Why Hollywood Won't Cast Tom Welling Anymore

Tom Welling has been fairly quiet in Hollywood since appearing as Clark Kent on the CW's "Smallville." Although he was the OG superhero on a network that went on to become known for its comics-derived shows, Welling has never fully capitalized on the show's success to push into the next stage of his acting career — all while Henry Cavill, Tyler Hoechlin, and David Corenswet have assumed the role of Superman in other corners of the DC film and television universe.

In late 2019 and early 2020, Welling returned as Clark Kent as part of the CW's sprawling "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover event, which united all corners of the Arrowverse while reuniting fans with some beloved familiar faces. Fans loved seeing Welling back in action, but where has he been all this time? Here are the reasons Hollywood won't cast Tom Welling anymore — and what he can and might be doing to turn his career around.

Tom Welling was new to Hollywood when he booked a six-episode arc on CBS's "Judging Amy," playing karate teacher Rob Meltzer in a total of six episodes over the course of the six-season series. What recurring role could a karate teacher play on a legal drama about a Connecticut judge trying to raise a daughter on her own? As Judge Amy's love interest, of course. That's right: Welling's Rob Meltzer taught karate to Lauren (Karle Warren), Amy's daughter, and he and Amy hit it off and begin seeing each other.

Welling scored the role of the hunky karate teacher when he was 24 years old, and the appearances led to his starring role as a high school student on The CW's "Smallville." Despite his six episodes on "Judging Amy," his overall lack of acting experience was still pretty obvious in some of the earlier episodes of "Smallville," and it also meant that Clark Kent became Welling's most immediately identifiable role, making it even harder for him to break out into other parts later.

There are many actors who started out with easily identifiable early roles on huge, long-running TV shows, but they were able to still jumpstart their career in other directions by appearing in films while the show was in progress. However, the innovative visual effects that "Smallville" demanded meant that Tom Welling was on set more than other actors, giving him less time for other projects.

The roles he did appear in include the ill-received horror film "The Fog" with Maggie Grace and Selma Blair, and, most notably, the role of Charlie Baker in the "Cheaper by the Dozen" series. Welling wasn't called upon to carry a lot of dramatic weight in any of the roles; coming out of "Smallville," the TV series remained the most impressive thing on his résumé.

In a 2025 appearance on "Smallville" co-star Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of You" podcast, Tom Welling noted how none of the writers, directors, or producers from "Smallville" seemed interested in working with him again, which he found odd given how successful that show was. However, elsewhere in the episode, Welling did mention a time that he lost his cool with the crew on the set, and he and Rosenbaum both discussed the fact that Welling being stressed out and overworked led to several such moments over the course of the series.

Justified or not, it's entirely possible that the people running "Smallville" just saw Welling as someone prone to having a temper and not being easy to work with, and used that as the reason why they never called him again for other work. As unfair as that is, given that Welling was young at the time, fairly new to the industry, on his first big job, and that production was often long and arduous, it can be very hard to shake the stigma of being an actor people hate working with once that reputation has been earned. 

"Smallville" was so much work for Tom Welling that afterwards, he took a self-imposed six-month hiatus. "I needed a break," he told BuzzFeed. "I needed to figure out what was going on in my head a little bit. There was some adjusting that I needed to get back into real life and to make up for lost time as well. I was like, 'Guys, I'm out of here.' The two months that you spend at the beach loses some of its intrinsic value when you don't have anything you're running away from or have to go back to. I felt like I was basically retired and it sort of woke me up. But it needed to happen."

When he did choose to get back into acting, he decided he wanted to be more selective about his roles. "I wanted to play a human and I wanted to be a part of a film whose theme was bigger than whatever character I was playing," he continued. "By being on 'Smallville' for 10 years, I was able to make some really fantastic choices with that character, but now I'm drawn to real people trying to live real lives."

