2016 TV News Archives

January 27, 2016: Tom Welling on Whether He'd Play Superman on "Supergirl"

Tom Welling Ever since "Smallville" concluded in 2011 there's been speculation on whether Tom Welling would return to the role in some form or fashion. False rumors circulated that Welling was set to play Superman on "The Flash", and then "Supergirl"... In a recent interview with BuzzFeed.com Tom spoke about his time on "Smallville", and expressed his feelings on seeing so many good superhero TV shows on television at the moment...

    "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 with a laugh. "We kind of grew up together."

    Smallville followed young Clark Kent as he went from anonymous farm boy to iconic Man of Steel, all while trying to maintain a sense of normalcy and find true love. When the series debuted in 2001, television was a substantially less "super" place than it is now with Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Heroes Reborn, Gotham, Jessica Jones, and Daredevil currently dominating the landscape.

    "It's a compliment," Welling said, thinking about the extensive superhero offerings on TV now. "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."

    Just like Smallville did - and that was an important effort Welling and the producers insisted upon from day one. "This needed to be a show about Clark Kent, not about Superman," the actor 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."

What didn't make the interview's final edit was the question of whether Tom would appear as Superman on the "Supergirl" TV series. Interviewer Jarett Wieselman posted Tom's answer on Twitter:

"There's people who would like it... there's people who don't like it, but I will tell you that no one has ever actually asked me to do it. So, I don't know. It would be kind of odd. I don't know who he is at that point. He would obviously be Superman...".



2016 Television News

Listed below are all the Television News items archived for 2016 organized into various categories:

Supergirl TV Series News: Justice League Action Animated Series News: Krypton TV Series News: Young Justice Animated Series News: Other Superman Related Television News:

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