What Happened To The Cast Of Smallville?

It's hard to imagine this now, considering the stranglehold that superhero films and television series have had on Hollywood over the past decade and a half, but in the early 2000s, developing a show about a superhero — even a top-tier one like Superman — was not guaranteed to be a slam dunk. It's a testament to the charming, borderline addictive nature of "Smallville" that it not only existed on the fledgling CW network, but thrived there for 10 seasons from 2001 to 2011.

In telling the story of Clark Kent's (Tom Welling) teen and young adult years growing up in Smallville, the frothy superhero drama introduced audiences to a crop of upcoming actors who made their mark both on "Smallville" and beyond. While some are still acting to this day, others have taken interesting career — and personal life — turns over the years that may surprise fans of the show. Here's the main cast of "Smallville," and everything they've been up to since leaving Superman behind.

Back when Tom Welling was cast in "Smallville" in 2001, he was just a baby Calvin Klein model with a few minor credits to his name. But in taking on the role of a teenage Clark Kent aka Superman, his career was blown into the stratosphere and pretty much stayed there throughout the 10-season run of "Smallville." (Funnily enough, the showrunners apparently had to beg Welling to audition in the first place.) After the iconic superhero show went off the air, however, Welling took the opportunity to slow things down.

Although Welling is still a regular fixture in film and especially on television, he doesn't seem particularly concerned with maintaining a celebrity status. His filmography is nothing to sneeze at, though. In the years since "Smallville" ended in 2011, Welling appeared in a recurring role on "Lucifer" as Cain (yes, that Cain), starred in 10 episodes of the action series "Professionals," and played Samuel Campbell in the "Supernatural" prequel "The Winchesters." He even briefly reprised his role as Clark Kent in a 2019 episode of "Batwoman" during the CW's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" saga.

When Kristin Kreuk was cast as Lana Lang in "Smallville," she had no small task ahead of her. As the girl next door to Welling's pining Clark Kent, she had to make audiences forget about the superhero's most famous and enduring love interest, Lois Lane. Luckily, Kreuk was up to the challenge, winning over viewers almost immediately and sticking with the show for an impressive 158 episodes.

After leaving "Smallville" as a main cast member (although she would appear off and on over the course of the series), Kreuk continued acting on television. Her most prominent TV role after Lana Lang was when she starred in "Beauty and the Beast," a modern-day adaptation of the classic fairy tale. (Albeit with a much less beast-y beast — it did air on the CW, after all, where handsome leading men are pretty much a requirement.) It aired for four seasons before ending in 2016. In the years since, she's made appearances on shows like "Burden of Truth," "Ghostwriter," and "Reacher." Most recently, she starred in "Murder in a Small Town," a Canadian crime drama series that was renewed for a second season in January 2025.

For every superhero, there has to be a smarmy, superrich villain to act as his foil, and on "Smallville," that was Lex Luthor. Sometimes he acted a friend and confidant to Clark Kent, sometimes he was an out-and-out bad guy, but he was always scheming away. Rosenbaum began acting in the late 1990s, and some of his most prominent early roles were in "Urban Legend," "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," and the 1999 WB sitcom "Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane." When the creators of "Smallville" brought the actor in for an audition, however, Rosenbaum wasn't immediately convinced. Luckily, he ended up taking the job, and stuck with it for seven full seasons.

Throughout the run of "Smallville," Rosenbaum worked steadily, often taking on other roles in the DC and Marvel universe, including voicing the Flash in "Justice League," "Justice League Unlimited," and "Teen Titans." In recent years, he's had a minor role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing the Ravager Martinex T'Naga in last two "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies. Since 2018, Rosenbaum has also hosted the wildly successful "Inside of You" podcast, interviewing everyone from former costars like Tom Welling to Hollywood powerhouses like James Gunn.

Chloe Sullivan, one of Clark Kent's closest high school friends, was pretty much a ray of sunshine on "Smallville," and that's largely thanks to Allison Mack's bubbly on-screen disposition. A former child actor, Mack appeared in films like "Camp Nowhere" and "Honey We Shrunk Ourselves" before landing one of the lead roles on "Smallville" at the age of 19. She was on the show for all 10 seasons, and continued acting after it went off the air, playing supporting roles on "Wilfred," "The Following," and "American Odyssey." But what happened next in her life is something no one could have predicted.

Beginning in 2006 — while she was still acting on "Smallville" — she became involved with NXIVM, an organization that claimed to offer a range of self-improvement programs but was, in reality, a sex cult. Mack rose through the ranks of NXIVM, recruiting other women into the group, and in 2018, she was arrested on charges of "sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy." To avoid a lengthy prison sentence, Mack testified against NXIVM's leader Keith Raniere, and in 2021, she was sentenced to three years in prison. She ultimately served less than two years, and was released in 2023.

At least 50% of all comic book villains come with a whole host of daddy issues, and Lex Luthor is no exception. (No, we don't have a source on that number, but it feels right.) Playing his ultra-rich, very difficult to please father is John Glover, an actor well-known for his villainous performances, both within the comic book realm and outside of it. He was well established within the entertainment industry long before he took on the role of Lionel Luthor in "Smallville," with appearances in films such as "Scrooged," "Robocop 2," and, interestingly enough, "Batman & Robin," where he played mad scientist Jason Woodrue.

