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"Name: Tom Welling D.O.B.: April 26, 1977 Height: 6&amp;#039;4&amp;quot; Hair: Brown Eyes: Hazel How You Know Him: Tom is the star of the hit show Smallville about the young Clark Kent (you know, Superman). Hometown: Tom was born in upstate New York, but moved around the United States, making stops in Michigan, Wisconsin, Delaware. High School: Okemos High School, Okemos, Michigan. Tom did a few school plays during high school, but then switched over to sports like baseball and soccer. Hey Good Lookin&amp;#039;: It shouldn&amp;#039;t be surprising that hottie Tom did a little modeling to pay the bills before he landed acting roles. He worked for a while for the Louisa Modeling Agency. Big Break: Tom&amp;#039;s biggest role before Smallville was as Rob Meltzer, or &amp;quot;Karate Rob,&amp;quot; on Judging Amy. &amp;quot;I was the 10-years-younger love interest for Amy Brenneman&amp;#039;s character and also her daughter&amp;#039;s karate instructor, which caused a little conflict of interest,&amp;quot; explains Tom. &amp;quot;It was a great role...a three-episode job, and over Christmas, they aired the episodes and got such good feedback they brought me back for three more. It was actually Amy Brenneman&amp;#039;s first love affair on the show.&amp;quot; Sounds like Tom made quite a splash as the cute karate instructor.   He also had small roles on Undeclared and Special Unit 2. Landing the Part: Tom went through the typical long audition process before landing the role of Clark Kent. Finally, it was down to just two people. &amp;quot;I went to the final screen test between me and another fellow,&amp;quot; Tom recalls. &amp;quot;I was on my way back from the Warner Bros. studio, and I stopped in a gas station to call my manager and tell him how it went. I called and get him on the phone and he said, &amp;#039;Can you hold on a second?&amp;#039; Next thing I know, there are literally seven people on the other line and almost in unison they say, &amp;#039;Tom, you got it!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Way Up North: Unlike most shows, which shoot in Los Angeles, Smallville is shot in Vancouver, Canada. &amp;quot;I feel fortunate that we&amp;#039;re shooting in Vancouver. We&amp;#039;re able to kind of focus on what we&amp;#039;re doing a little bit more and the shooting schedule doesn&amp;#039;t leave much choice.&amp;quot; Because he&amp;#039;s in almost every scene, almost all of Tom&amp;#039;s time is taken up by Smallville. Super-Factoid: Tom isn&amp;#039;t a big Superman junkie. He hasn&amp;#039;t read all the comics or anything, but he did dress as Superman for Halloween two years in a row when he was 4 and 5 years old. The Downsides of Playing a Superhero: Because he plays someone who is superhuman, Tom has to be very careful with his body. He&amp;#039;s not allowed to gain any weight and he can&amp;#039;t play his favorite sport, basketball, because the producers don&amp;#039;t want him to get injured. &amp;quot;What would happen if I got a black eye?&amp;quot; says Tom. Teenage Rebellion: Just because he&amp;#039;s a superhero in the making doesn&amp;#039;t mean Clark Kent isn&amp;#039;t also a typical teenager. He doesn&amp;#039;t always get along with his parents, and he doesn&amp;#039;t always make the right decisions. &amp;quot;Clark&amp;#039;s not always going to be the nice guy,&amp;quot; explains Tom. &amp;quot;He won&amp;#039;t always do the right thing. He&amp;#039;s a teenage kid trying to grasp the concept of these abilities, and what he&amp;#039;s here for, and how did he get here and where is he going. There&amp;#039;s going to be anger and vengeance and violence.&amp;quot; As Tom says, &amp;quot;We all know how he turns out; this is the journey of how he gets there.&amp;quot; It Ain&amp;#039;t Easy: Even though Clark&amp;#039;s powers let him do amazing things, they also isolate him from everyone around him. &amp;quot;Here you are able to do these things, but no one else can do them,&amp;quot; explains Tom. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s unable to go with his buddies and be like, &amp;#039;You know, I can&amp;#039;t hurt myself. Let&amp;#039;s see how far this goes. Let&amp;#039;s go to the top of that building and jump off.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Clark&amp;#039;s inability to share his gifts with his friends makes him feel pretty lonely. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s really what the show is about: Him finding out who he is and what he&amp;#039;s here for. He&amp;#039;s got these abilities that he doesn&amp;#039;t necessarily understand and it alienates him in a lot of ways. He just wants to be a normal high school kid.&amp;quot; Poor Clark. We guess x-ray vision and super speed aren&amp;#039;t all their cracked up to be. Daddy Duke: Tom&amp;#039;s TV dad, Jonathan Kent, is played by former Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider. Tom was a little intimidated to meet John at first, but now they are very close. &amp;quot;He and I were just instant friends,&amp;quot; says Tom, and the chemistry shows on screen. When Tom asked John for advice on his career, John thought for a while and then told his TV son, &amp;quot;Save your money.&amp;quot; Good advice from a guy who&amp;#039;s been though some big career ups and downs. (Speaking of parents, the role of Clark&amp;#039;s mom, Martha, was recast after the show was picked up. Annette O&amp;#039;Toole, who starred as Lana Lang in Christopher Reeve&amp;#039;s third &amp;quot;Superman&amp;quot; movie, replaced Cynthia Ettinger as superman&amp;#039;s adopted mama.) Man of Steel: If Tom could have one of his character&amp;#039;s super powers in real life, he would choose invincibility. He thinks it would be cool if nothing at all could hurt you. &amp;quot;If I was invincible, maybe I would take up some extreme sports,&amp;quot; says Tom. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/interviews/a11471/tom-welling/>