CanWest News Service

Calling all Cylons: Battlestar Galactica's Grace Park stands up and takes it like a robot
Brian Gorman
3- 25-2006

 

There's a lot to be said for playing an object. It makes your character really hard to kill off. Take Grace Park's character, for instance.

Park plays the role of Lieutenant Sharon "Boomer" Valerii on Battlestar Galactica. Her character is a Cylon, one of the human-looking robotic creatures with whom humanity is locked in a fight to the death. And, after an attack that wiped out the majority of humans, it seems that the Cylons are winning.

So, the character Park is playing is more of a vehicle model than a person -- like a Ford Mustang. And that means the writers can do anything.

"I can die multiple times," Park says with a laugh. "Rebirth if they want. They can keep making new ones. If they don't like what I'm doing with her, they can ditch that one and write a new model. I'm kind of a puppet, essentially."

That, she hastens to add, goes for Boomer, not her.

"The writers do listen to what the actors say," Park says. "That's one really nice part of our job."

Park was born in Los Angeles but her family moved to Vancouver when she was two years old. Her South Korean parents had applied to immigrate to both Canada and the United States, but the Canadian visa came through first.

Growing up in Vancouver, Park says, she never really showed an interest in acting --that is, until she was studying psychology at the University of British Columbia and started doing commercials to help pay her expenses.

Still, she never considered taking up acting as a career until she graduated from school.

"I got out and it was, like, 'Uh-oh. Now I'm out of university. What do I do?' " Park recalls. " 'I like being on set. I'll try acting.' "

That was in 1997. By 2000, she was landing recurring roles on such TV series as Secret Agent Man and The Immortal. This led to parts in Romeo Must Die, Edgemont and L.A. Law: The Movie.

It also led to another recurring role in a series called Jake 2.0. Then she was called in to audition for the role of Dualla (now played by Kandyse McClure) for the 2003 miniseries version of Battlestar Galactica.

"It was just another audition," Park says. "But I got some coaching for the audition, and it went really well."

In fact, it went well enough that the producers called her back to audition for the role of Lieutenant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace.

That role ended up going to Katee Sackhoff, and Park was offered the rather strange role of Valerii, a villain who can exist in several locations at the same time -- and, in some cases, doesn't even know she's a villain.

"Some of them know more of who they are than others," Park says of her various characters.

Shooting a series like Battlestar Galactica can be a real workout. "It's hard," Park says, "unless you're playing maybe Mary's character. She doesn't have to do much of that."

Park is referring to Mary McDonnell, who plays President Laura Roslin, a former schoolteacher who was the secretary of education at the time the Cylons attacked. As the highest-ranking political official left alive, the presidency fell to her.

"For the hardcore stuff, we all have stunt doubles," Park says. "But we all do enough of the kicking and screaming and running around. But for a scene like the one when I have to run my head through a piece of glass, I definitely would freak if I had to do something like that."

As the second season of the series opened, we saw Boomer on the Galactica try to assassinate Capt. Adama (Edward James Olmos) while another Boomer, down on a planet's surface, was falling in love with a soldier named Helo (Tahmoh Penikett).

This was very weirdly complicated by the fact that the killer didn't know she was a bad guy -- even though the one who was in love did.

It got even more complicated, according to Park, after the two Valeriis were brought together in the same place.

"Directors, actors, writers, everyone gets confused," Park says. "It can be simple when they're separated by physicality -- one in a river, and one on a bridge.

"[But whenever] they're together, it's, like, 'But you've met Gaius Baltar.' And I'm, like, 'No, she's never met him before.' Having them together, all those ties are getting really muddy."

This gets more twisted when you consider that there are more Valeriis on the planet Caprica, and several in the Cylon fleet.

The love-struck one is even pregnant by Helo. However, Cylons aren't supposed to be able to reproduce the old-fashioned human way.

"It definitely has complications," Park points out. "The first season was quite simple, partly because some of the direction that was given to me was, 'For all intents and purposes, she's human. So don't play any robot stuff.'

"Then, just when you think you're doing a good job of playing a human, they go, 'Come on, Grace. She's a Cylon.' And I'm, like, 'What? Make up your mind!' "