Tom Welling says that filming scenes for Smallville that involved Clark Kent running at super speed started off quite dangerously.
"I remember trying to figure out super speed. They were like, 'We don't know. Let's figure it out,'" the actor recalled in an oral history of the show published by The Hollywood Reporter. "We did a couple of things. At one point I was on the back of a Ford pickup truck that, in the back, had a treadmill that I was running on. Obviously that was dangerous. That was how we did it at the beginning. Then heat vision, X-ray vision -- we were figuring it out as we went."
Welling revealed during the same conversation that he initially turned down the opportunity to audition for the role of Clark Kent, as he wasn't provided with a script at first. "This show Smallville came along, and they weren't releasing the script. They just wanted me to audition," he recalled. "My manager at the time says, 'That either means they don't have a script, or it's not very good.' We turned it down."
Welling ultimately went on to play Clark for 10 seasons, having been drawn to the show's unique take on superhero stories. "It was about a kid in high school growing up and trying to figure out who he is. That's a very human journey," he said. "I called a meeting with the producers and the writers because I wanted to ask questions. Somehow they accepted. I was terrified I was going to walk into a show where I'm running around in tights."
Welling and co-star Michael Rosenbaum recently teased that they're attached to a Smallville animated series that's currently in the works. "Well, look, we're not allowed really to talk about it now, because it's in the early stages," Rosenbaum told CBR. "So we're developing it. We're trying to see what happens with it, but that's about all I can say right now." Welling added that Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar are also involved in the project.
During the same interview, Welling also explained why the original Smallville series had to end when it did. "We ran out of story for Clark. Clark had to become Superman, and Smallville could not be a Superman series," he shared. "It just wasn't built that way. So what we're trying to do [with the animated series] is sort of jumping into this other arena where we can maybe service that idea and have fun doing so."
Smallville ran for 10 seasons on The WB/The CW from 2001 to 2011. Welling later reprised his role as Clark Kent for the Arrowverse's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover event in 2019.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter