Battlestar's Grace Park reveals her part in The Plan

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Battlestar's Grace Park reveals her part in The Plan

Grace Park, who played Boomer and Athena on SCI FI's Battlestar Galactica, told SCI FI that the upcoming prequel film The Plan combines familiar footage from earlier seasons with all-new material.

"What we did was we took scenes that we already shot, that you're going to recognize, and then either add another angle, or add some dialogue," Park said in an exclusive interview last Thursday in Pasadena, Calif. "So if someone whispered something in someone's ear, which you never heard, we're actually adding that dialogue. So it's going to inform things on so many different levels. So it's tricky."

The events in The Plan take place between seasons one and two of Battlestar Galactica. Park spoke exclusively to SCI FI Wire about The Plan and the forthcoming prequel series Caprica at the ongoing charity auction in which paraphernalia and props are on sale. The following is an edited version of that interview. The two-hour pilot of Caprica is now available on DVD and the Web; Caprica kicks off on SCI FI next year. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is due in November.

Are there aspects of your characters you would like to explore in Caprica if given the chance?

Park: That's a good point. There's a lot still to be mined in these characters in the parts preceding the attack. Perhaps we get a little into that in The Plan, but there is so much there, and reading the [series] bible and talking to [executive producer] Ron Moore, I've always made it enough that I knew what their background was. But if we were ever to have an episode with that, I would have jumped at the chance to do it. It would be really, really wonderful.

Lately people have asked, "If there's a big feature movie, would you do it?" It's always, like, there's not going to be a movie, or if there is, we're not going to do it. But what is funny is that when we finished the show and we had to do a few pickup shots a couple of months later, a few of the people who were coming back said it's like seeing an ex-girlfriend all over again. It's like all of the stuff that you thought was buried and gone kind of comes back, and you love it, and it hurts. I'd really have to think about that, but if the story was there and the people were there, I would do it again. But before I always thought, no.

How tough was it to go back and take away some of the experiences your characters accumulated during the series when you came back for The Plan?

Park: It was kind of confusing, because I already had prepped before that. Because when we shot "Someone to Watch Over Me," maybe the third-to-last episode, we already had all of these flashbacks; well, not necessarily flashbacks, but we had to go back into who Boomer was back when she was with chief and she had to fabricate their whole home all over again and how much of that true and how much of it was made up. I think the feelings were definitely there, but that was an interesting part, because I wanted it to still be Boomer who we all knew from the very beginning, but Boomer with all of those layers on top of her of heartache and hardship and isolation and confusion. So that was already kind of weird.

So The Plan was almost like the flip side: Let's [go] back to the beginning without any of those layers, but now knowing where she is going to go. The important thing was I always wanted to differentiate Boomer from Athena, and doing some of the flashbacks in "Daybreak," when Tigh and Adama are saying, "You're washed up," we all know who Boomer is now, but having to go back and remember that she wasn't always that way and to kind of go back to her innocence. Her at the beginning was different than Athena at the beginning; Athena was way more knowing, and she was, like, lying right off the top, because she didn't care.

Did your own preparation for these characters conflict with what they came up with or retrofitted onto the mythology of Battlestar?

Park: What was more confusing in The Plan, because whenever they go back they always want to make something kind of interesting, and put a new piece there ... Oh, I almost said it out loud! They had this little piece that was a little prop which would [help] you sort of [see] the mechanism how Boomer went in and out of her sleeper [mode], and since it was never discussed before or revealed to us, I had my own thing all made up, and then when that started happening, that's when it really screwed it up. It's like Back to the Future, like, Marty McFly went back, and then he started messing with the past, and I was like, "Isn't that going to have repercussions?" I think that was more confusing, to make that make sense after all of the stuff that I put on top already.

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Enjoy The Prologue From My Upcoming Book.. "Strolok"............by R.Goldberg

"WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR RACE WAS TARGETED FOR EXTINCTION?"

The Sun is a powerful force in our Universe. It brings us light, warmth and a promise of a galaxy beyond the stars. Often we associate massive flashes of light with the reflection of our Sun's light bouncing off of another surface.

This is not always the case though, especially if you believe that we are truly not alone in the Universe. When we witness things that we can't readily explain we sometimes turn our heads and shrug our shoulders in a display of apathy.

A display such as this occurred on Friday January 29, 1982 at the Crater Lake National Park just outside of Chemult, Oregon. The snow had been falling steadily for a period of four days. The winds had been whisking about at 40 miles per hour.
Then there was one of those unnatural flashes of light. This created an eerie silence as a lanky boy, just nine years old, seemed to appear from out of that flash. If he had walked to this point there would have been a distinct trail in the newly fallen snow.
There was no trail and as a matter of fact the only tracks in the snow were the ones that outlined his feet where he was standing.

He began to trudge through the snow wearing what could only be described as dark brown long johns. He seemed dazed yet, at the same time, very clear about the direction that he was travelling. This boy with no identity or name seemed to be on a mission that would take him to places he had never been before.
His main goal was to reach Chemult, Oregon and he had no intention of stopping until he accomplished this. As strange as it seems the extreme cold seemed to have little or no effect on him at all.

Why Chemult? What was so special about this town located at an elevation of 4,758 feet above sea level in a frozen winter wilderness in Oregon?

The town of Chemult was first opened to the local traffic in 1926 and here in 1982, with its population of only 241, offered little in the way of comfort for a nine year old boy who was all alone. This journey, although prompted by something deep inside of him, did not provide a feeling of comfort and yet he had hoped that he would at least experience a feeling of accomplishment once he reached the town.

The wind was getting stronger and he noticed a small piece of yellow paper tattered and torn from whipping about in the snow. He only stopped long enough to
pick up this paper..........it read:

.....With the winter season here there was a lot of fun to have. Travelling miles of open trails on snow mobiles skiing or simply hiking, but there are dangers of doing so. Please remember safety first. Do not travel alone and be sure someone knows where you are and where you are going before travelling our trails, and please read the safety rules and codes of ethics before hiking the trails...

Nightfall was near and he had already walked 38 of the 40 miles needed to reach Chemult. He was just off of Route 97 when he spotted an old barn just about 200 feet NE of his present location. Making his way to the barn he went in and found it to be totally deserted, it was a perfect place to rest for the night.

Morning had arrived and once awake the boy started to look around the barn in the daylight light to see if there was anything that was lying in the barn that he could use to assist him on his trek.

Over in the far corner of the barn he found an old metal locked box that had long been forgotten. It was all rusted out and the key was nowhere to be found. After several failed attempts to open the box the young boy closed his eyes, sat back on his tired limbs and placed the palm of his right hand on top of the box. All of a sudden a dull red glow appeared from his right palm and the box lid flew open. Strangely enough once the red glow disappeared all that remained was a faint thin black outline where the outside of the red mark had appeared on his palm. Inside of the box he found several items all of which were unfamiliar to him and it was obvious that they had been there
for a very long time.

The contents included a tattered passport with the picture missing, a pocket knife, a compass, an antique pocket watch with a broken crystal, a time-worn souvenir porcelain coffee mug with the words; "Atlanta, Georgia, The Peach State, A Perfect Place to Live", on it and a frayed map of the Metro Atlanta Area It was difficult to make out the name on the passport but with a couple of light brushes with his fingers he saw the name Jason Tredmore. This is now who this boy would become.

Sci-Fi Blast

Wednesday, May 13, 2009