Tom Welling - biography and personal life

Tom Welling lived a fairly quiet life in Hollywood until he appeared as Clark Kent in Smallville. Despite being a superhero on the OG network, which became known for its series based on comedians, Welling has yet to capitalize on the success of his TV work to propel his acting career to the next level. Rumors that he would reprise his role as Superman in Superwoman this season did not materialize, and Tyler Hoechlin took his place.

Here are the top reasons why Hollywood won't cast Tom Welling again, and some possible steps he can take to turn his career around.

He had very limited acting experience before appearing in Smallville.

Tom Welling was new to Hollywood when he played Rob Meltzer in six episodes. What recurring role might a karate teacher play in a legal drama about a Connecticut judge trying to raise his daughter on his own? Of course, Judge Amy's love was involved! Rob Weltz taught Lauren, Amy's daughter, karate, and then fought Amy herself, after which they began dating.

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Welling landed the role of a tough karate teacher when he was 24, which led to his starring role as a high school kid in Smallville. Despite producing six episodes, the actor's lack of experience was evident (especially in some of the early episodes of Smallville), and it also meant that Clark Kent became Welling's most recognizable role, making it even more difficult for him to turn down further roles.

He didn't have time to try on many other roles. There are many actors who started out with recognizable early roles in various television shows, but they have also been able to take their careers in other directions by starring in feature films. However, the innovative visual effects required by Smallville meant that Welling was on set more often than other actors, which took time away from other projects.

Roles he has played include the terribly produced horror film The Fog, starring Maggie Grace and Selma Blair, and Charlie Baker in The Dozen's Cheaper. Welling was not a great dramatic actor in any of these roles, and Smallville remains the most impressive work on his resume.

Movies

In 2001, the young actor made his debut in the drama series Judging Amy, where he played the charming coach Rob Meltzer. The first appearance on the screen was successful, and the artist was invited to play a supporting role in the comedy mini-series “Evil Hunters.”

Tom Welling in the TV series "Judging Amy"

But the turning point in Tom’s career was his work in the Warner Bros. project “Smallville,” a multi-part sci-fi action film based on the comics about Superman. It is noteworthy that in his youth the actor never saw comic books and never showed interest in drawn stories, dreaming of creating a “fresh” image of Superman.

Having conceived the filming, the film company announced a nationwide casting for the main role - Clark Kent. The aspiring actor arrived for the audition with thousands of applicants hoping to play the superhero. Welling won, whose performance turned out to be the most convincing, and whose appearance guaranteed success with a female audience.

Tom Welling in the movie Smallville

The first episode of the project, entitled “Pilot,” was released in mid-October 2001 on a cable TV channel and attracted a record 8.4 million viewers on TV screens. Until the spring of 2006, 5 seasons were released on the channel, and in the fall of the same year the tape began to be broadcast on the popular channel The CW.

Russian viewers saw “Smallville” in the summer of 2003 on STS. The project was filmed until 2011, and it took 1st place among series based on comic books, and 2nd among science fiction series. Welling appeared on screen with his charming co-stars Erica Durance, Kristin Kreuk and Allison Mack.

Tom Welling as Clark Kent

In the second year of filming the project, the actor was awarded the Teen Choice Award as having made a career breakthrough. Tom became a star whose fan base numbered in the millions. Hollywood directors invited him to new projects.

In 2003, Shawn Levy invited Welling to play one of the 12 offspring, Charlie Baker, in the comedy melodrama Cheaper by the Dozen, where the main characters were played by comedian Steve Martin and actress Bonnie Hunt.

Tom Welling in the movie Cheaper by the Dozen

The good family comedy appealed to millions of TV viewers, and in 2005 the producers made an equally successful sequel. That same year, viewers saw the premiere of the horror film “The Fog” directed by Rupert Wainwright. Welling got the main role - Nick. On the set, the actor met with Maggie Grace, Selma Blair and Rade Sherbedzhia.

