GRACE 2 - Oliver Saria

GRACE 2.0
F
ans of the sci-fi cult hit Battlestar Galactica might recognize the
above subtitle as a reference to the show’s opening sequence,
when viewers are reminded that the Cylons—a race of cybernetic clones hell-bent on human genocide—have always had a
plan. It’s ironic then that Grace Park—who will forever be remembered as Sharon/Athena/Boomer/Eight or, to the casual observer, “The Asian Cylon”—has never really had one.
When she booked her first series gig 10 years ago, she was
merely happy to be working. The show was Edgemont, a 20012005 teen drama on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) that also launched the career of Kristin Kreuk of
Smallville fame. Grace’s role as Shannon Ng was noteworthy
for being the first depiction of an Asian teenage lesbian in North
American television. (Yeah, Grace laughs at the specificity of it,
too.) At that point in her acting career, she had no 10-year plan
or five-year plan, or for that matter, a one-year plan; she didn’t
write her hopes and dreams on pieces of paper to manifest them
into reality or other ridiculous success strategies designed to foster hope in a brutal industry that usually crushes them. Yet,
when Kristin booked CW’s Smallville and became a spokeswoman for Neutrogena, in the back of Grace’s mind, she knew
stardom would also come her way.
Flash-forward 10 years. Grace recently concluded an acclaimed run on Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica, a show, hailed by
critics as one of the best television series of the past decade, that
aired from 2003-2009. She starred opposite John Cho in Michael Kang’s 2007 indie thriller, West 32nd. She appeared on The
Border, a popular CBC action drama, now three seasons in,
about an elite Canadian Immigration and Customs Security
Unit. And Edgemont is finally being syndicated in the United
States, to the delight of countless Asian teenage lesbians.
You’d think with the dawn of a new decade, the Los Angeles-born Canadian would want to reflect on the past like everybody else. But the thought never even occurred to her. “I don’t
really think I’ve been reflective. I just more feel like I’m looking forward to what I’d like to do this year,” she proclaims.
Since Grace didn’t want to dwell on the past, I decided to
walk her through it.
I
n previous interviews, Grace, who lives in Vancouver, asserts
that she didn’t become an actress for the fame or glamour. And
it wasn’t about the money either. Then (as now), she’d always
been driven by the desire to excel at what she does. She admits,
32 koream Fe brua ry 10 | iamkoream.com
THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF
GRACE PARKS. ONLY ONE IS A CYLON.
by Oliver Saria photographs by Dean Foreman
Fe bruary 10 koream
33
however, “It was hard for me to act for a while because I knew
I was getting these great opportunities, but my work was not
where I wanted it to be.” Thus, the thought of Edgemont being
seen by a whole new audience makes her cringe. “When something like Edgemont that you’ve done early on decides to
come back out...I’m not going to be running out and watching
any of my original work.”
She’s slightly prouder of the work she did in the final 10
episodes of Battlestar, which the influential entertainment blog,
“Television Without Pity,” honored by naming Grace one of the
Most Valuable Performers of 2009. And to think those final episodes might never have been filmed. The 2007 Writers Guild
of America strike halted production of the series at a critical
juncture. The last scenes that were shot prior to the strike were
set on the charred, uninhabitable remains of Earth. At that point
in the series, Grace was playing several versions of the Eighth
humanoid Cylon model. In one iteration, she had betrayed the
Cylons, pledged loyalty to the Colonial fleet as they wandered
deep space in search of Earth, and married a human pilot with
whom she had a mixed-race daughter. In another iteration, she
played the sleeper Cylon agent responsible for the failed assassination attempt on the fleet’s admiral. She also portrayed various clones on the Cylon baseship.
With the strike looming, many on set knew that there were
no guarantees the show would return. The sadness and despair
on the actors’ faces during those scenes were genuine. Earth
could have served as an ending to the series—albeit a sorely disappointing one. When production returned, Edward James
Olmos, the cast’s patriarch, sat them down to watch the last few
episodes they had completed thus far. Grace’s reaction to her
performance was scathing to say the least. “Really?” she thought. “Is that the last thing I shot? Is that all? Is that where I’m
at? This sucks. Not that my stuff was necessarily bad, but I
guess I just had higher hopes. So I was at the point where I felt
like—alright, I’m all in.” Her bet paid off. “Television Without
Pity” wrote of her work: “Park’s character had the most impressive range, from a woman being judged for her mixed marriage (Cylon & human) to clones wanting more out of their life
to awesome pilot. Although she was often overlooked in favor
of Starbuck and Six, her final few episodes were emotional and
tearjerkingly wonderful.”
That same fearless approach to acting persists to this day
and you can see the subtle differences in subsequent roles in
The Border and The Cleaner (A&E). For the former, she played
Homeland Security Agent Liz Carver and for the latter, edgy
but big-hearted Akani Cuesta, part of an unconventional team of
“extreme interventionists” that steers addicts toward recovery;
though neither project gave her the same range of emotions as
Battlestar, she comes across as an actress fully in command of
her craft and a woman more comfortable in her shell.
And let’s talk about that shell for a moment, shall we?
