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We're
Hangin' With.....
TOM
WELLING!
by:
Lynn B.
 If
this gorgeous, dark-haired, blue-eyed actor hasn't grabbed your attention
as young Superman on "Smallville", then you need to have your
pulse checked. Guys like him too.. he's "real", not afraid to
appear vulnerable but hey.. he can bend steel with his bare hands!
For his
feature film debut, you would think Tom would play the romantic lead in
a drama….if not actually take on the role of the Man of Steel in
the movie that so many young actors have turned down. His choice was an
ensemble comedy where he plays teen siren Hilary Duff's brother!
In Cheaper
by the Dozen, Tom plays Charlie, Steve Martin's oldest son in a family
of twelve. He's again a rural boy, wears a baseball cap and feels displaced
in the big city. Otherwise, he's nowhere near repeating his Clark Kent
character. Charlie is closer to Tom's own upbringing as one of four siblings.
We spoke with the cutie at a posh hotel near Rodeo Drive in L.A. and he
was a casual vision in brown corduroy and blue shirt to match those incredible
eyes.
AGW: How and why pick this movie as your feature debut?
Tom: When I first got this script it was sent to me in a package of four
or five, and I was discussing the projects with my agent. He was saying,
'This person is involved with this and this person is involved with this.'
Cheaper by the Dozen was about the third script in the pile and
my agent said, 'Steve Martin is playing the father in this one.' And for
me this script really went to the top. The top three reasons I decided
to do this film were, one, Steve Martin, two, Steve Martin and three,
Steve Martin. After reading the script, I really liked this character,
Charlie. I liked what he had to go through, and I felt I understood where
he was coming from. It was the kind of story I wanted to be a part of.
AGW: What
interested you more in this film, the humor or the heart?
Tom: Well, my character isn't funny. I'm about the only one in the film
who isn't funny. For me, it was more about the heart. Everybody else is
coming from an angle of excitement. The kids are excited because they're
getting toys. Dad's getting a new job. Mom's got a new book. My character
is the only one who sits back and says, 'Wait a minute, I think we're
getting a little ahead of ourselves.' So he's really the one working from
more of a heart point of view, or an internal point of view, and a lot
of the other characters are working from an external influence point of
view. So yes, the heart was very important.
AGW: Do you come from a big family?
Tom: I have a family of six, four kids so I could relate. We went back
and reshot a scene where Charlie is on the phone with his girlfriend and
someone keeps picking up the phone. 'I'm on the phone. I'm on the phone.'
They hang up. I continue my conversation and someone else would get on
the phone. I went through that growing up. My mother would pick up the
phone, and she wouldn't even see if anyone was on the line. She'd dial
all the numbers before she ever put the phone to her ear. It would be
like, 'Ma...' You'd wait. 'Mom.' And she'd say, 'Oh, I'm so sorry.'
AGW: You and Hilary [Duff] are the teen idols of the group. Did you guys
get teased by the younger kids?
Tom: Hilary did. I remember that a lot of the little boys liked to tease
Hilary. They all knew who she was. They were all familiar with what she'd
done. They weren't so sure, the little ones, who I was when I got there.
They found out along the way, but by that time they'd already met me.
They were just like, 'So, what are you doing on TV?' Kids are very honest.
They're brutally honest that way.
 AGW:
How was working with her as your kid sister?
Tom: Hilary is great. She's very charming. She's a great spirit, a lot
of fun. I tried to help her out. We did a scene where I drive a car into
a parking spot and she mentioned 'I have to go to driver's ed next week.'
I said, 'Oh, check this out,' and I showed her how to keep your foot on
the brake while you floored the gas, get the RPMs up and sort of peel
out a little bit. I saw her later and she said, 'You know, I tried that,
but it doesn't work in my Mercedes.' I said, 'Well, the Nova that I showed
you in, there's a little difference.'
AGW: Hilary said you made her laugh a lot.
Tom: We just had a lot of fun, everybody there. I think it comes across
in the film. Everybody was just there to have fun. Unlike a lot of families
-- where you're old enough and everyone's separated and you look back
and go, 'Wait a minute. We actually had some fun at that time in our lives.'
-- we were all just laughing and having a good time.
