Kristin Kreuk, best known for role as Smallville’s Lana Lang, has been

Kristin Kreuk, best known for role as Smallville’s Lana Lang, has been confirmed as the lead role in The CW pilot Beauty and the Beast.

Beauty and the Beast, inspired by the late ’80s Linda Hamilton–Ron Perlman series, will follow New York homicide detective Catherine (Kreuk) who discovers an unlikely ally in Vincent, a military vet turned into a beast by an experiment gone wrong. Forced underground by his appearance, the Beast acts as an avenging angel — including killing the man who murdered Catherine’s mother nine years before.

Ron Koslow, who created the original series, will return as executive producer alongside producers Paul Junger Witt, C. Anthony Thomas, Bill Haber, and new producers Jennifer Levin and Sherri Cooper.

ABC has also ordered a Beauty and the Beast pilot.

Her father, Peter Kreuk, is of Dutch descent; her mother, Deanna Che, is of Chinese descent, but was born in Indonesia; her maternal grandmother was born in Jamaica of Chinese descent.

See Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang in Smallville