Banana Living

Willing Grace
By Christine Miguel

Witty and Ebullient, Grace Park is miles away from the uptight brainiac she plays on television. Meet Edgemont’s sexiest nerd.

Her personal best is dancing for 20 hours straight, good practice for the opening scene in Romeo Must Die, where her slinky, homoerotic ‘pas de deux’ exuded more heat than the remaining two hours of film. Clearly, Grace Park is no danger of being typecast as the rainy and ambitious overachiever Shannon Ng on CBC’s high school drama Edgemont. However, her transformation from dance-bar diva to nerd and back again is so convincing, it begs the question: Which is the real Grace Park? Despite the clean-cut image adored by Edgemont fans across Canada, is she really a closet bad girl?

“I don’t think I can answer that. Can we skip to another question?” she replies sheepishly over the phone from her home in Vancouver. Charming and outgoing with a wit drier than a vodka martini, Park is nothing like the conservative bookworm I expected after watching hours and hours of Edgemont. “My parents would like to think that I was like Shannon when I was younger,” she concedes.

Park was born in Los Angeles but moved to Vancouver when she was four years old. “There was a problem with my parents getting their visa in the States, but all our family is in Canada, so here I am.” Times were tough for the newly immigrated family, but the perennially playful Park did not let that deter her from a blissful childhood. “I was kind of mischievous growing up, but overall I was a good kid that rarely got people into trouble,” she says with a grin that is evident even over the phone.

The eldest of two girls, she is an avid traveler who has backpacked through Europe with her sister. “I love Italy, but you can’t just go to Italy and be a tourist; you gotta look like a local.” Another favourite destination is Spain, which she loved so much she went back and set her dance record. “I was really into hip-hop until I went to Ibiza. Now I’m a big ‘house’ freak. We went to club after club and I wanted to go on but we had a friend waiting at the hotel. Man, did I smell, but it was great.”

Before landing her role on Edgemont, Park went to school (she holds a degree in Psychology) while also navigating the classic struggling actor route of waitressing, modeling and shooting commercials. “I also pimped and hooked on the side,” she says, tongue planted firmly in cheek. Then came the infamous nightclub scene in Romeo Must Die.

“They asked me if I wanted to dance. I said, ’Sure, wanna see?’” Under pressure from the director and producer to go a bit further than she wanted to, she persuaded them to trust her instincts. “Here I am, talking to [producer] Joel Silver, waiting to get fired, trying to convince him ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be sexy.’ I turned around to walk back onto the set thinking, ‘Shit, what am I going to do now?’” The resulting three seconds of tongue and titillation was arguably the only memorable moment in the entire movie (at least according to the male members of our editorial staff). So, how did she get through it? “I just closed my eyes and did it. I didn’t even think about it.” (For the record, she was the dancer who did not flash her breasts.)

And Edgemont? “I auditioned for both Shannon and Laurel [Edgemont’s resident hottie, a role that eventually went to Kristin Kreuk]; I think a lot of people did. There wasn’t much information about the character when I read. I was actually in Hong Kong all set to do a martial arts movie when I got the call back for a second audition for Edgemont.” Needless to say, she opted to remain on Canadian soil.

Portraying the conservative yet sexually confused Shannon leads many to wonder if this is another nerd-turns-out-to-be-closet-lesbian story line that seems to be in vogue these days. Hints dropped in the first season were confirmed in the second that Shannon was indeed confused. “At first they were hesitant with the story idea but I’m glad they kept it and drew it out through the seasons because it’s something a lot of people go through. The response has been positive so far.” Park hints that in the third season Shannon will finally be allowed to loosen up. “You know what happens to a person when they’re so constricted. She has some fun with her sexuality in the third season.”

By this point in the interview, I can hear a lot of noise in the background. It seems that Park’s boyfriend is preparing dinner for her. Boyfriend? The sound you hear is the sharp crack of 16-year-old boys’ hears breaking all across North America. A quick check of the Edgemont’s website’s forum reveals a slew of sincere, if somewhat hormonally driven, tributes (“Shannon is hot,” “Shannon is the hottest babe on the show”), one poster going so far as to identify himself as “In_love_with_Grace.” “You’re kidding me,” she laughs nervously. “It’s flattering really, but I always though Shannon wasn’t supposed to be hot. Laurel was.”

But Park is certainly not Shannon. “Shannon should be in Mensa,” she jokes. “I procrastinate. I’m easily tempted. I’ve got a sweet tooth for chocolate that I’ve just gotten control of and I’m now into impulse window buying.”

So, what’s in the cards for the future? “I really don’t think that far ahead,” she admits. “They say you should [take on other positions in the entertainment industry] so you’ll be well rounded. Maybe I’ll do the everyone-wants-to-be-a-director stance. But for now, I’ll just act. I would love to do action movies like Charlie’s Angels, and does my own wire work. I took tae kwon do, but who am I kidding? I’m a white belt. Watch out! I’ll kick your ass with my white belt!” And if the acting thing doesn’t work out? “Well, I did want to train as a chef in Tuscany and I wanted to take architecture and do interior design. I don’t know but it has to be something that involved creativity.” Maybe, just maybe, there is a bit of the overachiever in there after all.

Banana: What kind of animal do you think you were in a past life?
GP: I think I was a horse because I have this sense of running and feeling of freedom. Also, I get spooked.

Banana: Favourite movies?
GP: The English Patient – I was really attached emotionally to Kristin Scott Thomas’ character-Cinema Paradiso and Fight Club.

Banana: Most embarrassing ‘80s trend you fell victim to.
GP: I did this thing with my pants where I would fold them, so they were skin-tight and then rolled them up.

Banana: Favourite children’s book.
GP: Charlie and the Chocolate Factor and The BFG, both by Roald Dahl. I just love the fantastical world they live in.

Banana: First Movie.
GP: “ET, The Extraterrestrial. I wanted to see it again and again, but my parents told me that the price per person was $10.