Actress Victoria Park chatted about playing Kamilla Hwang on hit superhero drama The Flash. Park first joined the show in its fifth season.
Since joining The Flash, Victoria’s character Kamilla has evolved from a bartender to Central City Citizen photographer. She has also been the love interest to long-time series regular Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes), who will be imminently leaving the show.
Read on below for Victoria’s full interview with Courageous Nerd.
Welcome, Victoria and thank you for taking the time to do this!
Victoria Park (VP): Yeah, thanks for having me today.
You’re most well-known at the moment for playing ‘Kamilla Hwang’ on The Flash. Rewinding ever so slightly, how did your journey in acting first start? Was it a hobby before pursuing a career?
VP: I kind of fell into it, actually. I moved to LA pursuing cinematography and directing, wanted to be on the other side of the camera. It’s what I majored in, I’ve always loved storytelling and being on set. Coming to LA, I ended up in an acting class. I really loved it and got discovered there. My manager saw me there, I’m still with them today.
I found out I really loved it. I never saw myself doing this, but I really enjoy it.
How secretive was your casting process? Were you aware of who you were auditioning for or were the details completely different?
VP: Kamilla isn’t a character that exists in the comic books, so I wasn’t sure if it was going to be. All I knew was that it was going to be a potential love interest for Cisco (Carlos Valdes). That’s literally all I knew. I didn’t know if they were fake sides or anything. After I got the part, I found out that they made up the character, so they didn’t actually change anything. My audition sides were almost exactly that first scene of meeting Cisco at the bar.
Going into it, you have guesses; “Is it this person? Or this person?” It’s really fun to create a character from scratch.
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At the time you joined The Flash, it had been on for five seasons. Were you intimidated at the time and how familiar were you with the show prior to being cast?
VP: I hadn’t watched the show yet but obviously was familiar with The Flash being such a huge DC Comics character. I was familiar with the show, being so popular. Coming onto any show five seasons in is like being the new kid in school. Everyone’s been together for five years, you’re coming on, you don’t know anybody. Everyone was so nice, so welcoming and made me feel at home right from the get go.
I didn’t know how long I was going to stay, they told me it was only going to be a few episodes, it wasn’t exact. But, season seven and I’m still here, so…it turned out for the best, I guess.
When I spoke to your co-star Brandon McKnight recently, we discussed how Eric Wallace had championed his character since taking over as showrunner. Kamilla has had similar development since Season 6. How influential has Eric Wallace been on your character’s journey?
VP: Eric is so great and I’m so grateful to him for expanding the role of Kamilla as he has. Eric is a great showrunner… I wasn’t on very long before he became showrunner but he’s just been such a champion of all of us. A champion of our characters, but also us as actors and individuals. He’s always available to us and he’s a great boss. I’m very grateful that I’ve gotten to work with him as long as I have.
Speaking of Season 6, the show expanded the relationship between ‘Team Citizen’ – yourself, Candice Patton as Iris, Kayla Compton as Allegra and Danielle Nicolet as Cecile. Since this dynamic has been introduced, how have you found working with the group?
VP: Oh, it’s been so fun. I love that Eric really played up this journalist side of Iris because it’s a huge part of who she is in the comics. It hadn’t really played much up until this point. Building out her team and having Team Citizen is so much fun to be a part of. I love working with the girls… I love working the boys to but it’s different when you’re working with the ladies. It’s always a fun time when I know I have a Team Citizen day ahead of me.
Kamilla joined the show as a romantic interest for Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) and they’ve had a steady relationship since. Did you have to do any chemistry tests with Carlos before being cast?
VP: I didn’t meet him at all beforehand, my first day meeting him was the first day we shot together. Also, we didn’t know how long the character would play out. I think the writers were kind of giving themselves a way out if we didn’t have great chemistry. They were like, “Maybe a couple of episodes, we’ll see.” We have such a good friendship chemistry and acting chemistry that I think it just worked out for us.
He’s a great guy and we get along really well. It worked out for us, but it was definitely a gamble on behalf of the writers because we didn’t meet each other beforehand and had no idea how it was going to work out.
It was recently announced that Carlos Valdes (as well as Tom Cavanagh) would be leaving The Flash after seven seasons. Without giving anything away, was your own future on the show taken into account, considering how closely tied Kamilla and Cisco are?
VP: I don’t want to give anything away, but we know things so far in advance. I had talked with Carlos and Eric to see if I could go maybe longer. The pandemic kind of stretched things out for us, so we all knew for a while that his contract and time on the show was coming to an end. We definitely talked about it, I was in the know the whole time.
It was a really hard secret to keep. I’ll keep it there because I don’t want to give any spoilers or anything for how the show’s going to play out
As we’ve already covered Cisco and Team Citizen, is there anyone on the show you would like to have more scenes with? Either for Kamilla’s story, or if you want to work more with a specific actor?
VP: I never get to work with Danielle Panabaker. I’m friends with her, I love her and we literally never get to work together. So, I’d love to work with her more. I don’t know what that storyline would look like but that would be a character that I would love to see explored.
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Aside from The Flash, are there any other upcoming projects you can tell us about?
VP: It’s been a little difficult because we shoot in Vancouver and especially with the pandemic, you know, it’s just been difficult to work out anything scheduling-wise. Other than right in the beginning when I was on season five, I’ve just been working on The Flash. It’s kept me very, very busy but it’s such a great job.
I love Vancouver, the cast and everything, so I always love when I get called back up there. Now that the season is wrapping up, we’re on our finale right now, so yeah, we’re a little bit ahead of you guys. Hopefully, I’ll have some time to work on some stuff. I’ve been working on some personal projects that I’m directing but other than that, we’ll see.
Looking ahead, what do you hope to accomplish with the rest of 2021?
VP: I have this film I’m directing, this documentary. We do have plans to at least finish filming that this year. So, hopefully by the end of this year, I’ll have at least a rough cut or something. I’m just hoping to really work on that, it’s where I’m focusing all of my non-Flash energy at this time.
What would you like to say to fans of The Flash or Kamilla?
VP: Well, first of all, I’d like to say thank you. Kamilla’s been part of The Flash family for almost three years now and I’ve really felt the love and support from all the fans. I’d also want to say… hang in there, I know that people are pretty sad about Cisco leaving. I think they’re going to be pretty pleased about the way things end.
So, yeah, stay in there and thanks for being a fan.
In closing, is there anything you can tease about the rest of the season, without being too specific?
VP: Without giving anything away, I guess I’ll just say that this season, we get the scripts before we even start filming. So, we’re way ahead of you guys. This season, I was surprised more times than I ever have been. There were a lot of twists and turns, I feel like the writers did a lot of fun things… if you think back to that 90s episode, just trying a lot of new things.
I had a lot of fun this season, reading the scripts and filming them. I really hope that people are looking forward to a lot of twists and turns in the future.
Once again, thank you for the taking to time to speak with me. Take care and stay safe!
VP: You as well, thank you.
