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Alias: Grace
2003
Tall, tan, young and lovely, a girl from Vancouver goes walking. As she saunters around Vancouver's famed seawall on a gorgeous Monday afternoon, twentysomething model-turned-actress Grace Park provokes shy smiles from the meek and dig-me grins from the freaks, but no one in either group actually says hello. It's that old chestnut about the girl whose stunning looks attract, then makes stupid, the vast majority of boys she doesn't actually meet. Hard to believe Park once thought she was the ugliest girl in the world. Now, she has a much healthier self-image, and she says acting has helped: "It's not that I have saddle bags. My character has saddle bags! So it's great that way." Park brims with optimism and enough positive energy to displace the Earth's magnetic poles. She's also genuinely modest and her humor is self-deprecating. You'd hate her if you weren't so busy cheering for her. In her relatively short TV and film career (she's been acting since 1999), Park has already played a lab assistant, a space pilot, a bitchy scientist, a genetically engineered soldier, and a high school brainiac - you may recognize her from CBC's teen drama Edgemont, which is filmed in Vancouver. Park plays Shannon Ng, resident nerd. She'd be a stereotypical Chinese character if not for the fact that she's gay. It started as an unexplained fantasy that Shannon had of Laurel (played by Kristin Kreuk) earlier in the series. Now, in Edgemont's fifth and final soapy season, Shannon is "out," has a girlfriend and, as a result of a falling out with her parents, is on her own. Park was instrumental in deciding her character's fate - she agreed to finish the show's last season only if Shannon could have her first lesbian kiss. Not surprisingly, the producer said yes. After all, if anyone can sell a lesbian kiss... Park rolls her eyes and this interviewer fakes a pang of guilt - we both laugh. Before appearing on shows like Dark Angel, The Outer Limits, and Jake 2.0, she had a small role in the 2000 Jet Li film Romeo Must Die. The flick was billed as a thugged-out Shakespearean kung-fu love story. But "Romeo" and "Juliet" exeunt as platonic playmates, making Park's brief and early scene the film's most romantic. Her steamy makeout scene with another girl at a nightclub ends with Park pulling down her partner's top to reveal a nipple. If the filmmakers had gotten their way, the exposed nipple would have been Park's. "I got the confidence from somewhere and told [Matrix producer] Joel Silver, 'I don't do nudity,'" says Park. "It was illegal for them to ask me, so I had to stand firm. Meanwhile, my agent and the casting director were freaking out because they thought I was messing things up...I though I was throwing my career away. I told the producers, 'Trust me, it's going to be sexy.' As I walked away I was thinking, 'Oh my god. What am I going to do now?'" What she did was dance her way into the hearts and minds of guys everywhere. At first, Park's parents disapproved of her acting career. But rather than tear her daughter a new one for doing a racy scene, Park's mom was proud she took a stand. Park is happy that her parents, who immigrated from Korea in the early '70s, have become more open-minded. They originally gave her the impression that in Korea, actors are regarded as being "one step above prostitution." Now that the Edgemont crew is about to graduate, Park is busy with other projects. She recently starred in Battlestar Galactica, a miniseries based on the '70s classic of the same name. Much to Park's delight, the show has been picked up as a regular series. She revels in a rare example of colour-blind casting - in the original series, her character, the rookie pilot Boomer, was an African-American man. "I was the only Asian at the audition...It feels good, knowing that you had the odds stacked against you [but] you succeeded. I mean, everyone loves the underdog," Parks says, slyly, "especially if you're the underdog." Don't be surprised if you see Grace Park action figures in the near future. Like keen student Shannon Ng, Park is eager to learn - she still takes acting classes. "I've spent so much time training, working on the craft," she says. "It's all new - there's no end to this thing." When she refers to acting as "the craft," I can't help but wince, but then I see her earnestness and utter lack of pretension and I'm rooting for her again. After one turn around the seawall, we get into Park's tan 4Runner to find some dinner. The stereo is playing the wistful "Girl from Ipanema," and we're tapping along. It feels like the end credits of a charming little film. But I get the feeling the movie is actually just about to start and all this was merely a prelude. And in spite of her modesty and considerable early successes I think our star knows it, too. Favourite movie? Cinema Paradiso and Fight Club.
Questions you're asked most often? "So what have you been in that would recognize you in?" and "Can you do that with an accent?"
Favourite food? Kalbi (Korean barbecued short ribs), my mom's killer crab and street food!
Worst habit? Self-sabotage. AARRGH!
What do you like best? That when I dust myself off, nothing can hold me back. |