are — you’re witnessing an artist at her most potent and working on the deepest cultural levels. Now, I — I stopped going to Coachella years ago, but I remember listening to the live stream of the concert, and I could feel the vitality coming through the radio, but I wasn’t there, and I didn’t experience it. So ‘concert,’ uh-uh, is way too small a word to describe what she created. Has anyone here seen — yes, right, right, right, how many times have you watched it and cried? Right? Right?

So what you see, seeing those beautiful bodies, those souls up on stage, the exhilaration and defiance in the music and the — oh, my God, the freedom and the — and the guts and the — in the bodies, in the movement. The documentary follows the process and the work and the toll it takes to create, and it is for me viscerally inspiring. Beyonce shows me what you can create when you give your all and you make space for others to do the same. She did, I mean, she did. She did and she does. I’m still, still reverberating from it.

And I really believe that now is not only — you know, it’s a good time to be making art, it’s an important time to be making art. I truly believe art evolves our hearts and our minds, because it allows us to experience and understand another sorrow. It reminds us of universal truths. It connects us. Art can transform us, and through us, our culture.

So I love you, mom, but tonight I raise a glass to Beyonce and her Homecoming team. B, I received the transmission. Thank you. I celebrate you all. Have a wonderful evening.