The thriller “The Fog” is a remake of the Hollywood horror film of the same name by John Carpenter, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Janet Leigh. But in the project, where Tom Welling played, the director focused on the cause of the terrible fog that destroyed the city. In 2006, the Hollywood actor made his debut as a director, directing several episodes of Smallville.

Tom Welling in the movie "The Fog"

After finishing his work in the sci-fi epic, the actor starred in the biopic Parkland by Peter Landesman, which tells about the chaotic events after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Welling was recognized as Roy Kellerman. In 2010, the comedy-drama youth series Hellcats premiered, in which Welling first acted as an executive producer.

In 2014, Tom Welling delighted fans with his appearance in the dramatic sports film “Draft Day” with Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner in key roles. The film premiered in Los Angeles in the spring.

Tom Welling in 2020

In 2020, after a two-year lull, viewers saw the star in Ross Katz’s melodrama “The Choice,” where Tom played a bright but minor role. The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The main characters were played by Teresa Palmer, Benjamin Walker and Alexandra Daddario.

After Smallville, he wanted to take a break.

Smallville was so difficult and stressful that the actor subsequently took a voluntary six-month break. When he decided to return to acting, he decided that he wanted to be more selective in his roles.

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“I wanted to play a man, and I wanted to be part of a movie that had a theme that was bigger than any character I played,” he continued. “Now I’m drawn to real people trying to live real lives,” Welling notes.

He became picky about his roles

Welling spent ten years in television, which can be very tiring for an actor, and would like a break from life in front of the cameras. Unsurprisingly, because of this long-term grind, Welling was very picky about the roles he took on after the end of Smallville's run.

In fact, he has only appeared in three films since the show's 2011 finale - Parkland, Draft Day and The Pick. Although neither film received much praise from audiences or critics, it's safe to say that Welling had the opportunity to shine as an actor in all three roles.

In The Choice, Welling played Ryan, a doctor and former flame of the film's leading lady, Gabby Holland. Meanwhile, in Parkland, Welling took on the role of a Secret Service agent working during the Kennedy assassination. It's clear that Welling was aiming for total integration with these roles—no tights, capes, or superheroes.

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Biography Tom Welling

Sports or theater?

Thomas John Patrick ("Tom") Welling was born in the lower Hudson Valley of New York on April 26, 1977. He was the third child and was born after sisters Rebecca and Jamie. Brother Mark is three years younger than Tom. The large family could not sit still, and they often moved, staying briefly in the states of Wisconsin, Delaware, and Michigan. Tom went to high school in Okemos, Michigan. There he was involved in student amateur productions. But Tom was more interested in sports - he was a tall, strong guy who played American football and baseball well. And the schoolboy’s favorite sport remained basketball.

He decided not to get a higher education and became an ordinary builder. Once Tom participated in a party on the island of Nantucket (this is where the events of the novel “Moby Dick” begin), and he was noticed by a representative of an advertising agency. 21-year-old Tom could not refuse the lucrative offer and signed a contract with the Louisa Models agency. A year and a half later, Tom Welling’s biography continued in Los Angeles, where he began collaborating with world-famous brands (including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger). However, Tom did not intend to stay “in models”: he dreamed of becoming an actor. In the early 2000s, his modeling career was over, however, in 2008, Tom agreed to appear for Vogue (the May issue was called “Superhero”).

Comic book anti-fan becomes the new Superman

In 2000, Welling appeared in Angela Via's video, and then completely switched to acting. Tom was invited to play a guest role in the TV series Judging Amy. In the CBS show about family court judge Amy Gray (played by Amy Brenneman), Welling portrayed karate teacher Rob Meltzer, the title character's crush. The role was short (only six episodes), but the character was remembered by the audience.