As we've already mentioned, "Smallville" was more than just a full time job for Tom Welling. The actor spent hours on set every day, filming in Vancouver, far away from his New York-based family. This was very difficult for the young star, who felt lonely and isolated at times.

"I spent 10 years where my life was 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. on set," he told BuzzFeed. "From an emotional standpoint, I was basically cut off from everyone ... I just put my head in a hole and I basically blocked everybody and everything out."

Because of this, Welling decided that, after "Smallville," he didn't want to do another TV show for a while. Movies, which take less time to film and offer more of a break, were more in the lane of what he was looking for, but it can be very hard for a TV actor to make the jump to film. Welling's aversion to TV may have led to him turning down potentially lucrative and popular roles after "Smallville."

Tom Welling spent 10 years on television, so it should come as no surprise that, because of that decade-long grind, he became very selective in the roles he took following the end of "Smallville." In fact, he only appeared in three films in the first five years after the show's 2011 finale: the Zac Efron and Billy Bob Thornton-starring mystery drama "Parkland," the Kevin Costner-starring sports drama "Draft Day," and the Nicholas Sparks romance "The Choice." 

Unfortunately, none of those films resonated with critics or audiences. 2013's "Parkland" earned a 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes and only made $1.4 million at the box office against a $10 million budget. 2014's "Draft Day" did slightly better, earning 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and bringing in a box office haul of $29.5 million against a budget of $25 million. But 2016's "The Choice" did the worst of all three with critics, scoring only 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. It wasn't a total box office failure, though, grossing just over $23 million worldwide against an approximately $10 million budget.

None of the three were impressive enough to stand out and prove Welling's star power outside of "Smallville," and he did not make another film for eight years.

Of course, film and television aren't the only places for an actor to work. Many screen actors either get their start in live theater, or they leverage the fame they've earned as a screen actor to then move into live theater later on. When Tom Welling was a few years into "Smallville" and had started to branch out into movies, he began to consider adding stage acting to his repertoire. In a 2003 interview with Film Monthly, mostly to promote "Cheaper by the Dozen," Welling revealed that he had perhaps already taken a swing at Broadway. 

"They're doing a production of 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' right now in New York. I really thought I had a shot at Big Daddy," Welling told the outlet. Big Daddy is a middle-aged character, having been portrayed in screen adaptations by actors like Rip Torn and Burl Ives when they were in their 50s, so Welling was obviously being at least a little playful here. But it still showed that he had been thinking about his future as an actor, and contemplated the theater as part of that future. He hasn't done any live theater, however, so it seems Welling never ended up taking that path. At least not yet. 

Welling launched Tom Welling Productions towards the end of "Smallville" with the goal of spending more time behind the camera. Welling, who began executive producing during the later episodes of "Smallville," served as an executive producer on the CW's cheerleader dramedy "Hellcats" in 2011. But when he did decide in 2015 that he was finally ready to return to the small screen, the project ended up not working out. 

Arguably his highest-profile project since "Smallville," "Section 13" was set to follow Welling as a CIA black ops officer who becomes a private contractor in a covert organization "devoted to carrying out the most difficult and dangerous high-stakes assignments." The show would also have been executive-produced by the actor, allowing him to fulfill his onscreen and behind-the-camera goals. However, the season was crowded for CBS that year, and the pilot was not ordered to series.

No matter what career you are in, having kids is always going to have an effect on how you navigate that career. Having kids changes the entire course of your life, period. Tom Welling having his first child in 2019 with then-fiancée Jessica Rose Lee surely altered the trajectory of his future as an actor. Two years later, Welling and Lee — who by that point had gotten married — welcomed their second child. 

Having two children, plus wanting to make his marriage work after already having a divorce behind him, have no doubt been the areas where Welling wants to focus his time and energy. He tends to be fairly private about his personal life, with the majority of the pictures of his two sons and social media posts about family outings coming from Jessica Welling herself. Welling is clearly making his family and his personal life a priority right now rather than being a full-time actor. 

