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One TV program which is frequently rated among the best shows on TV in the U.S. is “Battlestar Galactica,” a 4-season reimagining of the 1970s series about the battle between the forces of good (humans) and evil (Cylons) in outer space. “I think the element of human drama cuts across all cultures, the fight for life and death, spirituality … we open up the doors for questions,” says star Grace Park during a recent visit to Japan to promote the DVD release of the series. “The show is visually appealing, the music is fantastic. And the storylines have a lot of surprises. Characters are both strong and flawed. Even the heroes have their doubts and ugly sides.”
Park, a 34-year-old Canadian actress of Korean descent, plays the humanoid Cylon Sharon “Boomer” Valerii, initially planted as a sleeper agent in the human fleet. During her four years on the show, she has developed a fan base and says she gets fan mail from Germany, France, Australia and now Japan. “I’ve been to two conventions in the States. Occasionally I bump into people on the street who watch the show, so that’s cool.”
The series will soon finish in the U.S. and there is talk of a movie version. “I think it would depend on if we have a story that is worth telling. We have invested so much into the series that we wouldn’t want to jeopardize the name. ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Star Trek’ did a great job with their movies but you have to have a good script,” Park says.
Working with established actors like Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell was like being with a big family on the set, she recalls. “You see each other for 14-16 hours a day. We were filming in Vancouver, so we were insulated from the creators and writers in LA and the network in New York. Eddie is like a giant teddy bear, and Mary McDonnell is super gracious.”
Though she has done a lot of science-fiction TV, Park says the genre doesn’t overly appeal to her. “It’s mostly because I lived in Vancouver and that’s where they filmed ‘The X-Files.’ After that, Vancouver attracted a lot of other science-fiction shows, such as ‘Stargate,’ ’The Outer Limits,’ ’Dark Angel‘ and ‘Andromeda.’ They were just the auditions I happened to go to.”
Park says that as a child, she never really considered acting as a career. “I wanted to be a marine biologist or maybe a chef.” After getting a degree in psychology at the University of British Columbia, she did some modeling before getting her break in 2000 in the Canadian teen soap opera “Edgemont.” “I learned a lot on that set, about the pace of making a TV series. I’ve really matured since then and put so much more effort into my work.”
Besides “Battlestar Galactica,” Park has appeared as a U.S. Homeland Security agent in the TV series, “The Border,” and as a member of a team that helps recovering addicts in “The Cleaner.” When she is not working, Park says she enjoys snowboarding, hiking, yoga and dancing. Other than at conventions, she doesn’t get much of a chance to interact with fans. “I’m totally not a blogger. Sometimes I don’t even check my email. I know I should.”
The first season of “Battlestar Galactica” can currently be seen Tuesday nights on NTV. The Season 3 DVD set will be released on May 22.
© Japan Today
30 Comments
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ultradodgy
What is NTV? Never heard of it.
Isn't this shown on AXN?
nath
She is an excellent actress that could make me believe she was anything. Without her, B.S.G. is just a show about robots :)
L4dymercury
NTV - Nippon Broadcasting
shouganaika
that only 300lb cosplayers from Minnesota will try to answer
bushlover
My favorite Ceylon. Sharon or 8 as she's known. Baltar can have his 6. Saw up to first half of season 4. Great show.
gogogo
Pity the show has been canceled in America.
Dennis Bauer
BSG is much better than the original whatever the die-hard fans say
blvtzpk
Grace, you can Park your shoes under my bed anytime!
magpie
She is hot on that show.
Rigs83
I hate re-imaginations of classic shows so I hated the new Battlestar Galactica but I understand that you young whippersnappers need to see gratuitous naked tiny Asian chicks on every other episode or you change the channel so I respect how she did a very admiral job as a tiny naked Asian chick when the script demanded it.
tkoind2
BSG is one of the best written shows on TV. Timely topics, great characters and a strong cast. Even my non-sci-fi friends love this show for the human drama.
Grace is truly amazing. One of the best in the team doing BSG. But the strength of this show is the ensemble cast coupled with very well written stories.
likeitis
I did at first too. But after giving it a chance I found it had some good aspects to it. Its worth watching.
My biggest complaint is that it is sometimes just plain silly with inconsistency and sometimes also stupidly contrived.
For example, if 8 can shove a fiber optic cable in her arm and use it to clear the Galactica of a Cylon virus while simultaneously sending a virus out to a fleet of Cylons, you sure would not need some wild Cylon detector to spot a Cylon, would you? A simple X ray would do it. And it seems pretty stupid that the Cylons would be masters of viruses but be completely open to one which totally disables a whole fleet instantly. Daft.
And President Roslin would not hesitate to promote Adama to Admiral and put him in charge of the Colonial military over Cain the instant Cain appeared, since it seems she had the power to promote Adama later in the show, and it seemed Cain's ideas wildy conflicted with keeping the fleet safe as per Roslin's ideas the instant Cain opened her mouth.
But like I say, there are good things about it. Like Grace Park. She has quintessential boyish good looks. It might creep you out to hear that, but its true.
And I feel I owe it to Richard Hatch to watch the show. That guy literally sold his house to keep Battlestar Galactica alive! Hats off to you Richard!
bebert
The show wasn't canceled. The producers decided to end the series after 4 seasons rather than dragging it out and letting the plot-line get stale. It isn't a bad decision to go out on a high note with strong writing (unlike the original).
