Rich Sands, of our partner site, TV Guide On-Line has an interview with actor Tom Welling about the upcoming ninth season of “Smallville.”
Here’s a sample of what Welling has to say bout coming back to the show and what fans can expect this year.
How did you come to the decision to sign on for Season 9, and potentially Season 10?
Well when they brought it up, the first thing I said was, ‘What’s the story gonna be?’ And no one was really sure [at that point], and that’s why it took a little while to figure out, because I really didn’t want to engage in anything until I knew what I was gonna get myself into. So that took a lot of discussion and meetings between myself and [Warner Bros. Television president] Peter Roth and [executive producers] Kelly [Souders] and Brian [Peterson] about what next season was going to be. Once that took its form then the decision wasn’t so difficult. We have a great group, and I love everybody that’s a part of it. Their ideas made sense to me. What I don’t want to do, and what nobody ever wants for the show they’re on, is for it to dwindle out and lose its credibility. And I think this season, if anything, we’ve re-energized it.
Talk about that. I gather Clark will be in a pretty dark place. What is his journey for Season 9?
Well, in the past Clark has always been the reluctant hero. Everyone is telling him what he has to do and he doesn’t want to do it. With the events of Jimmy’s death [in May’s season finale], along with the eight seasons building up, he realizes that his view on humanity has been wrong. And he goes to Jor-El and says, ‘I messed up, what do I do now?’ Jor-El takes him in, and Clark starts his training. His training ultimately is what will prepare him to be who we all know he’s going to be in the future. So it’s him spending time at the Fortress of Solitude downloading all this information. At the same time, information is given to him that the fate of the world depends on Lois Lane’s survival. So Clark has to struggle between his destiny and his humanity. Especially in the first few episodes it gets in the way of the training, because he just can’t help but deal with humans and help people, when all Jor-El wants him to do is shut everyone off, forget about them, rise above them and be the hero he needs to be.
You can read the entire interview HERE
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