Fox’s new drama series Murder in a Small Town gave Kristin Kreuk and Erica Durance the chance to do something not often possible on Smallville — they got to share the screen together.
“I think we did more scenes on an episode [of Murder in a Small Town] than we did the entire time we were on a Smallville,” Durance, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly during a joint interview with Kreuk, 41, who added, “It was great because we got to have scenes together, which we really barely had when we were on Smallville together.”
Turns out, Kreuk and Durance’s onscreen reunion was actually years in the making.
“Erica and I have been talking about working together for years and trying to find projects that we can do that on,” Kreuk recalled. “This was serendipitous. It just was a show that was shooting around Vancouver — where we both live — and it was a fun role.”
Based on novels written by L. R. Wright, Murder in a Small Town follows a police chief named Karl (Rossif Sutherland) who — along with the help of others, including his girlfriend Cassandra (Kreuk) — investigates mysterious murders.In the show’s upcoming episode, set to air on Tuesday, October 15, Durance makes an appearance playing Cassandra’s friend from the past.
“It was just such a lovely experience to get to actually work with [Kristin] professionally. She knows me really well and in little moments where I needed something in a scene, it was just really, really sweet,” Durance gushed. “I would reach over and she would just hold my hand. Because there’s all sorts of stuff that you have to try to figure out sometimes emotionally when you’re working on something. If you don’t have a really quick repartee with somebody, it makes it a little more difficult.”
Kreuk felt the exact same way about how her and Durance’s “closeness” as friends benefitted their work, adding, “Erica has so much emotional work in this episode so it was nice to be able to have a safe environment to just go there. As the guest star, it’s so hard because you come in and you often carry the brunt of the emotional part of the episode — and it’s lovely to do that and not feel like a stranger [with your costar].”
Before collaborating on Murder in a Small Town, Kreuk and Durance acquired a long-lasting fanbase from their time on Smallville. The hit superhero series, which premiered in 2001 and ran for 10 seasons on the WB and later the CW, followed a teenage Clark Kent (Tom Welling) in his early days as a kid living on a farm with his adoptive parents Martha (Annette O’Toole) and Jonathan Kent (John Schneider).
Kreuk played Clark’s next-door neighbor and longtime crush Lana Lang, while Durance joined Smallville in 2004 as Lois Lane a.k.a Superman’s one true love. Durance later reprised the role alongside Welling, 47, in Crisis on Infinite Earths and while also playing Supergirl’s mother, Alura Zor-El, in 10 episodes of Supergirl.
The Smallville cast has continued to connect with fans of the show over the years by attending conventions.
“Being on the convention circuit has — maybe less so with Erica because we see each other in person [in Vancouver] — definitely really deepened the relationships I have [with the guys on the show] and that we have with each other,” Kreuk told Us. “It’s not something I anticipated.”
Durance said it’s “really cool” to be able to stay in touch with her former costars.
“[It is wonderful] to actually have relationships that grow with or change over time and actually get to sustain them on some level,” she added. “You get to see your friends go through experiences like marriage, children and there’s all these different things that I’ve seen various cast members do that I didn’t anticipate they were going to do. So having that level of friendship as consistent in this business is rare. It’s an honor actually.”
Kreuk and Durance are also grateful for the impact Smallville has had on its viewers.
“It’s incredibly special to be a part of a show that is people’s show. This is a show they turn to when they feel sad or a show they turn to when they’re going through something really challenging in their lives,” Kreuk noted. “It’s changed my entire perception and memory of the show that I worked on for eight years. It also is affirming to understand that I take myself out of the equation and see the show as what it is for other people.”
With that amount of ongoing love and support for Smallville, it only makes sense that fans have asked about a potential reboot or revival. Kreuk and Durance have heard Welling and Michael Rosenbaum teasing an animated series, which they think would be “a cool version” of an onscreen reunion.
“Something like that could be creative. We could continue the characters on and see them in a different place in their lives,” Kreuk explained before sharing what she would like to see happen for her character. “Lana left the show with powers and with a mission in her life so I would love for her to be able to come back with a drive. Maybe with something that she’s trying to accomplish, and then something happens and she gets pulled in.”
She added: “And within that, it would be wonderful if her and Lois could work on something together like work on solving whatever the thing is that needs to be solved or help somebody. I feel like it’d be nice to have something that’s more active and that wasn’t reliant on Clark.”
Durance agreed with Kreuk wholeheartedly, adding, “For my character — especially when they brought her back for Crisis — you see that she’s a mother. So that brings to mind what it would be like to tell the story properly that it is difficult being a mother and going back to your career. You can’t be all the things, you just do the best that you can. … To play a character that shows she’s still doing the best she can and she’s trying to hold that together.”
For now, fans can tune into Fox’s Murder in a Small Town to get their Smallville cast reunion fix. Durance is the only one of Kreuk’s former costars for now that has made an appearance — but there is always hope for more. (Kreuk did give Us some names to look out for in future episodes, including Devon Sawa, Noah Reid and Paula Patton.)
“It’s funny because they were talking about Michael Rosenbaum for a role at some point. Michael is a guy who likes to keep himself busy, but he doesn’t love traveling for work. He doesn’t like leaving Los Angeles that much — and even more specifically his home in Los Angeles,” Kreuk joked. “But he would’ve been great in the role. The actor that we ended up having in it was fantastic. But I think that if people are willing to say yes, there are many possibilities of who could come up and play a really interesting character because the guest star roles on Murder in a Small Town are often the most interesting.”
Murder in a Small Town airs on Fox Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
