Thanks to the success of James Gunn’s Superman, many fans of the Man of Steel have been watching old episodes of the CW teen drama Smallville. This was the show that focused on Clark Kent’s life before he donned the cape, and it shone a spotlight on some of his closest friends. One of those was Lana Lang, who was played to perfection by Kristin Kreuk.
Smallville helped to make household names out of many of its key actors, including Kreuk. However, she was written out of the show before its final season, and she’s never again had a role nearly as high-profile as that of Lana Lang. Accordingly, many fans of the show have been asking the big question: where is Kristin Kreuk now?
You don’t need X-Ray vision…it turns out she’s just been chilling in Vancouver. Keep reading to discover how she got there and what life after Smallville was really like!
Smallville helped to make Kristin Kreuk a pop culture icon
Unless you were a big fan of Smallville at the time, it’s hard to really appreciate how popular Kristin Kreuk was. Sure, she doesn’t appear on TV as much these days, but back then, she was one of the most recognizable faces in the world. And she was most beloved by Smallville’s key demographic: teens.
Because of that, she constantly appeared in teen magazines. This was back when the internet was relatively young, and teens were far likelier to find entertainment on TV and in magazines than online. Kristin Kreuk dominated magazine covers and television screens for seven years, which is why it was especially surprising to see her Smallville career come to an end.
Life after Smallville
Smallville ran for eight seasons. While she appeared in seven of them, Kristin Kreuk was absent from the final season. The reason for this is that her character, Lana Lang, had always been intended to serve as a love interest for Clark Kent. By the eighth season, he had moved to Metropolis and begun to work as a reporter. Therefore, the show’s producers wrote Kreuk out of the show (her character permanently absorbs Kryptonite and can no longer go near Clark) so that the Lois Lane character could have a bigger role.
This meant that Kristin Kreuk had to leave her longest-running and most popular show. Still, she starred in a number of shows after this, including a brief stint on Chuck, she later appeared in the CW show Beauty and the Beast. More recently, she starred in four seasons of Burden of Truth and made a short appearance on Reacher. Along the way, she also starred in Ectasy, a film where she played against type as a party girl who falls in love with a drug dealer!
Becoming a producer
Unlike some actors who became very famous early on, Kristin Kreuk has shown no signs of wanting to permanently leave acting behind. Nonetheless, she has taken on another role in the entertainment world: that of producer. Shortly after Smallville ended, she helped found the production company Parvati Creative.
This gave Kreuk the invaluable experience of being a producer. That experience eventually allowed her to wear multiple hats on some of her bigger shows. For example, she was a producer on both Beauty and the Beast and Burden of Truth, two shows she starred in. While this would have kept anyone crazy busy, Kreuk still found time between acting and producing to earn a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in History!
Accidentally joining a sex cult
Since Smallville ended, most of its actors (including main stars like Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum) have stayed under the radar. The same can’t be said for Allison Mack, who played Clark Kent’s BFF Chloe Sullivan. Unfortunately, she made headlines for all the wrong reasons: Mack was convicted of racketeering and conspiracy to recruit women into NXIVM, a sex-trafficking cult.
It eventually came out that she had helped recruit Kristin Kreuk as well, who quickly left the cult altogether. Eventually, Kruek spoke out about the experience. As reported by Elle, she only joined the group because she was seeking a “a self-help/personal growth course that helped me handle my previous shyness, which is why I continued with the program.” She clarified that she was never part of the “inner circle” overseen by leader Keith Raniere and had nothing to do with the “sex slaves” that the group reportedly trafficked in.
After setting the record straight, Kreuk expressed more thoughts about this group and what she hoped would happen to those involved in sex trafficking. “I am deeply disturbed and embarrassed to have been associated with NXIVM,” she said. “I hope that the investigation leads to justice for all of those affected.”