Lana Lang has a lot on her plate at the moment. Then again, so does Emmanuelle Chriqui.
The actress is currently pulling double duty on The CW’s Superman & Lois, playing both Clark’s hometown bestie and her villainous doppelganger from another dimension, the former of whom recently got the surprise of her life.
“When I read the script, I was like, ‘No way. No. Way. Is this seriously happening right now?’” Chriqui tells TVLine of Clark revealing his secret identity to Lana. “It was a magical moment to film, the way we did it at sunset in the middle of this long road. It felt like a special moment when we were filming it, and it seems like that translated and was a good payoff for the audience.”
We’ll see the effects of that “loaded” reveal when Superman & Lois returns with new episodes on Tuesday (8/7c), but for now, Chriqui confirms that it’s “going to forever change the dynamic between everybody.”
Now for the second-biggest surprise for Lana this season: the existence of her evil Bizarro World twin! (At this point, Kyle’s affair ranks as Lana’s third-biggest surprise, right ahead of her winning the Smallville mayoral race.)
“It’s so fun and different,” Chriqui says of getting to play a supervillain. “Lana Lang is so the do-gooder and Lana-Rho is the complete opposite, so it’ll be interesting to see where they take that. Adam Rayner and I were talking about how funny it is that Tal-Rho in the ‘real world’ has no idea that Lana is his wife in the Bizarro World.”
That said, Chriqui would rather leave the stunts to the professionals. While shooting action scenes, she asked Tyler Hoechlin, “‘What do you do when you need to shoot lasers out of your eyes? What’s the stance’ He makes it look so effortless. … Unfortunately, when I was training for the Bizarro episode, I dislocated my shoulder. My stunt double ended up having to do a lot of what I was supposed to do, and she made me look like a badass.”
Your thoughts on Lana, Lana-Rho or any other form the character may take? Drop ’em in a comment below.
