I spoke with the talented Lindy Booth about her role as Cassandra Cillian on The Librarians. She dishes on her character, her glorious cast mates, John Kim’s hazing, her Night Court obsession, and so much more. If you think you weren’t obsessed with Dan Fielding, you are totally kidding yourself. I’m with Lindy on that one; Dan was the best. Lindy was a delight to speak with. Not only is she on The Librarians, but she also starred in Copper and Supernatural, two of my other favorite shows. Copper was taken from us way too soon. Do NOT let that happen to The Librarians. Don’t miss the two-hour season finale of The Librarians, Sunday night at 8/7c on TNT.
Lena: I’m really enjoying the series.
Lindy Booth: Thank you so much. We had so much fun making it.
Lena: It has brought back some of the charm that has been missing from television since Leverage ended.
Lindy Booth: That’s so great to hear. Leverage was such a great show, so I’ll take any comparison.
Lena: Can you talk about working on the show and being part of such an amazing cast?
Lindy Booth: Working on the show has been a total dream come true for me. I had so much fun. I loved going to work everyday. The cast is so amazing. Rebecca Romijn is the most beautiful, awesome, funny, hilarious, girl you could ever dream to work with. She’s becoming such a good friend and I’m so happy to be able to work with her. I loved working with Christian; obviously Leverage fans are excited to have him back on TV. He’s just so great. He’s like an older brother and the sweetest, kindest, generous guy. And little John Kim we all love. It’s his first big show and he’s crushing it. He is just so cute and so fun. And then John Larroquette, I mean it’s my dream to work with him. I was obsessed with Night Court when I was little. I could not get enough of Dan Fielding, so to be able to go to work and sit in the front row of his comedy master class everyday is outrageously cool for me.
Lena: Even the guest cast is amazing.
Lindy Booth: I know. Every episode we have someone new, exciting, and fun. It’s awesome.
Lena: The haunted house episode [“And the Heart of Darkness”] was a really strong one for Cassandra.
Lindy Booth: Yeah. It was a great episode and so much fun. When I first read the script for it, I actually cried. I was so touched by it and I think that they really hit something with the psyche of her power and it comes from the fact that she doesn’t fear death because she knows how it’s coming and it doesn’t bother her. I think one of the most extraordinary things with the character, who everyone sees as sort of weak and not super strong, is to finally have this moment to lash out and say, “It doesn’t matter; I’m going to die anyway.”
Lena: I was wondering how you think she sees herself compared to how others see her?
Lindy Booth: You know, I think for a long time she probably really did believe that she really didn’t have anything to offer. I think we saw in the first episode, where we meet her where she is very quite and very neat, she’s a genius and she’s taking a job as a janitor in a hospital. I think she was really beaten down and thought she’s been told that she’s weird enough times and now she’s dying and why not just sort of give up and just get through life. I think this moment when she first meets Flynn and tells him that it’s not a problem it’s the extraordinary gifts that we have been given. That idea of just opening up her eyes to that and being able to see life and live life again for the first time. It’s been really fun for me to play and I think that is where a lot of this joy and childlike enthusiasm comes from, the fact that she is being given a second chance at life.
Lena: What do you think she would have to do to get Jake to trust her?
Lindy Booth: I think it’s time. I think Jake is such a good old boy, such a man of the earth and I think it just takes time. I think it takes moments like the haunted house episode where Cassandra does prove herself. You know, she really did hurt him. She betrayed the team and as someone who has probably been hurt a lot before, I can understand why he wouldn’t trust her immediately again. I think it’s been fun for Christian and I to play these characters as sort of people who want to work together, people who want to be friends that have this bridge to overcome and I think it’s been interesting to watch them grow together. I think you will start to see them trusting each other and being closer because of that.
Lena: You are the best-dressed character on the show. That blue sweater that you wore in “And the Rule of Three” was gorgeous.
Lindy Booth: Thank you. I’m personally a total clothes whore. I love clothes. I’ve had so much fun. I had a very specific idea of what I wanted Cassandra to look like. Critter Pierce is our amazing costume designer. It’s a lot of fun playing Cassandra and putting outfits together that didn’t necessarily belong together. We tried to really show who the character is and how she’s grown through the wardrobe, which is a lot of fun.
Lena: Morgan’s (Alicia Witt) message, “Do not fear the villain, fear the hero.” has me really excited about the season finale.
Lindy Booth: The finale is going to be great. It’s an excellent episode that we are super excited about. We do have another amazing guest star that I think fans will be excited, not only about the actor playing the role, about the role that he is playing. That’s about all I can tease. I think people will be really excited about it. That message from Morgan will definitely come back. We will learn the meaning behind that saying.
Lena: Something is definitely going on with Jenkins. If you do get a season two, what would you like to see for Cassandra?
Lindy Booth: I think more of what we’ve been talking about. I would love to see the relationship grow. This whole first season has been about figuring each other out and figuring out where we fit in the team. I think it would be really exciting to watch these characters move forward, see them develop, and get better at their jobs and find their places sort of within each other. The whole relationship building is something that I’m definitely excited about.
Lena: What was one of your favorite episodes to film?
Lindy Booth: I had so much fun shooting the fairytale episode [“And the Fables of Doom”] and the fact that they turned Cassandra into Prince Charming was so amazing. For me to have a chance to play that was so fun and the fact that none of the other characters batted an eyelash—it was just Cassandra and everyone was in love with her and that was just not going to be weird. It was so much fun for me. We had all these amazing opportunities to play different versions of ourselves, different versions of our characters, so much fun. Like playing evil Cassandra was super fun. And Cassandra being so excited about Santa was amazing. I loved it. I love my job.
Lena: Santa was even played by Bruce Campbell.
Lindy Booth: I know! How amazing was that?
Lena: What goes on behind-the-scenes? Who is the biggest prankster on the set?
Lindy Booth: It’s hard to call anyone a prankster. I would say that it’s mostly just group jokes. Our biggest longest running joke of the season was that John Kim thought that he was going to have to change his name because there were too many people named John Kim in SAG already, in the union. So, the longest running gag was that we had to come up with new nicknames for him, everything from Koala Newton John, in a nod to his Australian past. At one point he decided that his new name should be rooftop, which led us all on this running joke that we had to come up with a two word household item that could be John Kim’s first name. Just before anyone would yell action we would yell out TEA POT or COAT HANGER. It was everyone else’s job to keep a straight face while you are yelling BED PAN. That was just our running gag and it never ended well. It always ended with most of us cracking up while we were shooting.
Lena: That’s great. It seems like John Kim is a funny guy.
Lindy Booth: He is. He’s so sweet and fun. He’s such a good sport. It was his first big job, so we all hazed him a little bit.
Lena: That’s okay. I’m sure it was good for him.
Lindy Booth: Yeah. He needed it. He’s good now. Now he’s getting us all back. He’ll rule the world.
Follow Lindy Booth (@LindyBooth) and The Librarians (@TheLibrariansTNT) on Twitter
Don’t miss the two-hour season finale of The Librarians Sunday night at 8/7c on TNT.