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Tom Welling Reflects On Smallville, Looks To Section 13

BuzzFeed caught up with Tom Welling to talk about his past and what might be coming in his future.

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As Tom Welling’s new movie The Choice is coming out very soon, BuzzFeed caught up with the actor for an extensive interview where Welling looks back on his time as Clark Kent on Smallville (2001-2011), his brief hiatus and the movies that followed, all leading to what will hopefully be a new show on CBS called Section 13.

You can read the entire interview here.

"Abyss" -- Tom Welling as Clark Kent in SMALLVILLE, on The CW Network.  Photo: /The CW  ©2008 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.During that conversation, Welling talked a bit about his time on Smallville.

“There was a lot of growing up I needed to do on that show. Fortunately, Clark had no idea what the hell he was doing and I had no idea what the hell I was doing,” Welling said to BuzzFeed with a laugh. “We kind of grew up together.”

In the piece, Tom talked about the humanity of the character — which one might take as an explanation for why we didn’t really see him in the costume “This needed to be a show about Clark Kent, not about Superman,” Tom said. “That was always the rule: No flights, no tights. When we got into Season 5, they started to say, ‘Well… maybe…’ But I always maintained that’s not the show. Thank god Peter Roth [chief executive of Warner Bros. Television, which produced Smallville] knew that and always championed in our favor. … It was an incredibly unique experience.”

And what does Tom think of all of the current crop of superhero TV? “It’s a compliment,” Welling answered. “I’m very proud of shows like Arrow [and] The Flash.… They’re able to ground these characters so that the viewer can relate on a human level to people who used to be only in two dimensions.”

wellingchoiceAfter Smallville, Tom had two goals: “I wanted to play a human and I wanted to be a part of a film whose theme was bigger than whatever character I was playing,” he said to BuzzFeed. “By being on Smallville for 10 years, I was able to make some really fantastic choices with that character, but now I’m drawn to real people trying to live real lives.” In doing so, he’s done some movies including The Choice, and now he’s creating, executive producing, and hopefully starring in a new project, Section 13, for CBS.

“Emotionally, I can’t even think about what I’m going to do if Section 13 doesn’t go, but I also can’t even think about what I’m going to do if it goes. There’s just so many unknowns,” he said. You can read more about the Section 13 concept here.

At the end of the day, Tom sees his notoriety as the proto-Man of Steel “a big compliment.”

“It means people like what I did. … I guess the joke is when people say, ‘Hey, Superman,’ I have a tendency to reply, ‘Well, I’ve been called worse.’”

You can read the entire BuzzFeed interview here.

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6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Tim Wolfe

    January 26, 2016 at 8:37 pm

    There should of been more then 10 seasons of Smallville look at Supernatural

    • Craig Byrne

      January 26, 2016 at 8:57 pm

      Not really. Smallville, as loved as it was and as much as I loved it too, went on probably 3 seasons too long as it was. Prolonging it even farther would have meant extending the story in an even worse way. We’d keep waiting for him to become Superman and it’d never happen, because Tom doesn’t want to wear the suit.

      I think the time also comes when you can’t expect these people to do the same thing for so long. The BuzzFeed article talks a little bit about the toll that doing Smallville put on Tom’s life, and the long hours… sometimes you’ve got to think they want to do something different. That’s a lot of investment to expect from just one person. It works for Jensen and Jared at Supernatural, but that’s also not a show with a set ending. Smallville’s ending, we always knew would be him becoming Superman. Would we have really wanted to watch 15 years and him still not doing it?

      This article made me respect Tom and his wishes a whole lot more. I hope others follow suit.

      • Sarah

        January 26, 2016 at 10:02 pm

        I am super happy for His return to TV in Section 13! Tom Welling as well as being a beautiful man is above all a wonderful and great man, I hope Tom That Will Be Able to Achieve all its desires

      • Bob Marshall

        February 7, 2016 at 2:25 pm

        Although it probably went on a little to long I’m glad it did. Season 9 was THE best season of the show IMO. Infact that season is probably my favourite season of TV ever.

        • Craig Byrne

          February 15, 2016 at 1:58 pm

          You’re definitely entitled to your opinion, but I thought a lot of Season 9 was a mess. Didn’t care about the New Kryptonians at all after the premiere, and making Clark so far from being the “Last Son of Krypton” really hurt what makes him special, in my opinion.