At the beginning of 2001, the Warner Bros. studio announced a nationwide competition - they were looking for an actor to play the role of Clark Kent in a new project of their subsidiary network “The CW”. There were a lot of people interested, among them was, for example, the already quite famous actor Milo Ventimiglia. Welling did not particularly count on success. Returning from an audition at the studio, he stopped at a gas station to call his manager and ask how he liked the casting. It was then that several voices on the phone shouted in unison: “Tom, you got the role!” The pilot episode of the fantasy series Smallville was released in October 2001 - it set a record (the audience reached an impressive figure of 8.4 million).

Smallville

It is curious that Welling himself is not a fan of comics, has not read them and does not intend to. He wanted to create a completely new, “fresh” image of a superhero.

Another achievement was related to the length of the show - it was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest sci-fi show (10 seasons). Thus, for ten whole years, the biography of Tom Welling turned out to be the biography of Clark Kent - Superman in his youth. Of course, such popularity could be envied, but there was almost no time for cinema.

There were rare exceptions: for example, the comedy “Cheaper by the Dozen,” which was released at the end of 2003. The role of the eldest son Charlie in the huge (12 children) Baker family became Tom's debut on the big screen. The family film was a remake of the 1950 film starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy. In the modern version, the parents were played by Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt. In an interview, Tom explained why he was interested in the role of Charlie: “There were three main reasons: one was Steve Martin, the second was Steve Martin and the third was Steve Martin!” Welling is a big fan of the comedian and happily agreed to star in the sequel, released in 2005. Together with him, not only the on-screen dad and mom migrated to the new movie, but also the beauties Hilary Duff and Piper Perabo, who played Charlie's sisters.

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Failed remake and two small roles

In parallel with filming the fourth episode of Smallville, work was underway on a remake of Carpenter's horror film The Fog, in which Welling had a leading role. The film also stars Selma Blair and Maggie Grace. Alas, the mystical horror film about ghosts attacking a coastal town turned out to be worse than the original and collected only $46 million at the box office. Although the 1980 thriller with Jamie Lee Curtis was not very popular - why was it remade?

In 2011, the “epic” with Clark Kent ended, and Tom has since appeared in only two small roles: in the biopic about the death of President Kennedy “Parkland” and in the sports drama by Ivan Rye (which, despite the participation of Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner and Frank Langella, just managed to “recapture” the 27 million budget).

Draft day

In February 2016, the low-budget melodrama “The Choice” with Teresa Palmer, Benjamin Walker (Meryl Streep's former son-in-law), Tom Welling and Alexandra Daddario was released in the United States, but this is not the kind of work you can dream of.

The roles he chose were not very well received by the public and critics

The fact that a film is not very good is not always an actor's fault, but it can significantly affect his future career. Unfortunately, none of the films he appeared in resonated with critics or audiences.

2013's Parkland only made $1.4 million at the box office against a $10 million budget. 2014's "Draft Day" did slightly better, bringing in $29.5 million at the box office on a $25 million budget.

The Choice was the worst-performing of the three films in 2020, earning just over $23 million worldwide against a budget of about $10 million.

None of the three films were impressive enough to stand out and prove Welling's star power outside of Smallville to force studios to cast him in big-budget films.

He wanted to spend more time off set

Welling launched Tom Welling Productions towards the end of Smallville's run and began executive producing later episodes of Smallville, and in 2011 became executive producer of the drama series Hellcats and was named executive producer of a potential television show project in 2020.

Welling also directed several episodes of Smallville himself and said that directing was his new ambition. His acting career may have lost some momentum because he focused on pursuing other opportunities without appearing in front of the cameras.

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Personal life

The artist met his first wife Jamie White in Miami at the beginning of his modeling career, in 1998. The couple dated for 4 years, and got married in July 2002. The marriage did not survive the test of fame: Tom and Jamie separated in December 2012.

Tom Welling and his first wife Jamie White

In 2013, the wife initiated a divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences.” The divorce proceedings ended at the end of 2020. The couple had no children.

Tom Welling met his new lover in 2014. Jessica Rose Lee is the founder of Saddle Club. Fans of Superman can admire photos of the couple together on the star’s Instagram.

