Smallville Star Discusses Possibility of Playing Superman Again

Henry Cavill is currently making his mark as Superman in DC's big budget superhero movies, but the previous incarnation of the character could be found on the small screen. Tom Welling played Clark Kent for an entire decade in the hugely popular Smallville. Now the actor has been talking about the possibility of him returning to the role.

Welling was recently interviewed by Buzzfeed, and when asked if he could see himself donning the red cape, admitted that he hadn't been approached for either the DC movies or Superman's rumoured upcoming appearance in TV's Supergirl.

"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," he said. "So, I don't know. It would be kind of odd. I don't know who [Clark] is at that point. He would obviously be Superman."

As for the current shape of superhero television, Welling acknowledged that Smallville's success may have had an impact on current DC shows such as Supergirl, Arrow, and The Flash. "It's a compliment," he said. "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."

Welling went on to explain that it was that approach that worked so well for Smallville, which ran from 2001 until 2011. "This needed to be a show about Clark Kent, not about Superman,” he 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."