Nessie
Both are dreadful and wonderful in their own ways. Park is a hottie, but can't hold a candle to the ol' Jane Seymour.
The new BSG is supposed to touch on current events and politics, but the writing is muddled and the characters are unbelievable. Every time I watch it I marvel at how it could have been so much more.
After dragging its feet for three years, it got cancelled. To wrap things up, the characters suddenly got verbal diarhhea a la Basil Exposition. Absurd.
Nessie
Not cancelled. Just not renewed.
I dumped her. She didn't dump me. Riiiiiiight.
kokuryu
She is my favorite actress in the new Battlestar Galactica. I only recently started watching the show - it has really blown me away, it is so good.
NeoJamal
Dualla died I cried Could Boomer's bossoms comfort me? Wait she ain't got any Help these tears of my won't dry
urufuls
Really one of the best shows on TV.
Completely different then the original version. So please stop whining.
Park's character (all of them) helps her to be very versatile.
Anomaly_Jr
"...a 4-season reimagining of the 1970s series about the battle between the forces of good (humans) and evil (Cylons) in outer space."
WRONG and WRONG. BSG is about what it means to be human - the human condition. Specifically labelling neither side as good or evil is a constant theme of the show.
Nessie: Give it a rest - the show wasn't cancelled. Sci-fi fans would be the first to admit it if it was true. Hundreds of precedents for that. And by the way - go back and watch the original BSG. It is so campy and amateur that you wouldn't last an episode. Yes, I used to watch it too.
BSG is one of the darkest dramas on TV at the moment. It may not be happy, but man is it good.
Nessie
I've seen it. And yes, it's campy. So is the new one, only camp noir. With senseless writing. People just don't act that way, and the characters are so irritating -- doomed whiners like Starbuck. It's a teen angstfest all round.
I think the critics wet themselves over it because it purported to examine current issues like balance of powers, pridential authority, asymetrical warfare, definitions of terrorism, war crimes, etc. THe problem is that it didn't really address those things intelligently or credibly.
AND Jane Seymour was hotter than Grace Park will ever be.
LFRAgain
I love the show and wish they'd keep on writing it, but alas, all good things. . .
Grace Park is perfectly hot in her own right without having to be a Jane Seymour. Two words come to mind, Nessie: "Beauty" and "Beholder."
You okay today? Haven't seen you this . . . mean . . . here in a while, at least not without provocation. ;-)
flammenwerfer
all I can say is thank the gods for the internet. When will these fracking TV and movie companies get with the program, so to speak?
Friend in the USA : Did you see the latest BSG? wasn't is awesome? Friend in Japan: sorry ask me that in 2011, I will let you know....
LFRAgain
Yeah, the time lag is ridiculous. I don't know what the problem is exactly, but I've heard that it has something to do with the distribution companies haggling over licencing fees. Same as with foreign movies that come here.
Maybe in the pre-internet years, media companies could afford to dole out products at their leisure and on their own schedules, but no more. By not releasing media simultaneously in strong, interested markets, they just end up shooting themselves in the feet with the lost revenue caused by viewers looking "elsewhere" >coff!< for their shows.
injapan
"whippersnappers?" that should be stricken from the english language. and SOMEONE is jealous of "tiny" asian actresses...
Smythe
Sorry to admit I have rarely seen any of the TV. Still once in a while I would see some if it & felt the Asian gal was attractive. Now I find she is from the westcoast of B.C, being Greater-Vancouver. Sort of nice that a Canadian is looked upon as a good actress.
Alphaape
This is a much better product than the original series, and the short lived second season in 1980. I have been watching he latest episodes via downloads from the states and the final season is pretty good.
One thing I like about this show as compared to the Star Trek series is that yes it is a bit far-fetched, but the humanity aspect is pretty much the same as we see in the world today. Petty jealousies, insecurity about who is a friend and who is an enemy can be related to the current situations in the world today. I enjoyed Star Trek, but I often find it hard to believe that humanity has progressed so far to the point that there is no need for religion (one of the central themes in BSG is the role of how differnt religions spark conflicts among the humans and cylons), and that it seems that all of the "bad guys" are some sort of alien or not human. I have to admit, the show "Enterprise" was a little better at dealing with this, but still Star Trek seemed too "pie in the sky" for me (still it is a good show).
likeitis
Well, I think you are pretty hard on a show that is 30 years old. Accounting for the very different situations and very different time periods of the different shows, I would put the old show slightly ahead.
Lorne Greene (Cmdr.Adama) worked for free just so the show could have some money to work with. That is how hard they had it.
Alphaape
likeitis, don't get me wrong, I have all of the old shows and still enjoy watching them, but I just think this time around they did a little better job. I guess times were different back then.
likeitis
Alphaape, I don't mind that you think its better, I just took exception to the description "much" better. It might be true, but it seems to imply they did a bad job with the original BSG. Glad you don't seem to agree with that implication.
Nessie
Didn't mean to be mean, LFRA, just emphatic. Mostly it's the disappointment of the new one not living up to its potential. And the Jane Seymour thing. I'm hoping they'll do a sequel with both Park and Seymour.