Tom Welling Explains Why He Never Wore Superman Suit in 'Smallville'

Tom Welling played a young Clark Kent in the hit series Smallville, but something you never got to see throughout the series was him suiting up as Superman.

At the end of the series finale, Tom ripped opened his button-down shirt and you saw the Superman logo on the suit, but he was shown from a distance while flying away.

Years later, Tom is finally opening up about the decision to not show Clark in action as Superman.

“It was something that we discussed before we ever shot the pilot with [creators] Al [Gough] and Miles [Millar],” Tom said in an interview with EW. “We literally had a sit down where we talked about the show and I asked about the suit and the tights and the flying, and they said, ‘No, absolutely not,’ part of the reason being is that show is about a teenager trying to figure out who he is. They felt that once Clark put on the cape and the suit, life became too easy, in a sense. They wanted to focus on who this character was before that. And, at the time, because of where visual effects and special effects and stunts were, it would be too expensive. That’s mainly why they save that for movies, more or less.”

Tom explained that there was an idea to have Clark put on the suit in the beginning of the episode and save Lois Lane on a plane, but that idea was shot down.

“We jumped onto this idea that at the end of the show, the idea is that Clark becomes Superman and he’s out there, and we know he’s out there, but we can’t go with him, but that we know and we feel good that he’s out there doing good,” Tom said. “That was what we strove for, and I think we hit it. I liked the ending of the series, because it’s like, ‘Yes, he did it!’ I hope the audience didn’t feel like we didn’t show them something that they needed to see. I felt like we gave them the jumping off point for their imagination as to what could happen.”

Next up for Tom is a recurring role on the Fox series Lucifer!