Kreuk Talks Earthsea
SciFi

Kristin Kreuk, who plays a young priestess in SCI FI Channel's upcoming original fantasy miniseries Earthsea, told SCI FI Wire that her character doesn't even meet her co-star, X-Men's Shawn Ashmore, until late in the story. Ashmore plays Ged, a young man who is attempting to master his magic abilities when he unwittingly unleashes a dark force, in the miniseries based on two of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea novels, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan. Kreuk is Tenar, a member of a religious order led by Thar, the High Priestess of Atuan (Isabella Rossellini).

"He has visions of her, and she has visions of him," Kreuk (Smallville) said in an interview at SCI FI's fall press preview in Los Angeles last week. "She sees him doing what she [believes are] evil things, and so through the entire movie she's constantly aware that he's getting closer to where they are." Kreuk's character, a member of an order of powerful priestesses, is safeguarding the tombs of the Nameless Ones, who are coveted by a powerful king. But though Tenar fears Ged, "I think she's torn in her feelings about him," Kreuk said. "In her head, he's this evil guy. [But] in her heart she feels like he's good."

Kreuk added that Tenar is an orphan who has found her way to the temple at Atuan, where she was accepted into the order. "She's strong," she said. "She has her beliefs, and she sticks by them, and she's willing to fight for them. But she's a little different from a lot of the other priestesses in the sense that she's a little more laid-back. She can relax a bit more and laugh, and she gets affected by things a bit more. ... She's still very self-contained, but incredibly strong."

Kreuk added that she was not familiar with Le Guin's books, but that her sister was an avid fan. When Kreuk told her sister that she would be involved, "she said, ... 'Don't ruin it,'" Kreuk said. "She's my sister. She's a little sarcastic." Earthsea, a four-hour miniseries that also stars Danny Glover, comes from Emmy-Award-winning producer Robert Halmi Sr. and Pulp Fiction producer Lawrence Bender. It premieres in December.