Troian Bellisario: “There is nobody Spencer holds closer than her friends and Toby.”

Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario met with reporters last week to talk about her character, the show’s success, and what’s coming up in season 2.

How has Spencer evolved since the pilot?
I think Spencer’s biggest evolution has been being able to let go in terms of she’s learned through getting her friends back how to keep friends and how to be supportive.  I think Spencer, because of the family that she grew up with, has a very strong and black and white sense of what is right and what is wrong, and she sometimes thinks that she can control other people.

She’s learned to kind of just be supportive of her friends and not let that get in the way of their friendship.  I still think she has a long way to go with that in terms of being judgmental of other people and I think her biggest lesson in that was her relationship with Toby.  She really ran the gamut as far as thinking that he was the one who killed Alison; he was the one who might be involved with A, and he was their mortal enemy and now there is nobody she holds closer than her friends and Toby.

Last episode we found out that Ian might still be alive.  How does that change the dynamic between Spencer and Melissa?
Well, it’s funny because I totally understand where Melissa is coming from.  This is the father of her child.  This is the man that she saw herself being connected to for the rest of her life.  To hear the possibility that he could have killed somebody in the past and attempted to kill her sister—there is almost a safety and finality in his being dead.

If he is alive—if she does, and he comes back and she now has the opportunity to choose between believing me and absolving him and choosing to go with him or believing me and getting away from him or you know destroy her relationship with her sister and leaving with a murderer.  Her allegiance is to this man.  It just makes things a lot more complicated than if he were to be dead and then we would just be dealing with Melissa mourning him.  It only makes things more twisted, as all things in Rosewood end up being.

A is almost kind of like a super villain on the show, so I was wondering, what would you say are Spencer’s super powers and her vital super hero accessory?
Spencer has a whip-smart intellect.  It’s both her super power and her kryptonite because she is able to, I think, almost be ahead of A at certain points and come up with plans to try to trap A or to try to trick A.  So she has this incredible mind that’s able to get the girls as close as they possibly can to discovering who A is, or discovering how to protect themselves at the last minute.

That also is, like I said, her greatest weakness because her mind works so fast sometimes she doesn’t take a moment to think and determine the difference between A’s red herrings and A’s actual moves.  Just as often as Spencer is right about something she also grabs something that A gives her and runs with it and it’s hugely wrong.  It’s what she did with Toby when she just adamantly went ‘this is the guy; this is who killed Alison’ without finding proof, and she was very headstrong about it and it got them into nothing but trouble and it was something that she had to come around and accept that she was completely wrong on.

If you could give your character Spencer one piece of advice what would it be?
Chill out.  Seriously, take a chill pill.  Life is too short and you need to spend one night maybe going to the movies instead of like sneaking around the house and trying to find Ian.  Maybe sleep, maybe find time to do your homework.  I don’t know how Spencer maintains such good grades and like literally never does her homework.

Is there is story behind how your parents came up with your name?
Yes, it’s actually an old family name, a family surname.  My great grandmother was Maria Giuseppe Troian Bellisario—it means woman of Troy.  So I’m fortunate enough that in a family full of Michaels and Nicks and Davids, I got a pretty epic, historical name.

Watch Troian on Pretty Little Liars, Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC Family.