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Michael Rosenbaum Tells Untold Smallville Stories

Michael Rosenbaum spoke with Empire about his Smallville departure and return.

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Empire spoke with Michael Rosenbaum to promote tonight’s season premiere of his new show Impastor on TV Land, now entering its second season, but the big highlight is that Rosenbaum spoke a bit about his departure and series finale return to Smallville several years ago.

ArcticRosenbaum played Lex Luthor on the series and is generally remembered as one of the best aspects of the show. He departed after the show’s seventh season, but in the Empire profile, he recalled Warner Bros. Television President Peter Roth‘s taking him out to dinner, trying to get him to do two more seasons of the show. This is a story Rosenbaum has never really told.

“He tried to get me to do two more seasons of Smallville. I was very polite and respectful. I said, ‘Peter, my grandma thinks I’m funny and I’ve always wanted to do comedy, and I started out in comedy, and I was doing tons of comedy, and then I was catapulted into this role that I love and it’s been great, but I was contracted for six years to play Lex Luthor, I did seven, and I’m just ready to move on and I’m just ready to take a new step’,” Rosenbaum recalled. “He looked at me and says, ‘You know, Julianna Margulies, she turned down millions of dollars to stay with ER and look where she is now.’ It wasn’t two or three years later where she just made a fortune with The Good Wife and all of that, and her career just took off. I said, ‘I’m going to bank on my talent. I’m just going to take a chance on me. I think I’ve done this long enough, I did this character for seven years and I just don’t feel like shaving my head for two more years.’ I came back for the finale, but at the time I just wanted to take a chance,” he explained.

ArcticAfter leaving the show, Michael grew out his hair, met with casting directors, and landed roles including a fun one in Season 1 of Adam F. Goldberg’s Breaking In. In 2014, Rosenbaum directed a feature, Back In The Day, with Morena Baccarin, Nick Swardson, and Harland Williams.

Michael assured that his leaving Smallville was not driven by ego. It wasn’t, ‘I’m not doing Smallville because I’m too good for it.’ It was more, ‘Hey, I’ve got more to offer.’ Look, luck is a commodity of preparation and opportunity and I feel like I’m always prepared when that moment comes. I think it comes down to just believing in yourself,” the actor recalled.

Also revealed in the piece: Rosenbaum did not see what happened in the later years of the show after he left. “Here’s the thing: I didn’t watch the last three seasons, because I wasn’t in it,” Michael admitted. “Call me egotistical, call me whatever, but that’s the reason I didn’t watch the show. I was working and getting my shit together. But I finally called them up and said, ‘Hey, look, it’s the last episode ever. I’ll do it, you’ve got me for one day next week.’ When I got there I was, like, ‘What’s happened since I left?’ I had no idea what was going on. There were moments where I just didn’t know what the f— I was doing. I liked my scenes with Tom Welling, but I felt like the show was, for me, done when I left in season seven. Then I sort of did it for the fans and did it for me for closure and to say, ‘Hey, I did come back.’ I did do it, and that’s ultimately why,” he said.

SMALLVILLE“I’m proud of it,” Rosenbaum said about his experience on the show. “I have fans all over the world because of that show and I love them. I go to Australia, I go to England…people just embrace it. You can’t be luckier as an actor or as a human being to feel that sort of accomplishment, and if that’s all I did — if I was just Lex Luthor — it would be enough. It really would be enough to go back home to New Berg, Indiana, where there are, like, 3,000 people in the town and where I wasn’t supposed to do anything. To say you were this iconic, legendary character for seven years. I would’ve mowed my lawn with a smile on my face,” he said.

You can read the entire Empire interview with Michael Rosenbaum here.

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1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Corfy

    September 28, 2016 at 7:37 am

    For the record, it is “Newburgh, Indiana,” not “New Burg, Indiana.” I realize that is Empire Online’s mistake and not Kryptonsite’s, but as a native and current Hoosier, I had to point that out to somebody.

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Smallville

Justin Hartley Would “Love” To Play Green Arrow Again

When asked if he’d play a superhero, Justin Hartley says he would love to play the Green Arrow again.

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Justin Hartley

Appearing yesterday on The Jennifer Hudson Show to promote his show Tracker, Justin Hartley was asked by Hudson if he’d ever like to play a superhero again… and his response might be surprising and of course welcomed by the Smallville fandom.

“I would love to play a superhero again,” he told her, continuing on to say which superhero he’d like to play.

“You know, there are so many interesting ones that have been portrayed and there are so many that haven’t yet been portrayed… what I think would be really cool, though, now that I’m older [and] I have different life experiences, I would approach it differently and it would be a different story… I’d like to jump back into that Green Arrow suit, honestly.”

He did have one caveat: “Maybe not that exact suit, but something a bit hipper.”

“I think you’d find him in a different place, and you could tell different stories,” Hartley said about Green Arrow and his alter ego. “He’s been through stuff, and I think it would be interesting. I would love that.”

Years before Stephen Amell donned the green tights, Justin Hartley played Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow in five seasons of Smallville. Of course, if he were to ever return, we assume his character would be a widower. Al & Miles, are you listening?

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Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk Makes Comics Writing Debut With Black Star

Kristin Kreuk is co-writing a new comic book called Black Star for Titan Comics.

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Kristin Kreuk (Smallville’s Lana Lang) is writing an upcoming comic book!