AGW: Did working with Steve Martin match the dream you had?
Tom: Absolutely. I grew up watching him. He was always my favorite guy
ever on "Saturday Night Live". Getting to work with him and
meeting him on a personal level and on a work level, he just fulfilled
every expectation I had and even more. He's just a great, wonderful human
being. He's a lot of fun, very caring and very supportive.
AGW: Did he give you any bits of advice?
Tom: One piece of advice that he told me was that, "In this business
there is no secret knowledge. Anyone who has made it has made it for different
reasons. Some of them have no reasons whatsoever. You just have to follow
your heart and do what you think is right.' It was Steve, Bonnie [Hunt,
who plays his mom] and I. They'd taken me out to dinner for my birthday.
We were up in Northern California and we were all lonely, so we went out
to dinner. So I was just kind of sitting back like a fly on the wall and
listening to the two of them talk about some of the choices that they'd
made in what they'd done. It was very interesting.
AGW: Were you ever worried at all about being Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher?
Tom: As far as I know, before the show Punk'd can air, there's a waiver
that has to be signed. So I think they need to be afraid of me not signing
that waiver before they'd Punk me. (Jokes). No, I'm not afraid.
AGW: How important was it to do something other than "Smallville",
to show people another aspect of what you can do?
Tom: It was very important, even apart from a professional standpoint.
I wanted to do something different, in a different medium, something that
would allow me to be a little more free. A lot of times on "Smallville"
we'll shoot the master shot, then we'll go in and do some medium range
shots and then they love to go right into these real big close-ups. You
don't have a lot of movement at that point. On this film I knew that there'd
be a little bit more room, a little more space, a little more space to
create, and a lot more leeway. That was very enticing to me.
AGW: A big family means chaos. How do you deal with chaos in your own
life?
Tom: I have so much chaos in my life it's become normal, with being on
the (Smallville) set. I'm there nine months out of the year and I work
nearly every day. You become used to it. You have to just relax and calm
down and take a deep breath and try to see how you can make things work
rather than complain about how they're wrong. That's what I try to do.
AGW: Did working with kids make you want to have kids or run the other
way?
Tom: I worked with six other kids, but I don't think that it accelerated
any rush to have children. But I look forward to having a family sometime
in the future, to having a couple of kids.
AGW: Are you as much a realist as Charlie?
Tom: At times but I think I maybe cut myself a little more slack than
this character does. He's pretty hard on himself and the people around
him. Of course, he's in a pretty serious position.
AGW: How do you handle fame?
Tom: I'm not sure what fame is. Fame may be attention. I guess that's
all it really is, attention. I'm separated from a lot of it. I'm up in
Vancouver and I'm shooting all the time. It's something that's out of
my control. It's something I appreciate and that I respect, but it's not
necessarily something that I concentrate on or try to maintain.
AGW: Why is "Smallville" so popular and how hard is it to maintain
its quality and popularity when shows are falling hard in the ratings?
Tom: It is a good show. It actually has elements that Cheaper by the Dozen
has, and that is that people of different ages can watch it and enjoy
it for different reasons. I think that a lot of things become successful
for that reason. Basically, what we're looking at is if you can get a
lot of different people to like one thing it will be successful. That's
the common thread between the two.
AGW: How much has Clark developed over the seasons?
Tom: At the beginning of the show Clark didn't even talk. He was kind
of a geek. Now, somehow, without any sort of obvious transition, he's
this guy who's cool and hangs out with everybody. I'm not sure how that
happened, but it did. Clark is a bit more streetsmart than he was at the
beginning of the season. He's probably wrestling more with his emotions
now, rather than just being thrown off by them or being confused by them.
I think he's getting a better grasp of what they are, but then trying
to work through them and figure out who he is.
AGW: Why not play Superman in the big movie?
Tom: Before that film could ever be brought to me on an actual level there
are just too many things that probably wouldn't allow it to happen. One
is the shooting schedule I have on "Smallville".
AGW: Where do you call home?
Tom: Right now I reside in Vancouver about nine months out of the year.
Last summer I was working on the film and then I spent some time with
my family out east. Basically, Vancouver.
AGW: Would you ever want to live on a farm like Clark?
