KryptonSite Interview: Cassidy Freeman Talks Smallville's Season 8 Finale, "Doomsday"
Interview By Craig Byrne - KryptonSite Webmaster

Going into Season 8 of Smallville, the show's new executive producers had their work cut out for them as they had to create new characters to replace the popular Lex Luthor and Lana Lang, as the actors who played them, Michael Rosenbaum and Kristin Kreuk, had moved on. Fortunately, the two new actors brought on to the show - Sam Witwer as Davis Bloome and Cassidy Freeman as Tess Mercer - were both up to the challenge of bringing the characters to life and creating a new "feel" for Smallville.

To promote Thursday night's season finale episode "Doomsday," Cassidy Freeman took the time to speak with KryptonSite about the episode and to talk about her time on Smallville. Our questions are printed in bold, her answers are not.

How much are you allowed to tell us about Thursday's season finale?

It's never been told to me [how much I can say], but I have this little voice in my head that's like "you will get totally beaten if you talk about it." I can't tell you who dies, I can't tell you if I'm coming back next season or not, but I can tell you that part of the Justice League is coming back. There's obviously going to be a throwdown between Doomsday and Clark. I can tell you from a personal standpoint, that I was really surprised by the script when I first read it. I'm really excited to see it, personally.

It is said that there is a fight scene between Tess and Lois. Is acting a fun way to get out some aggression?

It's always fun to get aggression out through acting. It's funny; you'll go to a lot of acting classes and they'll have activities where you'll have to be doing something, and a lot of times they'll give you props to mess with when you're acting. They're like "just be folding laundry while you're saying that!" [To me], pointless action is superfluous, whereas when your action is moving the scene forward, that's really fun, and for me, personally, I don't really have to think about what I'm saying too much. It just comes out more naturally. I love being physical while I act. That scene in "Committed" with Oliver was really fun, because I wasn't really focusing on what I was saying as much as what I was doing.

Will the storyline involving Tess and the Kryptonian orb, from the final moments of "Injustice," be picked up on in the finale?

Yes. The Orb definitely plays a part in the finale. I feel like it's my pet now, or that I'm its pet, because it's kind of running my life, and I think that it's the most important thing. I just want these two to throw down. Not because I want a fight, and not because I want to hurt Clark, but because I want him to be who he is. Like in "Eternal," with the whole Jesus/Judas thing, it was pretty intense. But the point of it is genuine, because I want what all the fans want. I want him to become Superman, and I think this is the only way for him to do it, and the Orb is part of that.

What was it like to work with Tom Welling as a director?

It was awesome. We get along great and I have oodles of respect for that man. As someone who's been a star of a show for a long time, people would give him a lot of leeway to be a jerk, and he's just the antithesis of that. And [with him] as a director, it's cool to work with a co-actor, because I didn't know a lot of the directors that we worked with. Everyone else on the show did, because they may have directed an episode back in Season 5. I was new, so I had to create a new relationship with every director, whereas with Allison in "Power" and Tom in "Injustice", I knew them, so we already had a vocabulary that we shared, and we got to go a little bit deeper with that.

Also, Tom has something called "actor's trust" which I think you can only have when you perform. It's knowing that you can give an actor some direction, and they're going to do the best they can with it; almost relinquising a little bit of control and putting a little bit more trust in the actor, which I appreciate.

Was the Smallville experience what you had expected for it to be?

I really had no expectations. I try to live life that way, because then I'm never really let down. But, I guess I didn't expect it to go as quickly as it did. The first month felt like forever, and then all of a sudden, it was March. It goes really fast and you get into a rhythm, and maybe I didn't expect it to be such a family. I don't know; I didn't expect anything, but I was very happy with the outcome.

If Tess does make it past the season finale, what stories would you like to see in Season 9?

This is the thing about her: If she goes, and I think fans have kind of realized this as well, she kind of knows a lot, so she can't play that whole 'is she gonna find out' card. She makes it difficult. Which is why everyone thinks I'm toast on Thursday, right? [laughs] I think it'd be really interesting if she became an ally of Clark's.

Did you worry about Tess's fate when it seemed she was learning all of Clark's secrets so quickly?

It's funny; I was never really worried about her fate. I always knew that on any show like this, people can die and come back and die again, but I trusted that they were going to do what they needed to do with her. I've always seen her as someone that adds to the show. The show's about Clark Kent, so whatever she can do to help that story, she should do. She found out so quickly. It was a little odd, and it was a lot of information for me, personally, because I was like "Whoa, whoa! Hold the phone!" But I think it all revolved around Veritas, that journal. I've had people ask me "How did she do in one season what took seven for Lex to do?" and the answer is just that I have the key to the vault, and I read the Cliff's Notes. He did all the work and I did all the reading. [laughs] So, I don't know that it's necessarily fair, but she's definitely a woman of action.

Did anyone in production ever let you know who "X" was earlier this season?

