From IFC Films and eOne, the serialized investigative drama series Burden of Truth (airing on The CW) follows attorney Joanna Hanley (Kristin Kreuk), as she leaves her career as a partner in a big-city corporate law firm to solve the case of a mysterious illness affecting the female high school students of her hometown. Along with local attorney Billy Crawford (Peter Mooney), Joanna knows they must find answers if they’re going to be able to deliver justice and solve the mystery of this life-altering case, all while searching for her own truth about the dark secrets that ultimately forced her family to leave town.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actress Kristin Kreuk talked about getting more involved with Burden of Truth as an executive producer, figuring out just what kind of show they wanted to make, finding her own voice in this business, what she loves about playing her character, the romanticism we develop about our past, the dynamic between Joanna and Billy, getting tongue-tied over the legal jargon, how happy she is with the way Season 1 played out, how much better she knows her character, now that they’re working on the already picked up Season 2, and the importance of keeping a dialogue going with the creative team behind the series, as the show continues.

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Image via The CW

Collider:  First of all, congratulations on Season 2! That’s a huge accomplishment in TV, these days.

KRISTIN KREUK:  Thank you! We’re pretty excited!

One of the most exciting and scary aspects of signing on for a TV series is that you don’t fully know what will be or where it will go. When it came to this, what were you most excited about and what were you most nervous about?

KREUK:  I think I was most excited about being able to be involved, from almost the conception of the show, and being able to shape the character and where she’ll grow, so that I can mitigate all of the risks one takes with a TV series. I was really excited about that. What I was worried about was that you never know with TV. It was a blank slate, so we had to figure out the right tone. We didn’t know if it was be a lighter show, or a more heavy drama. We had no idea. So, that unknown was particularly terrifying.

What were the most surprising things about getting that much more involved with a series and also being an executive producer?

KREUK:  How much it’s an empty void, in the beginning, was a surprise. You’ve got a sense of the character and the world that you’re living in. For us, it was also topics that we wanted to cover and ideas we wanted to look at. But apart from that, at the beginning of a Season 1 show, it’s just so empty, and that was surprising to me.

More and more frequently, women in this business seem to feel more confident about taking charge of their career, their projects, their characters, and finding their own voice, as a producer. When do you feel like you really found that voice and that confidence to speak up, not just for yourself, but the characters that you’re playing?

KREUK:  I still don’t feel like I’m very good at that and I still have a long way to go. I was so scared for so long. On Smallville, there came a point where I finally got the courage to give my opinion on something, and it was so hard. I remember being on the phone with the producers and stating my opinion, and then quietly crying. I was so terrified to voice anything. And from that point on, it’s been a slow process of becoming more and more confident, speaking up, and having people listen to me. Before this show, I had gone out and started pitching some of my own ideas, that I brought to eOne, who is akin to the studio on this. I mentioned my own stuff and they were like, “Yeah, maybe not. But here are some ideas of ours that we have in development. Do any of these resonate for you?” I was able to select from a bunch of shows that they had and find something that really moved me, and then go from there with them. That felt like a huge step forward. I obviously have a long way to go, but this is a really good step for me, in the right direction.

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Image via The CW

After doing Smallville and  Beauty and the Beast, which had sci-fi/fantasy twists to them, was it an adjustment to play someone who lives in the world of mere mortals and humans?

KREUK:  No. I wanted to do that. I think the main difference is the stakes. When you’re in the world of life and death because of aliens, or superpowers, or military experiments gone awry, the stakes are really intense, all the time. On our show, there are possibly life and death stakes, but it feels more like I can channel my own life experience. It doesn’t feel like you’re in a constantly heightened state. There’s a little more nuance and the fluctuations live in more of a gray area.

This character is clearly going to be on quite the journey this season. What did you most enjoy about playing her?

KREUK:  I love her because she’s a person who is great at her job and she doesn’t care what people think about her. She’s not going around adjusting her behavior, in order to have people like her, or think that what she is doing is okay. She’s so fearless, in that regard. That’s not what she was raised to value. Success is her gauge of what is good, and not how much people like you. It’s about respect, and I love that. It’s weird to go to set and come home and everyone has hated you, all day long. It’s something that I don’t do well with, normally, in my own life, so it was such a liberating thing to play a character who’s like that.

It’s always fun when a character who has run from their past has to go back and confront their past, and have to rely on people that may not necessarily think the best or the highest of her. What can you say about her relationship to this town and how the town feels about her being there again?

KREUK:  I don’t know what it’s like for you, but when I look back on my past, I have a certain idea of what happened. Your memory is a certain way. But in reality, especially if there’s a hometown – and my hometown is Vancouver – when I go back, I have massive feelings around it. For Joanna, it’s really palpable because she left so abruptly, at the age of 14. There’s a romanticism about her past, and a feeling that this was when it was good for them, before her parents split up. For her, going back, she has one idea of her father and of how they were respected in the town, but when she returns, she realizes that recollection was probably false, and that’s really jarring for her. The season is about her coming to terms with her childhood and learning what her childhood really was, and facing that and seeing how that affects how she makes decisions, in her current moment.

