Born Jee Un Park on March 6, 1979 in Los Angeles, Grace Park's family moved to Vancouver while Grace Park was just a child. One would have thought her chances for fame and success as an actress would have been limited. But then Vancouver grew up to become North America's second Hollywood.

Grace Park also grew up, and Grace Park has taken the science fiction television audience by storm as the dynamic and ambivalent Cylon sleeper agent Sharon "Boomer" Valerii in Ronald D. Moore's new adaptation of Battlestar Galactica. Once a model, Grace cut her acting teeth on the CBC Network series Edgemont in the role of Shannon Ng. Grace Park has appeared in movies such as "Romeo Must Die" and "L.A. Law: The Movie", and has guest-starred on numerous television episodes for series like The Outer Limits, Dark Angel, The Immortal, and Stargate-SG1.

Among her non-acting accomplishments, Grace Park has earned a degree in Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Grace Park speaks two languages fluently (English, Korean) and knows some Cantonese and French. Grace Park is also studying Spanish. Battlestar Galactica co-star Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) mentioned in an interview with Starburst that Grace Park attended Grace's wedding in New Mexico in late 2004. Grace told About.Com the wedding actually took place in Mexico (her husband is a Korean businessman).

In 2003, Grace Park won the role of Sharon Valerii after trying out for the role of Galactica bridge crew member Dualla and being passed over for Starbuck. The original Boomer had been played by Herbert Jefferson, Jr., but Grace never watched the show prior to winning a part in the new mini-series, so Grace Park bypassed any intimidation some actors might feel at following in another's footsteps. Nonetheless, when long-time Battlestar Galactica fans heard that Boomer would be a woman, Grace felt the first stings of fannish backlash.

Grace Park

Where you've seen her:
As the finest alien in the new Battlestar Galactica series.

Queen of the jungle:
"I had to do this one sex scene for Battlestar that wasn¡¯t a bedroom scene. It was outside in a forest under a lightning-and-thunder shower. I was like, 'So you want some crazy forest sex? OK, I gotcha.' In the end, they had to totally edit it down and take out all my moaning."

Viva ass Vegas:
"It was in Vegas on New Year¡¯s on the strip. It¡¯s packed with 2,000 people on the street. Someone grabbed my ass, and I whipped around and there were 10 people. I picked one guy and I fuckin¡¯ reamed him! I scared the shit out of this guy. It was the wrong guy, but I didn¡¯t care¡¦"

Amazing Grace:
"The craziest thing I did on a date was probably cutting through the lobby of the Wickaninnish Inn buck naked except for a yellow rain jacket and rubber boots, stripping down, and jumping into the ocean right in front of the hotel. Mind you, it was October and we were in Canada. Not only was it freezing; it was night and we couldn¡¯t see our clothes."

March 2005 (#87)