Battlestar Galactica: Grace Park

CraveOnline: So, next season of Battlestar begins with prequel?

Grace Park: Yeah, it's a flashback. Not a prequel to the entire season.

CraveOnline: Are you excited about that?

Grace Park: I'm so excited. I think I was pretty stressed the last few years on the show and I'm really looking forward to doing something different and not really being so producer, writer, director focused. I think I really thought, and I think this is a pretty common thing for a lot of people growing up but especially so in Asian communities, trying to please other people. I think I was doing that but I think as a result, it was probably hampering my acting.

CraveOnline: After four years, you've just now you've relaxed?

Grace Park: I hope it doesn’t take four years all the time for me to relax.

CraveOnline: Why now?

Grace Park: That's a good question. To be honest, I did Edgemont before but it was on such a small scale that all of a sudden, when we went to Battlestar, and though it's not on ABC or NBC, still there was a lot of pressure I think and I ramped up my own pressure about that. Why did it take four seasons? I don't know to be honest but I've been doing a lot of personal growth hopefully because I'm just at a new place and finally realized I'm not going to get fired.

CraveOnline: Will we notice this change in your acting?

Grace Park: I'm sure. I'm sure. Not even I hope so. I just feel completely different. I'm not sure what it's going to look like different yet.

CraveOnline: Are you expecting any surprises in your backstory in the flashback?

Grace Park: No, not in this flashback. I think this flashback, it only goes back a season and a half. It's actually more about a new character coming on board. I've heard rumors of who it might be but to be honest, I don't know who they've cast, I shouldn't say. I looked at the days, I have one day out of the entire month and this new character has like 24. I think it's pretty much going to be about the Pegasus and about this new character who for some reason we didn't see back then.

CraveOnline: So you'll take a backseat in the flashback?

Grace Park: For this one, yeah. I think I'm not even in the car. This one, I just have that one blip. I think in a way, they would like all the regular cast to have a little peep in the two hour special, but really it's about this person, I don’t even know who the heck you are, but you better be good. No.

CraveOnline: Where do you see the rest of season going?

Grace Park: I mean , I have no authority to say this but I'm speculating that it's going to be our last, especially since we got 22. And I've heard Ron Moore say a few times that we're coming into the last two chapters of Battlestar. So with that in mind, I think instead of having more and more loose ends unraveling, we're just going to see more of them becoming tied together finally and where that'll lead us, probably to earth. What time is it going to be when we get there? No idea.

CraveOnline: Mark Stern said he doesn't see an end.

Grace Park: Well, because he's Mark Stern, but he's not writing. He's part of the network. We'll probably end up on the set of Blade Runner. We get to earth and it's Blade Runner.

CraveOnline: So there will be 22 episodes. Do you expect more of a slow build or rapid fire answers to these questions?

Grace Park: Not necessarily rapid fire but I certainly see us coming to certain conclusions. Does that mean all the questions will be answered? Not necessarily. But I think hopefully we'll find out what is the purpose of what's Starbuck's destiny? What's really the Cylons plan? Because they always say "we have a plan." To date, I've got to tell you, none of the people who play Cylons actually know what that plan is so hopefully there'll be some answers.

CraveOnline: Is that a relief to you?

Grace Park: Kind of, I guess so. I didn't know if it was a relief, but more like having an answer is just going to feel like closure.

CraveOnline: How have you dealt with adoring fanboys?

Grace Park: I'd say most of them are pretty behaved and well respected. I think because of the character I play, I mean  I haven't done Playboy like Tricia has so I'm not going to have the same kind of fans that she has. But it's a pretty polite country. People aren't going to throw themselves at you. Which I don't mind. Throw money is fine. No, I'm kidding.

CraveOnline: If you're shooting this summer, will you have time for any summer vacation?

Grace Park: I just did a lot of traveling. I just went to London and New York. But in the summer, I'd love to go to Italy. Italy and Morocco maybe.

CraveOnline: Why those places? Are there specific things you want to see?

Grace Park: Have you been to Italy? Food's great. I'm really looking forward to being there because my husband, I swear, I think he wishes he was Italian in another life. So it would be really nice to take him there and once and for all, so that he realizes that Nicoise salad is from France, not from Italy as he might love to maintain. One of the things he likes to do is talk to Italian people with an Italian accent. It's really embarrassing. I don't think he realizes that. I'm like, "What if we talked to Chinese people with a Chinese accent? Do you think that would be cool?" So he likes doing weird things like that so it'd be really nice to go there before I have kids, because I think when you travel as a couple versus having a family, it's so different.

CraveOnline: You're thinking of family already?

Grace Park: Yeah. I don't think I want to wait forever. I think there's such the allure of just staying, I say single but without kids, because we're sort of spoon fed in America and really encouraged to stay youthful and have a lot of toys and buy stuff and eat what you want. There's so many things to keep us interested and distracted but then all of a sudden one day you wake up and it's like "Wait a second, I'm in my mid-30s and either still not married or something like that." I have lots of friends who want to be with someone but we're not really encouraged to settle down and have a family. So I think before it runs away on me, I'd like to do that.

CraveOnline: Would you wait until the show ends or try to be a working mommy?

Grace Park: I think it might be difficult but that's one of the things I've started thinking about, how to really balance that. I don't know. One of my acting teachers is always like, he always loves to say that relationships are ships and ships sink. He says it all the time and the other day I thought, wait, ships are supposed to float. Ships aren't made to sink. But he's kind of encouraging us not to do that. Don't get married or to not be married but don't get in a relationship that brings you down and then five years you're gone and then you come back. So we'll see.

CraveOnline: Do you identify more with being Asian as opposed to maybe the Hollywood acting community?

Grace Park: It's such a part of my fabric and who I am, just in my everyday living that I don't really see a group of Asian-Americans and go, "I'm a part of that group." It's just like, I think there was a young child, I can't remember who it was exactly, but we were mentioning to my cousin's daughter, "Oh, you're half Korean and what's your other half?" And her parents were like, "No, no, we don't like to say half and half because to them, they don't see it split up. It's just all mixed together." In that way, growing up in Vancouver, I didn't really strongly identify with the Asian community necessarily but maybe more the Korean community because my parents were always like, "Well, what are they going to think of you" that kind of thing, they're always worried about that. But not necessarily the Asian-American community so much. But acting of course, that's something that I've been really into but Hollywood, no, I'm not really connected to that really so much either. I mean , is anyone? Honestly. I guess there are certain people.

CraveOnline: Maybe if you live in Hollywood.

Grace Park: But even then, you go home and you go do your own thing, right? You don't live in front of the spotlight unless you're like Lindsay or Paris.

CraveOnline: So who were your role models?

Grace Park: Shoot, I should have like an answer ready for that all the time. They seem to change depending on what stage of life I was in. I think when I was in school, it was some of my teachers, but to be honest, never really anyone in film or theater until maybe more recently. But even then, it kind of shifts with what's out and what not.