Beasties! The Season 2 premiere of Beauty and the Beast is only hours away in Canada and a day away in the US, so now’s the perfect time to share our chat with Nina Lisandrello from a recent visit to the set in Toronto! Here’s what we learned about what’s in store for Tess this season!
- At the start of Season 2, Tess is having a difficult time. Nina shared that Tess wants to help Cat find Vincent, “but she’s also been inundated with all of the cases that the DA has overturned because they were tampered with.” With Joe out of the picture, Tess is responsible for fixing all of these cases.
- Cat has lost her parents and Vincent is missing. Tess is straddling the fence between being a really good friend but also trying to help Cat move on with her life.
- Nina thought a fun surprise in Season 1 was Tess and JT teaming up, and we’ll see more of them working together this season. “It’s a very rocky relationship but they end up discovering they have more in common than not. They have a lovely, lovely chemistry, and it’s battle of the snark.”
- One aspect that Nina loves about this season is that among the darkness of Cat’s storyline, Tess and JT add a comedic factor. She said that their roles are “to make the scenes funnier and lighter and inject some energy because the stakes can’t always be so high.”
- Tess is going to push Cat to have some fun, and Cat is going to do that in a big way in the fourth episode of the season. “When Cat is letting loose more than Tess and Tess has to rein Cat in, we have a serious problem.” (I can’t wait to see this episode!!!)
- Tess has a broken heart after losing Joe, but isn’t necessarily tending to it. She told us that “Tess is not the most communicative person. She doesn’t like to talk about her feelings. She will end up yelling or having an attitude or hiding behind snarkiness, but deep down, she’s completely heartbroken that she’s lost her boyfriend.” She went on to say that “She’s a woman that lives such a difficult lifestyle that with Joe gone, she never thinks that she’ll find someone again … at the end of the day, Cat is all Tess has, so Tess is feeling very lonely, very vulnerable and desperate to connect with someone who will understand her.”
- Nina teased that there are definitely some potential new men on the horizon for Tess, and one that may not even be on her radar. “Tess doesn’t necessarily know that the person who is meant for her is right in front of her face.”
- She enjoyed the ensemble dynamic that developed by the end of the first season. “Tess was the character who was completely unaware, who didn’t understand the vast complexities of what Catherine was going through. Now she does know and she was allowed in, it was really exciting. That episode when Vincent saves Tess was so exciting because now we can drop the BS and start to really have an honest conversation, and have a character that is so New York and simple to be let in on the most bizarre supernatural situations.”
- Nina did say that Tess’ disbelief carries into the second season in the way that Tess realizes that “this is not normal behaviour for people to turn into beasts. Cat is so in the world that it’s not at all odd, but Tess is always going to come from that place of shock and discomfort with it.”
- Tess is still cautious when it comes to Vincent. “Tess doesn’t know what Muirfield did to Vincent. At the end of the day, Tess is there to protect Cat, whether that means saying something that Cat necessarily not going to like.” She added that Tess’ loyalty is with Cat, not Vincent.
- Although Tess is very anchored in reality, but she shared, “When we start this season, Tess is coming from a place of lying, deceit, and all of this [resulted in] her losing Joe, so she’s kind of a cautionary tale for Cat.” With all of the deception and not knowing who you can trust, Tess wants Cat to be more careful.
Photo by Melissa Girimonte. Copyright © 2013 TheTelevixen.com
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