  2. Cheryl Meadows

    January 27, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    Regardless of whether or not Smallville could have been longer or shorter is not as relevent as the influence this show has had over the past decade and beyond. From the technology to the concepts to the underlying themes, Smallville, which also was influenced by Lois and Clark, has set the bar for innovation, idealogy, philosophy and cannon. It’s good that Tom Welling is moving on to other things, but for years to come, this maybe considered he best body of work. He is certainly gifted and charismatic. It also doesn’t hurt that he was a fellow Michigander. with natural hidden talent. Much success to he and the other cast members future. Smaillville live1

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Smallville

Revealed: Possible Smallville Cameos in James Gunn’s Superman!

A leaked call sheet may have revealed Smallville stars’ presence in James Gunn’s new Superman film

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As we all know, even here at KryptonSite, years ago, we had an April Fool’s gag that Michael Rosenbaum would be playing Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman film, out July 11 of this year. But, of course, that was just an April Fool’s fake story, but if some photos posted on Reddit are to be believed, we may be seeing Gunn’s personal friend Michael as well as his “TalkVille” cohost Tom Welling in the new movie which will star David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan as Clark Kent and Lois Lane.

Frequent scooper “DavidRPM” hinted a few weeks back that he had heard that several Superman-related cameos would factor into the new film — more than just the appearance of Christopher Reeve’s son Will Reeve making an appearance. Nothing else surfaced about this rumor until the last day when the photos surfaced from the filming of the movie last year, though there was the report that every Supergirl actress to date would appear in Supergirl: The Woman of Tomorrow in one way or another.

What’s in those photos?

Pictures of trailers saying “T.W.” and “M.R.” on the doors, which may not be the smoking gun we might need, but they do seem like a code if they don’t really want onlookers to know what’s going on…

But then…. there was a call sheet. Oh, there was a call sheet! And in said call sheet, in addition to several members of the principal cast reporting for duty that day – specifically, the Daily Planet gang – there are the roles of “Funky Flashman” and “Bibbo.”

The actors playing them? “M. Rosenbaum” and “T. Welling.”

Folks, we’re going to get to see our duo on the big screen!!!!

Because we don’t want Warner Bros. Legal breathing down our necks — that is, if they still exist and haven’t been all excised from their jobs by David Zaslav — you’re going to have to go to the original Reddit post which you can find here. Some other reveals might be within, so don’t say we didn’t warn you!!!

See you on July 11!

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Smallville

Smallville Animated Update: It May Be A While…

On TalkVille, the reality of the current status of the Smallville animated project was discussed.

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On a recent episode of Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling’s TalkVille podcast, they had the show’s creator Al Gough as a call-in guest, and among the topics discussed was the Smallville animated project that they’ve been trying to get off the ground. Unfortunately, Gough brought up the reality that especially with regime changes at the studio, it may be a while.

“Regime change” refers to changes in leadership at the studio or network. As an example, the regime changed massively when Smallville moved from The WB (who had executives that loved them) to The CW (where Dawn Ostroff was more interested in “pretty rich white girls with problems” shows and kept trying to kill Smallville).

“The problem with most projects in development in any studio and any network is regime change, and Warners has obviously gone through a lot, and I think the fact that they’re in the process of rebooting Superman again, unfortunately, I think, keeps our thing off the table for a bit,” Gough said in discussion with the actors. He pointed out that everything comes around in one form or another, pointing to Hulu’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival as such a thing.

So, don’t give up hope… but for now, it seems it’s not happening anytime soon, if at all.

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Smallville

John Schneider Added To Salute to Smallville 2025 in Chicago!

John Schneider has been added to the 2025 Salute to Smallville convention in Chicago from Creation Entertainment.

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John Schneider is the latest actor to be added to the guest list for Creation Entertainment’s second “Salute To Smallville” convention, happening September 13-14 in Chicago. Schneider portrayed Clark’s human father Jonathan Kent from Seasons 1-5 and returned for several episodes in the show’s final season.

Schneider will be joining Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, Kristin Kreuk, Erica Durance, John Glover, Aaron Ashmore, Adrianne Palicki, and Alaina Huffman at this year’s event! Last year’s convention was a fantastic experience and it’s well worth checking out! You can read more about Salute to Smallville and purchase tickets here.

DISCLAIMER: KryptonSite’s Craig Byrne has created web graphics and websites for Creation Entertainment in addition to hosting their 2024 Salute to Smallville event.

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