For seven seasons and part of Season 8, Kristin Kreuk gained a huge following for her role as Lana Lang in The WB/CW’s Smallville. Although she has had TV roles since, including a memorable recurring role on Chuck, it’s been a few years since she took a series regular role in a drama series, particularly as the lead in a genre show.
The CW’s new show Beauty and the Beast, which premieres on Thursday, October 11 following The Vampire Diaries, lured Kristin back to series TV from the movie world. How did they get her to come back to television? “It really was [BATB producers] Sherri and Jennifer. I met with them and I loved them so much, and I know from being on TV for a long time, it’s about the people that you’re working with. They are wonderful, and collaborative, and they wanted to work with me, and I like that a lot. So that’s why I did it,” Kristin says to us in the press room at the 2012 Comic-Con International in San Diego.
The themes of BATB also will explore the question of what is a beauty, and what is a beast. “I really think that a lot of what we’re exploring is that no one is one or the other; that everybody has beauty and beast within them,” she says. “We make certain choices in our lives to behave in one way or another, and Catherine’s journey, in part, is really to come to understand that there are no bad guys and there are no good guys. People make decisions, and humanity is flawed. I think that’s a big part of it.”
As we mentioned before, Beauty and the Beast premieres in October. Here’s a look at some photos from the press room and the panel, courtesy of CBS: