TVGuide.com: For starters, congratulations on being the top-rated female in our Sexiest Sci Fi Stars poll.
Allison Mack: Really?! [Laughs] I had no idea! That’s cool.

TVGuide.com: Well-played!
Mack: Thank you! That’s so interesting….

TVGuide.com: The last time we spoke was two years ago ("Smallville‘s Chloe, You Got Us Mail"). How would you say Chloe has changed in that time?
Mack: Oh my gosh…. Well, she’s come to have superpowers, she’s been killed about four times [Laughs], she’s getting married, she’s been infected by Brainiac….. I think she has come into her own in a way that she never has before. I think she’s starting to understand what she wants separate and aside from Clark, and she is building her own relationship with herself and her own life, and proactively going after all of that instead of just running around and doing whatever she thinks Clark needs. She’s grown into her own woman.

TVGuide.com: Has it felt different on the set this season with Michael [Rosenbaum, Lex] and Kristin [Kreuk, Lana] gone, and some new faces around?
Mack: It has, it has, it’s been very different. But it’s also lovely. Cassidy Freeman (Tess) and Sam [Witwer, Davis] are fantastic, fantastic actors, and they’re so passionate about the show. It’s breathing new life into the show in a way we really needed.

TVGuide.com: It looks like we have a very wild year ahead for Chloe….
Mack: Yes, there’s lots of craziness happening, which for me is great.

TVGuide.com: The producers have said this is the year of "double identities." How does that factor into Chloe’s world?
Mack: You guys have way more information than we ever get, you realize that, right? [Laughs] Well, on the one hand, she’s still doing work with Clark and getting married to Jimmy and doing her lovely, good-girl Chloe thing, and on the other hand she’s struggling with this "pull" towards Davis and these dark, evil tendencies and a want to destroy things, which is very much Brainiac. She has a massive pull between these two sides of her that’s he’s struggling to suppress until she learns to understand it.

TVGuide.com: All told, how will her increasing powers manifest themselves?
Mack: She’s ridiculously intelligent – like highly, highly, highly brilliant, and able to take in information in a way that is beyond anything one could ever imagine. She can relate to computers in a way she never was able to before….

TVGuide.com: She was pretty damn handy with a computer before, too!
Mack: Yes, absolutely. But she was a very good soul with very good intentions, and she still strives to be that, but she’s not necessarily succeeding anymore.

TVGuide.com: The Chloe-Jimmy-Davis triangle: Is it going to be played pretty fairly, or is Davis going to have a slight edge here?
Mack: He’s going to have a slight edge because there’s an attraction to Davis that neither of us can understand, one that comes from a Krypton sort of place. Davis has a bit of an upper hand in that respect because there’s a biological pull they’re both feeling but not understanding.

TVGuide.com: Plus he’s all shiny and new and interesting.
Mack: He is shiny and new and interesting, and that’s always nice. Then again, there’s a tried-and-true loyal quality that Jimmy has exhibited. So there’s also that.

TVGuide.com: How quickly will Chloe become suspicious of Mr. Bloome (aka Doomsday)? How soon will she suspect that something is….
Mack: Amiss? That would mean she would have to recognize that there was something negative about her. It’s going to take a little while before she actually starts evaluating that there might be something wrong with him. She’s defending him right now, in a pretty major way.

TVGuide.com: There are fans who email me every week to talk about how you and Tom Welling have the best chemistry on the show….
Mack: Awwww…. We’ve been working together forever, so that’s probably par for the course.

TVGuide.com: Right, but having worked together "forever," is that chemistry something you have to revisit each season? Or is it what it is?
Mack: I don’t think we work at it at all, it’s something that we’ve learned in each other and that we’ve built. It’s not something that goes away. There’s an affection for each other – I adore him, and I think there’s a similar fondness for me back – and that comes from "growing up" together. That isn’t something we have to rekindle. It will always exist between us.

Next week, in Part 2 of this Q&A: Allison assays the new parameters of the "Chlark" relationship, previews the upcoming episodes "Instinct," "Abyss" and "Bride," and shares her amusing take on the never-to-be-seen comic-book rendition of Chloe.