Grace Park

TV Series Hawaii 5.0.

http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1600194/

IGN: What was it like shooting those sequences where she’s underwater? I’d assume that wasn’t very fun...

Park: Kono’s a surfer, so she’s great in the water - she’s grown up in the water. If you’re surfing some big waves, you will have been caught underneath, sometimes for a few sets, right? So what I’ve learned -- and I don’t even surf – is that the longer you can stay underwater, the more comfortable you are. Talking to some of the water men, like Brian Keaulana, he’ll tell you one of the first things you can do is learn to stay underwater for a long time. That way, you won’t panic when you’re underwater and the waves are coming and you are not going to get up there. I thought, “I can’t do that for very long.” But prepping for the underwater scene… I mean, I was so uncomfortable every time I read the script, because I would hold my breath as I was reading the script! I was so uncomfortable because I didn’t realize I’d stopped breathing, as I’m reading my character and she’s bound and gagged in the water.

IGN: Would that qualify as the toughest thing you've had to do on the show?

Park: Funnily enough, I was more comfortable doing that, the idea of being bound and gagged underwater, versus having to be in a shore break again.

[Editor’s Note: During the filming of the Hawaii Five-0 pilot, Park learned firsthand just how much ocean water can pummel you in a shore break - where a wave breaks directly on, or very close to, the shore]

[Hawaii Five-0 showrunner/executive producer] Peter Lenkov asked, “Grace, how are you with this whole underwater thing?” I’m like, “Am I in a shore break?” He’s goes, “No.” I’m like, “You sure I’m not in a shore break?” “No you’re bound and gagged, and you’re sinking on the bottom of the ocean.” I’m like, “But I’m not in a shore break?” “No.” “That’s fine, that’s totally fine.” “You’re sure?” “Yes!” It was just so traumatizing in the pilot! [Laughs] Other than that, I was researching and prepping on that. I started learning how to hold my breath underwater and the breathing technique that you do to be able to be underwater for minutes at a time. I got up to, like, a minute, but I wasn’t practicing for that long. But that was more than we needed. The thing I was thinking was, “Well, of course she’s going to know how to do this.” So when you do go underwater -- and she knows she’s going to be tipped overboard -- when she goes under, you don’t sink to the bottom of the ocean. We had to try to get me to sink. They put lots of weights on me and we had to have someone underwater dragging me down and all this kind of stuff.

IGN: Wow, that has to add to the trauma!

Park: Right? Actually the trauma could have been during one take where I wasn’t ready, but I didn’t just say no. They’re like, “Are you ready?” I’m like, “Well, actually...” [Splash noise] They pulled me under, and I was kicking so hard to try to get out. I was supposed to have breakaway wrists and breakaway ankles, but they didn’t break away. So when I came back up, they were like, “That was really, really great, except we didn’t have your face on camera.” And I was just like, “I was trying to get out of the restraints!” But the weirdest thing was, I was kicking super hard underwater, and I didn’t have enough breath to stay under very long, but I was, like, zero panic. It was really weird because I had practiced already, so my body already knew, “Oh, you’re fine.” So that was really trippy, even though I had a lot of water and was coughing. So that’s the kind of stuff I knew about her character. She was already thinking when she was on the boat, and when I did the research diving with Ocean Ramsey, I kind of caught her out of the corner of my eye, and she wasn’t using her arms and legs to kick. She just did this kind of dolphin gliding thing in the water. So I tried it, too. I was like, “Oh my gosh!” You can move really fast doing that. It seems kind of like how fish move because fish don’t have arms -- their fins are kind of small -- but they move so fast. I figured that’s what she’s doing. Of course, it’s not on the screen because that’s not going to sell very well, but I figured that’s probably why she’s not as traumatized. There’s also always so much action, she kind of just rolls back into it.