Tom Welling and Jessica Rose Lee

Tom Welling is friends with colleagues Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, who played the main characters in the mystical film Supernatural

" Viewers could see Ackles in season 4 of Smallville.

He decided that he no longer wanted to do television and be with his family

For Welling, Smallville wasn't just a full-time job. The actor sat for hours every day on the set in Vancouver, away from his family who remained in New York, and very often succumbed to emotions, feeling completely alone away from his family and friends.

Because of this, Welling decided that after Smallville he would pursue films that required less shooting time and involved more breaks. Welling's aversion to television may have led him to turn down potentially lucrative and popular roles after Smallville.

His TV pilot did not receive a series order.

When Tom Welling decided in 2020 that he was finally ready to return to the small screen, the project was a complete fiasco.

Perhaps his most high-profile project since Smallville, it was supposed to feature the actor as a CIA officer who becomes a private contractor for a secret organization "dedicated to carrying out the most complex, dangerous, and high-stakes assignments," but it failed.

Childhood and youth

The future Hollywood celebrity appeared in Putnam County, New York, US, in the spring of 1977. There were no actors in the family of the future Superman from Smallville: his mother was a housewife raising four children (Tom has two older sisters and a younger brother), his father was a General Motors employee. Thomas has German blood in his veins: his parents come from Germany.

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Actor Tom Welling

The work of the head of the family required frequent moving. From New York, the Wellings moved to Wisconsin, then to Delaware and Michigan. The family stopped for a long time in Okemos, Michigan. Tom Welling went to the local high school, where his main interests were baseball and basketball. Tom's height of 1.90 m was very useful for these sports.

In 1995, Welling was awarded a certificate, and the young man went to work. He worked in a construction company and did not think about a career as an artist. The impetus for Tom Welling's stellar career was a chance meeting at a party in 1998. The guy was vacationing with friends on the island of Nantucket, washed by the Atlantic Ocean.

Tom Welling in his youth

The flash of a professional photographer’s camera predetermined the further biography of the American. With a trained eye, the snapshot master singled out an athletic young man with a dazzling smile from the crowd and advised him to try his hand at the modeling business, which promises considerable and relatively easy money.

This is how Tom Welling ended up in the German modeling agency Louisa Models, then the handsome man was engaged by the American company Tommy Hilfiger, after signing a contract with which Welling moved to Los Angeles. Work at Abercrombie & Fitch and Calvin Klein brought Thomas to the top of the fashion Olympus, but after achieving success, he felt devastated.

Model Tom Welling

Tom Welling later admitted that the excessive attention to external gloss and the “secondary nature” of the inner world in the modeling business disappointed him. Living in Los Angeles in close proximity to the “dream factory” played a role: Welling began to think about a career as an actor.

He enjoys his weekend

Perhaps Tom Welling doesn't appear on stage or in front of cameras too often for one simple reason: he just doesn't want to. The actor's social media accounts prove that he is having a pretty good time away from public attention - attending concerts, going to the beach to soak up the sun, or inventing other entertainment and fun for himself.

He even rolled down the mountain slopes and encountered a “red dinosaur” named Ski-asaurus Rex. Oddly enough, encountering dinosaurs in the modern era may be something of a new trend or fad. Could this be Welling's way of hinting that he'd like to be part of the Jurassic World franchise?

Either way, Welling may be having so much fun in his free time that he's just in no rush to get back on set.

He returned to television anyway

Despite some aversion to TV, Welling joined the cast of the supernatural drama during its third season in 2017, playing a police lieutenant named Marcus Pierce. As a potential lover of interest to main character Chloe Decker (Lauren German), Pierce is the polar opposite of the series' protagonist, who is the Lord of Hell, Lucifer.

But it's clear that the actor is far from playing Clark Kent; in fact, as he told reporters after joining the cast, one of the things that attracted him to the role was the opportunity to go in a "completely different" direction. And hopefully, this is just the beginning of an exciting second act in his career.

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Filmography[ | ]

As an actor[ | ]

As a director and producer[ | ]