Tom: Sure. Who wouldn't want to have the apartment in the city and a house
out on a farm? Everybody wants some space. Someone brought up fame earlier,
and I think there's almost a sense with a lot of attention coming in,
that you almost need an escape route. We all want some space. We all want
some time on our own, and a lot of the time that means going outside of
the hustle and bustle.
AGW: Charlie plays football. Do you?
Tom: My father played quite a bit and he didn't want me to play growing
up. I played soccer, baseball and basketball. I used to play football
in the backyard with my brother and his friends, but never on a team level.
AGW: Since we're talking about family, was choosing acting a surprise
to your parents?
Tom: That was as much a surprise to them as it was to me. I didn't grow
up with the intention of becoming an actor. It wasn't until three, four
or five years ago that it ever really became something I thought I could
even do. I'd always grown up watching movies and wanting to be that guy.
I wanted to be Tom Cruise. I wanted to be Maverick (from Top Gun). The
sense of adventure was very alluring to me, and it wasn't until a few
years ago that I was talking to some people who said, 'We can maybe put
you in a position where it could become a possibility. We can introduce
you to some people.' I said, 'Well, let's try it.' And I loved it right
from the start. I was living in New York. I was doing modeling at the
time. It was a good thing that this happened, because I was not very good
at (modeling).
AGW: Why not?
Tom: To me, it's not a very expressive job. It's really based solely on
what's the outside. I didn't find that it was fulfilling at all. I find
acting to be much more fulfilling. You can be much more expressive and
you can show a lot more of who you are. At the end of the day I feel like
I've created something.
AGW: You're married. How do you deal with distances and not being around
people you love?
Tom: Cell phones help. E-mail helps. You just try to stay in touch. You
make your best effort to see people when you can. Your expectations of
people change and their expectations of you have to change as well. You
can't go from seeing your buddy every week to moving to Canada and not
seeing him for three months and still expect the same things from each
other. You have to adjust.
AGW: How did you meet the wife?
Tom: We met about five years ago. We were both in New York at about the
same time. We got married September, 2002.
AGW: Did
Chris Reeve share any insights into his days as Superman when he guested
on the show?
Tom: It was funny. He watches "Smallville" and he was amazed
at how we can do what we do on a day to day basis and even get them out
in a week, with some of the special effects. He was explaining how, when
he did the first Superman, even up to a year after the actual production
stopped he was still working, and how they really pushed the special effects
and the visual effects forward with that film. He also had a little joke
that he didn't want to talk with me too much about Superman because I'm
not supposed to know about him yet, because I'm only Clark Kent.
 AGW:
Will we see Clark flying on the show?
Tom: A lot of people are looking forward to that but I believe that Clark
flying around, Clark putting on the suit would go against what we're trying
to do, and that is show a teenager with these abilities who is trying
to fit and trying to be normal. I think that if he puts on the suit and
he starts flying around, one, we've now changed the dynamic of the show,
and, two, it would be too easy. We try not to make it too easy for Clark
to use his abilities. Other people can't find out about them. He has to
make sure that he's very conscientious about covering his tracks.
TeenHollywood; What's coming up on the show?
Tom: Lex Luthor is crazy. He's in an insane asylum. Lana's got a new sort
of boyfriend, sort of freak-boy who I'm probably going to have to get
rid of sooner or later. And Chloe and Clark start putting the pieces of
their friendship back together.
AGW: Do you want to graduate on screen, stop doing teen and high school
roles?
Tom: There is the idea that at some point you have to grow up, you have
to leave the teen medium. That's either something you do on purpose or
that you fall into, but it's a tricky situation. Maybe you can play older,
but once you do that it's more difficult to go back. So why, right now,
push back away all these roles that are in this age range that you fit
into? You have to at least consider them, because there are some good
roles. Once you're 40 you can't play those roles, so you might as well
keep your options open.
AGW: Are you looking for anything specific to do next on the big screen?
Tom: We don't have any specific strategy to find the anti-Clark. We're
looking at everything right now. It was great to be on the set with Bonnie
and Steve, who are, in my mind, probably two of the greatest comedic minds
around. They're just brilliant. And they have two different ways to even
go about comedy. Comedy is definitely something I' d be interested in,
as well as dramas and action. I'm just looking at everything right now.
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