As previously mentioned, Tom Welling didn't really have time to do much else while he was making "Smallville." He had only three movies under his belt when he wrapped on the series, at which point he made a major shift away from the small screen and went all-in on the big screen. When his initial batch of movies brought diminishing returns, he took a break from those as well after 2016's "The Choice."

In 2024, after eight years away from film, Welling came roaring back with two new movies — "Clear Cut" and "Mafia Wars." To say that those films didn't exactly reignite his movie career would be an understatement. Not only were both extremely small productions with very limited distribution, but they performed poorly with critics. "Clear Cut" welcomed Welling into the unfortunate club of famous actors with a 0% movie on Rotten Tomatoes. "Mafia Wars," on the other hand, barely got reviewed at all, but good luck finding anything even remotely resembling a positive write-up from the handful of critics who bothered to cover it.

As of this writing, Welling has yet to make another movie, nor are there any officially announced plans for him to star in any upcoming projects. Even IMDb, which always seems to come up with some nebulous "in production" credits for just about every working actor in the industry, isn't showing any forthcoming films for Welling.

It's hard to blame Tom Welling for wanting to get away from television once he wrapped "Smallville." It didn't exactly give him the best taste of what it's like working in that medium. But when it was clear he wasn't going to be a steadily working film actor with roles flooding in, Welling eventually decided to give the small screen another chance. Thus far, it's proven to be a pretty good move for the actor.

In 2017, Welling returned not only to television, but television based on DC Comics properties in particular, by starting a recurring stint on "Lucifer." He played Marcus Pierce/Cain for 22 episodes in Season 3. There was also the aforementioned reprisal of Clark Kent for the CW's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" event. In 2020, Welling not only starred in but also executive produced the action series "Professionals" with Brendan Fraser, originally created for Swedish streaming service Viaplay but now also available on several American streamers. 

Finally, 2022 brought a three-episode stint on "Supernatural" spin-off "The Winchesters." That is his most recent television credit as of now, but it's definitely too soon to officially declare his TV career stalled or otherwise on hiatus again. 

The list of actors who hate the character that made them famous is a long one, and for a time, that list seemed to also include Tom Welling. It wasn't so much that he hated Clark Kent or Superman, though — he just didn't want that to be the only thing he was ever known for. But as he pointed on the "Inside of You" podcast, he also just didn't feel comfortable with how famous "Smallville" had made him. What frustrated Welling even more, he revealed, was that being famous never seemed to offer him the advantages that it did for other people. 

"My fame or celebrity has never worked when I wanted it to," he said on the podcast. He explained that it wasn't until more recently, when "Smallville" nostalgia started to kick in and people began reminiscing about the show and wanting to discuss it with its actors, that he finally felt like his "Smallville" fame became a positive thing in his life. As he and Rosenbaum discussed, it was also just a matter of Welling needing the time to mature, to have some distance from the difficulties of making "Smallville," and to get more comfortable with the idea of fame and knowing how to navigate it.

Though Tom Welling has always tried to keep his personal life private, and did all he could to avoid being tabloid fodder, an incident in January 2025 complicated that mission. Welling was arrested in a restaurant parking lot for suspicion of driving under the influence. It was revealed that his blood alcohol level was at least at, if not beyond, the legal limit. The following May, he reached a plea deal for a lesser charge, which resulted in fines, one year of probation, and being required to attend a DUI program, with the charges dismissed in June.

In the grand scheme of things, this was a fairly minor blemish on Welling's otherwise generally positive reputation these days. He fully complied with the law and the orders of the court, and has since done interviews and made public appearances that show him being his old self. But legal problems are never a good thing for a celebrity, and once an actor's mugshot is out there, it tends to follow them for a very long time. 

Tom Welling had a complicated relationship with "Smallville" — and the character he played on the show — during its run and for a time right after. Couple that with the fact that there used to be a stigma against big name celebrities doing fan conventions and other such appearances, and it's perhaps understandable why Welling wasn't exactly doing the rounds at such events back in the day.

