CANNES, France 鈥� Viewers have watched former Smallville and Beauty and the Beast star Kristin Kreuk grow up on television.
The 35-year-old Vancouver native has spent half her life in the spotlight. She was still a teenager when Smallville launched in 2001, making her an instant Comic-Con crush as Clark Kent鈥檚 girlfriend Lana Lang.
After a dozen years as a CW ingenue, she finally felt like the grown-up on the set while making CBC鈥檚 Burden of Truth, which airs Wednesdays.
Compounding that feeling is working opposite young actors who were her age when she started out on Smallville.
鈥淭o be around them, it feels like: 鈥極h God, your entire life I鈥檝e been on a set,鈥� 鈥� Kreuk said during a press tour in Cannes, where the series was being shopped internationally.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a weird experience.鈥�
These young actors didn鈥檛 grow up watching Smallville, Kreuk said, 鈥渂ecause they would have been three.鈥�
The new hour-long drama is about a big city lawyer who tackles a troubling case that puts her back in touch with her small-town roots. The series was shot in Selkirk, Man., about 70 kilometres outside of Winnipeg.
In a season-long storyline, Kreuk鈥檚 character 鈥� fast-rising corporate lawyer Joanna Hanley 鈥� is dispatched to the prairie town of Millwood to quickly shut down a case against a giant pharmaceutical company. Young girls at the local high school have come down with a mysterious illness causing uncontrollable seizures. Hanley is there, essentially, to buy off the victims and their families.
The series was created by Brad Simpson, a story editor and writer who previously worked on Rookie Blue and the short-lived Toronto cop drama King. It was developed at eOne 鈥渂ut it wasn鈥檛 going anywhere,鈥� said seasoned executive producer Ilana Frank (Saving Hope, Rookie Blue).
Simpson, Frank鈥檚 stepson, relinquished the producer role and Adam Pettie (Saving Hope) was brought in as showrunner.
鈥淚 thought: 鈥楾his has got to be made,鈥� 鈥� Frank said. 鈥淜ristin was already attached, so some of the hard work was done already.鈥�
Kreuk, also an executive producer, huddled with Simpson in the early going to define her character and continues that collaboration with Pettie.
鈥淚 feel like she鈥檚 a creation of all of us,鈥� said Kreuk, who sees the young lawyer as 鈥渁 little socially awkward 鈥� like me.鈥�
Frank thinks of the series 鈥渁s a cross between Friday Night Lights and a kind of John Grisham thing.鈥� The back-to-the-small-town storyline might remind some viewers of the drama Everwood, starring Treat Williams.
鈥淚 wanted it to be about the community,鈥� Frank said. 鈥淏ut I didn鈥檛 want people with straw out of their mouths. I wanted real people with real problems.鈥�
The main problem in the first season is the mysterious illness inflicting the otherwise healthy high-school girls. Representing the victims is Hanley鈥檚 former high-school classmate, Billy Crawford (Peter Mooney from Rookie Blue). Mooney, in real life, hails from 鈥渁 slightly bigger small town鈥� just south of Winnipeg.
The Selkirk locals were 鈥渨elcoming and wonderful,鈥� Mooney said. 鈥淭hey got over having a film crew in town fairly quickly.鈥�
What viewers will slowly discover is that there was a reason the Hanleys abruptly left town when Joanna was 14 鈥� a secret that will take much of the season to become clear. 鈥淓very week, you will get another piece of the puzzle,鈥� Kreuk said.