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Image via The CW

I love the dynamic between you and Peter Mooney. It’s so fun because neither one of your characters really knows what to make of the other. What do you think it is about him that really gets under her skin enough to make her start to see things differently?

KREUK:  There are a few things that happened for Joanna that make Billy the opposite of her. He chose to stay and do things that spoke to his heart, and that is so illogical to Joanna. That makes no sense, but it also appeals to her because there’s something about her job that isn’t quite jiving for her, and she doesn’t know what that is. Watching him and his passion and how much he cares for these girls, especially for his niece, gets to her, on some level. It’s confusing, but also awesome that he’s made the choices that he has. She would never have been able to, or been allowed to make those choices. It would have been considered terrible because she was taught that following your heart is bullshit. For her, just seeing that is like, “What? How did this person do these things? And why does my heart feel warm about it?”

That’s why I love the moment that one of the girls confronts Joanna because it feels like she’s in this bubble where people don’t do that with her. It’s nice to see her surprised that somebody isn’t afraid of her and  doesn’t necessarily mind telling her off.

KREUK:  Yeah, and reminding her that there’s a human cost. I feel like when I watch other legal shows, a lot of the time, we’re living in the world of the lawyers. We’re living in the office, the drama of the office, and their strategies to win cases. We don’t live with the people who they’re working for or against. And Joanna has to face, for the first time, that there are people on the other end of this, that she either knows or knows their parents. These are people that are aware of her. She can’t escape the personal, in this moment. For the first time, she’s like, “Oh, crap, my job does stuff to people’s lives.” I think that’s hard for her to reconcile.

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How much better does Joanna know herself and her father, by the end of the season?

KREUK:  Maybe she doesn’t. I don’t know how self-aware Joanna really is because it’s scary to look internally for her. But by the end of the season, there’s a massive, huge shift. In fact, by the end of Episode 4, Joanna has already made significant changes in her life.

How satisfied were you, by the way things all turned out, at the end of the first season?

KREUK:  I was really happy with it. It’s a funny little show that we made, that has these sweet personal moments. Sometimes I feel like we miss that on some television, but not all, obviously. There’s just so much great TV out there. Sometimes we miss those quiet moments, and our show has those really sweet moments. I remember watching Episode 5 and just being like, “Oh, this is so sweet!” I just feel so happy to be associated with this project. It’s pretty special to me.

Now that you’re doing a second season, how familiar does the character feel to you? Do you feel like you really know her, or do you feel like there’s still so much to figure out with her?

KREUK:  I feel like I know her, but there’s also a lot to figure out. It’s about finding a balance with the narrative. I think we like to get to a place where a character goes through a thing, and then they change, and then they’re different. In life, it’s a little harder for us to change that much. We go through a thing and we try to be different, and we now maybe see that the thing that we were doing before was problematic, but it’s hard to get out of those patterns. And so, for Joanna and for me, learning her and knowing her is a constant re-evaluation. I have a sense of her core. I understand her past. I know what her biggest fears are. She’s trying to change, but is unable to, in some ways.

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Image via The CW

When you’re playing somebody who is so good at what they do, is one of the bigger challenges being so good at all the legal stuff that it has to sound natural and like you’re confident with it?

KREUK:  Yes! I feel that’s the part I’m the worst at, which is fine. I do find it challenging to do that. She’s supposed to be incredibly competent and capable. The writing carries a lot of that, obviously, but me just being comfortable in my skin and standing in front of a room of people and presenting arguments, is generally something that I get a little scared about, personally. Joanna wouldn’t be, so doing that is challenging.

Do you ever get really tongue-tied?

KREUK:  Yeah, some days. With the courtrooms we shoot in, in Winnipeg, we can’t shoot during working hours, so it’s always through the middle of the night. We’re working all night long with these massive chunks of legal dialogue that are tough, but it’s a good challenge.

When you do a show like this, you have to rely a lot on the showrunner, since they have to keep everything in mind. How important is that collaborative dynamic to you?

KREUK:  It’s so important. In Canada, I feel like our showrunner system is a little bit different than in the United States because we often will have a mid-person, like a creative producer. On our show we’ve got Adam Pettle, who’s our showrunner, and also Brad Simpson, who is the creator of the show. I get to work with both of those people, and it’s a very collaborative process. I feel like we’re constantly in dialogue, and I feel very safe to speak my mind and work through things with them. I feel like people don’t take offense, and that we’re trying to make the best show possible. That is such a joy. It makes me so happy. They’re very good at juggling that with each of us, as actors, because every actor can be very invested in their characters.

Burden of Truth airs on Wednesday nights on The CW, starting on July 25th.

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