But a combination of him coming to appreciate his time on "Smallville" and his association with Superman, as well as it being much more acceptable for celebrities to do conventions in recent years, has led to Welling doing a lot more of them. Beginning around 2018 and going well into 2025, Welling has showed up at many conventions of varying sizes — meeting fans, talking on panels, and so on. 

A fandom loves it when actors embrace the characters they have played, and Welling becoming a mainstay on the convention circuit will only mean good things for his relationship to his past, present, and potential future audience. 

Between Tom Welling's appearances on Michael Rosenbaum's podcast "Inside of You," and the "Smallville" rewatch podcast — "TalkVille" — that the pair launched in 2022, it's clear that the two have remained friends since their time together on the show. This is further confirmed by their chemistry whenever they appear together at conventions, and how often each one appears in the other's social media posts while just hanging out. 

However, it would seem that Welling and Rosenbaum's professional partnership goes beyond podcasting. Back in 2021, around the time of the 20th anniversary of the premiere of "Smallville," it was revealed that Rosenbaum and Welling were trying to get an animated sequel series off the ground. News has been sporadic since then, but Rosenbaum in particular has always tried to provide updates whenever he could, and seemed keen to keep reminding the world that it was still something he and Welling were hoping to do one day. In 2024, he confirmed that the co-creators of "Smallville" had also become involved with the project. 

As of this writing, the DC television universe seems to be in a transitional period, and the most recent word that either Rosenbaum or Welling have given on the "Smallville" animated series is that they still want to do it. But DC and Warner Bros. need to officially give them the go-ahead, which has yet to happen. What matters is that Welling is ready to play Clark Kent/Superman again if it does. 

In 2025, actor David Corenswet became the newest big screen version of the last son of Krypton when he started in the simply titled "Superman." Not surprisingly, while doing press for the movie, Corenswet was asked about the Superman actors who came before. And on more than one occasion, when asked who his favorite Superman actor is, or at least the one he most closely associates with the character, he didn't choose one from the movies. 

Asked who was his favorite Superman growing up — while hooked to a lie detector machine, no less — Corenswet said Tom Welling. And, yes, the lie detector proved that to be a truthful statement. Corenswet has also said that he feels he and Welling share a lot of physical similarities, while again pointing out that Welling was the main Superman actor during his childhood. 

This has caused people to go back and rewatch "Smallville" to re-experience Welling's take on the character. That's only served to further reignite nostalgia for Welling's Superman, and as proven time and time again, nostalgia can be a powerful thing — especially in the realm of comic book movies and TV shows. It can be argued that Welling's Superman is just as much a topic of conversation these days as Corenswet's. 

The writers of "Smallville" resisted the urge to actually show Clark Kent become Superman for almost the entire series. In fact, it wasn't until the literal closing moments of the series finale that the character finally ripped open his shirt to reveal the iconic blue costume and red and yellow "S" logo. It was the first time Tom Welling ever suited up as Superman, and he long insisted it would be the only time. Even when he returned to reprise his version of the character on "Batwoman," he was never once shown in the Superman suit.

But as with all the other ways that time and maturity have softened Welling's views on "Smallville" and Superman, he has revealed that he is finally open to the idea of fully suiting up as Kal-El on screen. In an October 2024 interview with Comic Book Movie, he shared a sweet moment he had with one of his sons. Welling explained, "We have a bunch of costumes at home. It started out at the first Halloween and now we have, I don't know, 40 or 50 costumes. The one costume we don't have is the Superman costume. I asked my son why and he said, 'Because he's taken.' And I said, 'By who?' 'By [you].'"

That was all it took to finally win Welling over on the idea of officially putting the Superman suit on for a film or television project. He continued, "That was like, 'Alright, I think I'm open to the idea now' ... I think it would be fun to be part of."