We didn't have a full talk about it. I always thought it was Lex, because as an actor, I already knew about the eye thing, so I knew he was watching me. I think that's also who Tess thought it was, because this all-powerful man that she's been searching for just says nothing? There's no trace of him? Of course he must be somewhere and he's aware of what she's doing.

How did the character of Tess change once she realized she was being watched? And did that change her character's loyalties?

People always want to know if she's a villain or a hero. That's what's cool about her, is that I don't think she's either. I think she's human, which is odd in a show like Smallville. She's this woman and she's had a rough past and she's dealing with it. For her, personally, I think it totally was for the better, because she stopped being an android. She walked around at the beginning, acting like Lex, being like Lex, looking for Lex, and it let her have her own personality.

Legend has it you were tricked by one of KryptonSite's April Fool's jokes this year.

Well, I love KryptonSite, and I go on there all the time. I read the reviews and see how the ratings are doing, and I love to see what fans think of certain episodes, especially if I have a memory of it. I went online the night before, around midnight or one in the morning. It was already April Fool's, but to me it was already March and I didn't even think about it. I remember seeing this headline saying "Lex Comes Back" and I saw the one that surprised me - "Justin Hartley Goes To Melrose Place," and I was like "whhhaaaat?" I was totally duped, and I immediately clicked on the "more information," and then I got the April Fool's jokes. That was awesome.

I don't think the April Fool's jokes have ever tricked a cast member before.

Well, you've got Lady Gullible over here.

How do you feel the dynamic would have changed if Lex had returned to the show?

I don't know. Lex knows how to stand on his own. He's had these women in his life that have come and gone, and his dad, but it would've been easy to play the Miss Teschmacher side of Tess Mercer, which only happens when Lex is there. It would have been fun, I think.

You and Sam Witwer were Smallville's two new cast members this year, but it took quite a while for you to interact. What was it like when it finally happened?

That was really fun, actually. Sam and I, as actors, were like "Finally! We get to meet!" I really like what they did with these two new villains. It was cool, because I was playing bad but actually wasn't as bad as I was playing, and he came in playing good, and he was actually a hell of a lot worse than he was playing. So I think it was a really cool ying-yang effect of these two villains. I thought ["Eternal"] was a cool episode.

In some interviews you've talked about your enjoyment of the show in general. Is there any episode this season that you wish you had been in, or any actor you wish you had worked with more than you did?

I remember "Hex" being a really fun episode. I didn't really have a place in it as my character, though. Someone that I wish that I had worked with this year was Aaron Ashmore. Tess never got to meet Jimmy, and I was super bummed, because Aaron and I would walk past each other on set and be like "oh, hey! I don't know you. Never met you." [laughs] So that would have been fun, and also, I love the Lois and Tess stuff, and I'm glad that there's some of that in the finale.

What will you take from the Smallville experience?

I couldn't have had a more positive first soiree into being a series regular of a show. It's different when you go in and do guest star appearances on shows and you're sort of the flavor of the week. The people are nice to you and they're sweet, but you don't know them, and they're not going to remember you in three weeks, and that's fine, but I'm a family-oriented person. I love having people around me that I know and I get along with, and I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to do that. So, good things. That, and I got to act with an Orb, and who gets to do that?

The fans refer to the Orb as a Disco Ball.

Tom and I sometimes talk about making Smallville: The Half Hour Comedy, and with all of the funny things that happen on set, we're like "that should totally be in Smallville: The Sitcom," and I think the Orb being the Disco Ball would definitely be in Smallville: The Sitcom.

What do you have coming up next?

I'm shooting a movie in June called Yellow Brick Road, and it is a horror thriller that two of my good friends and co-artists wrote and are directing. It's about some people in a town in New Hampshire in 1940, who went and followed this trail head for no reason whatsoever into the wilderness. They never returned, and no one knows why. Because of the time, everyone sort of swept it under the rug and were super embarrassed about it, and now a team of eight people have been compiled to go and travel the same road - the Yellow Brick Road - and see what happens. The tag line is 'They went to find the evil in the forest and the forest found the evil in them.' It's a really cool, creepy script. I get scared watching scary movies. I don't cover my eyes, but I cover my ears, because the scariest part is actually the noise, so it'll be interesting to actually be in it, rather than watching it.

If this is it for you, do you have any parting words for Smallville fans, and any reasons to share of why they should be sure to tune in on Thursday night?

They should watch it on Thursday just because it's awesome. But also, I just can't tell you how cool it is to also walk into a show with such a strong fan base. And positive or negative, I appreciate the passion that everyone watches this show puts into it. I don't think anyone's writing in to Samantha Who? being like "the mythos!" I think it's really cool.

Be sure to watch the Season 8 finale of Smallville, May 14, 2009 at 8PM on The CW. Thanks to Cassidy Freeman for taking the time to do this interview!

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