Kristin is a writer and co-creator on Black Star, a new Titan Comics series that she is writing with collaborators Peter Mooney and Eric Putzer. It’s described as “a Northern Gothic noir steeped in horror and dark humor.” The series will be illustrated by artist Joe Bocardo.

Below, you can find the press release with more details; additionally, we have some preview imagery courtesy of Titan Comics! The images can be found first, and underneath, the release with more details about the comic, which will hit stores and digital devices on July 29. Be sure to get your copies and support Kristin’s latest venture — it’s a great way to say “thank you” for 25 years of Smallville enjoyment! (Fun fact: Titan published the Smallville: The Official Companion books through Season 7, with four of those books written by the author of this article! If only they’d still do 8-10…)

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March 9, 2026 – Globally renowned publisher Titan Comics are thrilled to be publishing Black Star (in stores and digital devices July 29, 2026) a debut comic series by acclaimed actress Kristin Kreuk (Smallville, Reacher, Murder in a Small Town). Co-written with Peter Mooney (Rookie Blue, Mistletoe Murders) and screenwriter Eric Putzer, and illustrated by artist Joe Bocardo (Nightwalkers, The Hexiles), this five-issue series is a Northern Gothic noir steeped in horror and dark humour.

Amidst skirmishes between two warring factions in the early nineteenth-century fur trade, Dashiell Carlyle discovers he has magical abilities… and that he’s not alone. Thrust into a secret order with designs to use their magic to build a new and better world, Dashiell discovers that their utopia may come at a horrific cost.

It’s a violent world: gritty, bloody, and dark. But that’s balanced with a sense of discovery and awe. The storytelling’s propulsive, and the morality grey. It’s The Revenant meets Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. It’s a love letter to a frozen corner of the world that few know. It’s weird. And wonderful. And something wholly its own.

Black Star was born while Peter, Eric, and I were filming “Burden of Truth” in Winnipeg.” said Kristin Kreuk. “We were inspired by the city’s lore and, because we worked so well together, began spending our spare time on set (and then, for years afterwards) developing our own take on the history and magic we imagined pulsing beneath its surface, shaping the rhythms of the city and the battles raging just beyond our view.” 

“Sometimes people come to my hometown and they can’t see past its rough edges or inhospitable weather. But it was clear Kristin and Eric could see right into the strangeness that makes Winnipeg so unique,” said co-writer Peter Mooney. “This isn’t so much an alternative history, but an omitted chapter that’s been lost to time. It’s bizarre and fantastical and entirely imagined — but it goes a long way towards explaining why the city is how it is today.” 

“There’s an intimacy to comics that no other form quite achieves; the reader controls the rhythm, the breath, the revelation,” said co-writer Eric Putzer. “In a story about power and human nature, we felt that intimacy necessary to make the reader an active part of the exchange.” – 

“For a comic book artist, working on a series as ambitious and well-written as Black Star is a gift,” said artist Joe Bocardo. “But if you also work on it with a talented and friendly team that gives you creative freedom, then it’s not a gift; it’s a privilege.”

“Set in the eerie, snow-blanketed wasteland of early 19th Century Winnipeg, this is magic as you’ve never seen it before,” said Titan Comics editor, Jake Devine. “Hopeful yet bleak, miraculous yet insidious, and only time will tell if the prize is worth the cost. Readers are going to be swept away by Joe Bocardo’s mesmerising artwork as it envelops them in a story filled with awe and tragedy.” 

Titan’s Black Star comics is set to launch with Issue #1 in stores and on digital devices July 29, 2026. 

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Smallville

Smallville Makes The Netflix Global TV Top Ten

Smallville is doing so well on Netflix that it is trending on the Netflix Global TV Top 10.

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Wednesday isn’t the only Alfred Gough and Miles Millar hit on Netflix these days: Weeks after being made available internationally on Netflix (where, sadly, it is not available in the United States — we have to watch on Hulu), Smallville is trending globally as one of the top ten series available on Netflix. Considering the show premiered nearly 25 years ago, this is quite the accomplishment!

To those who have been reading KryptonSite for the past, well, 25 years, it should be no surprise. Superman remains popular and the story of a young Clark Kent before he ever becomes Superman (as played by Tom Welling) is the kind of story anyone can identify with if they ever felt alienated. If it wasn’t Clark they could identify with, there was a character for everyone to latch on to and love. It’s why we used to fight so much on the forums (which are now back, by the way – come post!) — Smallville was a show you could invest in, and with 218 episodes to binge, there’s a lot of Smallville to pick from on Netflix. Sure, fans can fight over who their preferred Superman is — Henry Cavill as presented by Zack Snyder, or David Corenswet as directed by James Gunn — but, why not go toward the guy who has over 200 hours of material to watch, most of which is pretty good? [Except “Ageless.” Skip “Ageless.”]

Even without this global reach, Smallville has been going through a bit of a renaissance in the past few years. There’s the annual Salute to Smallville convention, this year happening in Nashville in November, where we’ll be celebrating the 25th anniversary. There’s TalkVille and other fantastic podcasts about the show. And of course KryptonSite still exists!

Now let’s get to #1, international fans? We’re counting on you. And for those of you who have just discovered the show and came across this website, welcome! In any event, leave some comments below and tell us how you came to find Smallville.

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