Chosen as one of FHM magazine’s “100 Sexiest Women in the
World” and one of Maxim magazine’s “Hot 100,” Grace easily
looks 10 years younger than her actual age (35, thank you very
much.) Chalk it up to the whole Asian thing, but she credits the
mass quantities of green food nutritional supplements that she
pounds on a daily basis for keeping her ageless and fit. Apparently, the stuff looks like swamp water and according to her
When Grace was developing her Cylon character, it was her husband who’d
planted the cultural parallels. “I had a hard time just being the villain,” she recalls,
“and my husband had said, ‘Oh, it’s easy. It’s just like you’re an oppressed
race.’ And that just really opened my eyes because Koreans have been oppressed
in the past. All of a sudden, I felt totally rooted and grounded in what I was doing.
I just felt like I really had something to stand for and I felt the fight. Koreans
love to fight, right?”
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The characters Grace portrays are never vixens vamping for the camera, but rather,
complex women whose beauty is enhanced by their strength. The sex appeal is
muted, yet unmistakable. That is until she poses for some racy pictorial or films a
steamy-yet-tasteful love scene, that you’re reminded what an absolute stunner she is.
husband, smells like “low tide.” Whatever it is, it’s working.
But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from the characters she
portrays; they are never vixens vamping for the camera, but rather, complex women whose beauty is enhanced by their
strength; the sex appeal is muted, yet unmistakable. That is until
she smolders on the cover of Maxim or poses for some racy pictorial or films a steamy-yet-tasteful love scene, that you’re reminded what an absolute stunner she is. Which leads one to
wonder: How does the man married to Grace Park handle it
when she unleashes all that sexy?
As far as her sex-symbol status goes, her husband seems
unfazed. “He has a lot of trust in me,” Grace asserts. “If you
didn’t trust your woman or were a little bit insecure or if you
were a player, you know, all of those things would influence you
to perhaps be more possessive. It’s been a lot easier to be an actor
with those characteristics in a husband, for sure.”
I
n an industry where celebs abdicate privacy and much as journalists invade it, Grace is refreshingly reticent about her marriage. Despite my prodding for intimate details about their
courtship, she mostly stuck to the generalities. She’s been married since 2004 to Phil Kim, a Korea-born real estate developer who grew up in British Columbia. Surprised? (Not so much
by the Canadian part, but by the fact that he’s Korean?) Well,
Grace admits, “It was a surprise to me, too. Of course there are
things we have in common so it’s a lot easier. It was actually a
teeny bit negative just because my dad and just certain things. It
was like, dude, I do not want to have to deal with this bullshit
for the rest of my life.” So it probably helped that Phil wasn’t
exactly hardcore Korean. According to Grace, between the two
of them, they can count their close Korean friends on one hand.
And despite being born in Korea, Phil tends to make up his
own words. “He likes to say that he knows better Korean than
me. And he says these really weird words, but his mom grew
up in the south. So I finally go, ‘Oh, okay, that’s just how they
say it.’ And then we’d be talking to either his mom or my mom
or dad, and they’d say, ‘No, what is that?’ The words he makes
up are just crap.”
Not that Grace and Phil have totally assimilated either. She
did wear a hanbok for her pebaek in Vancouver, though no dates
or chestnuts were thrown. And when she was developing her
Cylon character, it was Phil who’d planted the cultural parallels. “I had a hard time just being the villain,” Grace explains.
(Cylons, it should be known, were actually created by humans
and enslaved until they rose up against their creators.) “My husband had said back when we were dating, ‘Oh, it’s easy. It’s just
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like you’re an oppressed race.’ And that just really opened my
eyes because Koreans have been oppressed in the past—not in
Canada—but, you know, with the history of Japan and Korea. I
took whatever I knew from stories I had heard from my cousins
growing up and I applied that. And then all of a sudden, I felt totally rooted and grounded in what I was doing. I just felt like I
really had something to stand for and I felt the fight. Koreans
love to fight too, right?”
So are there plans for Grace and Phil to start their own
brood of fighting, Korean Canucks? According to her, she’s open
to it, but like many, her plans for motherhood are vague.
G
iven Grace’s success, it comes as a bit of a shock to hear that
she’s contemplating leaving the profession. After a relatively
short time in the industry, she has reached a particular crossroad. “Before, I was just so hungry to prove myself,” she
muses. “I wanted to achieve something because I had tied my
self-worth way too much to this industry and my success. It
was both good and bad for my work. So now that I feel like
I’ve kinda separated the two, I don’t have to act and book certain gigs and get bigger jobs. I don’t have to prove anything.
No, actually I lie. A part of me still wants to do that. But I’m
not 100 percent rooted in that anymore. I feel more open to exploring different things.”
Exactly what things, you might ask? The list (half-jokingly) includes: busking on the streets of Paris, attending silent meditation retreats, living in a shack on a deserted island,
waiting for a flight at some weird airport in some random
little city, and perhaps having kids. But the list also includes
more acting classes and expanding her résumé to include a
producer credit. She’s currently attached to produce and star
in the indie film Deadmonton, which centers on Asian street
culture in Edmonton, Canada, which has the highest rate of
gang-related murders in the country. As far as other opportunities on the horizon are concerned, she says, “There’s a ton
of projects out there, but why would I want to do something
so excessively violent or why would I want to do something
that represents women in that way?” She acknowledges that
her agent and manager are often exasperated by her. But if a
project doesn’t offer her a significant challenge or a new experience, if it isn’t something she really believes in, she’s not
interested in doing it. Like her beauty, her convictions are also
deceptively fierce.
It might sound like Grace Park doesn’t have a plan, but
after talking with her you get the sense that she knows exactly
what she’s doing.