When it comes to upcoming DC movies, we’re about to meet a new Superman next summer with David Corenswet’s version. In the meantime, it’s fun to look back at the iconic portrayals of the Man of Steel over the years, isn’t it? Tom Welling, who played the role on ten seasons of Smallville, recently shared the time he got to meet the first big-screen Superman, Christopher Reeve, when the actor made an appearance on The CW series.
Tom Welling got to share the screen with Christopher Reeve on an episode of Smallville back in 2003 when Welling was 25 and Reeve was 50. When Welling was at Comic Con Stockholm (via Screen Rant) last weekend, he said this about how he found out he’d be working with a fellow Superman actor during the show’s second season:
I knew like three days before. You only get a script every 10 days, and then by the time you get the script, you're shooting it three days later. And I remember it was Greg, again, same guy, and he comes to set, and he goes, 'So, what are you doing this weekend?' and I was like, 'What do you mean?' And I was like, 'Great. I [gotta] do a photo shoot,' Like, He [goes,] 'I think on Friday, we're gonna film in the morning, we're gonna get on a plane, we're gonna fly to New York and shoot Saturday and Sunday in New York.' And I was like, 'Why? I don't want to go to!' [Greg says] 'Well, we got Chris, and we have [him] for three hours on Saturday,' and then I was like, 'Okay...that's a good idea.'
The actor had no idea he would be working alongside the legendary Christopher Reeve (who was a real-life Superman in his epic life as well) until just days before. Here’s how it went in his words:
We flew out, and next day we shot - Chris was only supposed to be there for three hours, and I think he stayed six or seven until his nurse, who had like Power of Attorney over him, physically, I remember her saying - because he didn't want to leave, he wanted to stay, to do the scenes with me , because we originally were just going to film his side, and then he was going to leave, and then I was going to work with somebody else and film my side, but he wanted to stay - 'If you don't come with me, I'm going to call the police and I'm going to have you taken out of here.' And he looked at me, and he goes, 'They always tell me what to do,' and he just started laughing. He did end up having to leave, but he really wanted to be there. We had a lot of fun.
While Christopher Reeve flew high in four Superman movies that were released from 1978-1987, in 1995, the actor was thrown off a horse while taking part in an equestrian competition in Virginia. He suffered a serious injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down. After that, Reeve only made a few acting appearances, and Smallville was one of them.
As Welling recalled, he was only supposed to be on set for a few hours, but the actor was enjoying himself so much that he pushed his luck and spent double the time there.
The Smallville star recalls the actor’s nurse even had to put her foot down and threaten to “call the police” if he didn’t leave the set. It certainly speaks to Christopher Reeve enjoying himself as he returned to the world of Superman in Season 2’s episode “Rosetta”.
In the episode, Reeve played a brilliant and wealthy scientist named Dr. Virgil Swann who came across a message from Krypton and tracked down Clark Kent as a member of the alien race. The episode is an important one to the series, as Clark learned that his planet no longer existed from Swann.
Reeve returned for an appearance in a Season 3 episode called “Legacy” as well, which aired just six months before the actor died in 2004.
Tom Welling’s super story about meeting Christopher Reeve comes as the late actor is the subject of the new documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which is one of the best movies we’ve seen this year. The movie is available to buy on digital now.
