Smallville

Cassidy Freeman as Smallville's Tess Mercer

As the ubiquitous villain Tess Mercer, Cassidy Freeman has had the unenviable task of taking the place of Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex Luthor on Smallville. While some declared Rosenbaum’s departure from the show the ‘Jump The Shark’ moment for Smallville, Freeman’s artful portrayal of Mercer and the seemingly endless supply of expertly crafted story-lines for her character have mooted the question of whether a post-Lex Smallville could still please fans. It has, and many thank Cassidy’s considerable talents for that.

TVOvermind was lucky enough to have a few minutes to speak with Cassidy about where Tess is going in season 9 of Smallville.

How have Tess’s motivations changed since the ‘Zod’ incident?

I’m not really sure that her motivations have changed. I think that she still wants the best for the Earth, and I think she’s trying to figure out now if what she has done will aid that or will hurt that.

On that note, what do you think her intent is as far as Zod is concerned. Is he a potential Ally.

She’s really trying to figure that out right now. She doesn’t know, and that frustrates her. He’s not really giving up a lot and they are both power hounds so they don’t know if they can trust the other person. It’s a bit of a poker face game right now.

Do you think that Tess has gotten over Lex at this point?

She’s definitely out of his shadow, but I don’t think she will ever get over the way he treated her. She is definitely on her own train.

The scenes with Tess and Lois are fun to watch, and intense. What do you guys do to get into character?

They are fun scenes to do! How do we get into character? Let’s see. Erica and I just shove each other around for a while, and be really mean to each other. [Laughs] No, she [Lois] is someone that frustrates me a lot because she has a lot of things that I don’t have, and vice-versa. She is just someone that I don’t respect very much, and someone I feel that I can manipulate – or try to at least, she keeps getting me.

Any teases you can give for Echo?

Well, I know you already know that Toyman is coming back. He’s always fun, such a great character. Me and Oliver have an pretty awesome storyline going on. But, I think all of the teases I could give you you could probably find on Kryptonsite, or something like that. I’m not really allowed to say much more than they say.