In the years after "Smallville," Glover has worked on some of the biggest shows on television, including "The Good Wife," "Agent Carter," "The Blacklist," "Fear the Walking Dead," and "Lucifer." You might also recognize him from 2019's "Shazam!" where he played Mr. Sivana — yet another father abusive enough to turn his son (played by Mark Strong) into a supervillain.

For as long as Superman has been around, there's been Lois Lane, the love of his life. But in "Smallville," she didn't turn up until the fourth season in 2004, where she was played by Erica Durance throughout the rest of the show's time on the air. Up until that point in her career, she had largely had one-off television roles to her name, but her star steadily rose while she was on "Smallville" and the years that followed. From 2012 to 2017, she starred as Dr. Alex Reid on the supernatural medical drama "Saving Hope," a chief surgical resident whose fiance Charlie (Michael Shanks) develops the ability to see dead people after a serious car accident.

Durance never shied away from her comic book roots, however. In 2019, she reprised her role as Lois Lane on a multiverse episode of "Batwoman," and from 2017 to 2019, she played Alura Zor-El, Supergirl's biological mother, on "Supergirl," taking over the role from Laura Benanti, who portrayed the character on the first two seasons of the show. These days, you're most likely to find Durance on the TV Christmas movie circuit — she's appeared in films like "The Christmas Chalet," "Mrs. Christmas Comes to Town," and "Happy Holidays from Cherry Lane," amongst many others.

Annette O'Toole was already a prominent figure in Hollywood by the time she took on the role of Clark Kent's adoptive mother Martha, a part she played for the first six seasons of "Smallville." And coincidentally, playing the Kent family matriarch was not her first foray into the world of Superman. In 1983, she played none other than Lana Lang in "Superman III," a childhood friend who Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) reconnects with when he returns home to Smallville for a high school reunion. 

In the years since "Smallville" went off the air, she's starred in a handful of other television series — O'Toole played Susan Emerson on the criminally underrated "Halt and Catch Fire," and is currently starring in "Virgin River," where she plays the small town's mayor. "Virgin River" has been streaming on Netflix for six seasons, and in October 2024, it was announced that the cast would be coming back for a seventh. She also received critical praise for her work in the tragically underseen 2020 crime dramedy "Blow the Man Down."

If you have even a passing familiarity with early 1980s television, you'll likely recognize John Schneider from his performance as Bo Duke on "The Dukes of Hazzard." But he also had a career as a country singer (he's had four singles reach the Number 1 spot on the U.S. Country charts) and worked consistently on the big and small screen before he took up the mantle of Jonathan Kent, Clark Kent's adoptive father, on "Smallville." He was on the show for the first five seasons, before leaving in heartbreaking fashion during the 100th episode.

Schneider went on to have recurring roles on high-profile television series such as "Nip/Tuck," "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," "Dirty Sexy Money," and "Desperate Housewives." In 2023, he drew controversy after publicly advocating for the lynching of then-president Joe Biden on X (formerly known as Twitter) a comment that sparked an investigation by the Secret Service and was later deleted from the platform. That same year, he appeared on "The Masked Singer" as a giant donut, coming in second place.

Long before Stephen Amell took on the role of Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow in the CW's hit superhero show "Arrow," Justin Hartley played the billionaire vigilante on "Smallville," first appearing in Season 6 and becoming a main cast member for the final three seasons. Before "Smallville," he had really only been in one thing: The soap opera "Passions," where he played Fox Crane for four years. But after "Smallville" went off the air, boy, did his career blow up. 

He had key roles in "Emily Owens, M.D.," "Revenge, "Mistresses," and "The Young and the Restless," but the project that really sent him into the stratosphere was a little network drama called "This Is Us." Maybe you've heard of it? In it, he played Kevin, one of a set of triplets featured heavily in the Pearson family melodrama. "This Is Us" took the U.S. by storm, running for six seasons and earning 14 Primetime Emmy nominations over the years. After "This Is Us" ended in 2022, Hartley wasted no time in finding his next big role. In 2024, he took on the lead character of Colter Shaw on the CBS action drama "Tracker."

Sam Jones III was one of the original cast members of "Smallville" during the show's high school years, playing Pete Ross, one of Clark Kent's best friends. (He was also one part of the Clark-Chloe-Lana-Pete love trapezoid, but luckily that arc burned out fairly quickly.) Ross was an integral part of the show until he exited during Season 3 — the burden of carrying Clark's secret became too great, and he took the opportunity to move away from Smallville with his mother after his parents divorced.

Jones worked steadily as an actor after leaving "Smallville" in 2004. He was featured in 16 episodes of "ER," playing medical student Chaz Pratt, as well as appearing in "Blue Mountain State," a college sitcom that ran for three seasons on Spike. During the 2010s, he experienced some legal troubles, as he was caught in a DEA sting operation and charged with "conspiracy to possess illegal drugs with the intent to distribute", specifically thousands of oxycodone pills. He ultimately served 10 months in prison. Jones's most recent credit was in the horror film "All Light Will End," which was released on VOD in 2018.

On "Smallville," Tess Mercer is just a woman looking for someone to believe in. First it's Lex Luthor — the brother she never knew she had, literally — but when he inevitably disappoints her, she hitched her wagon to none other than Clark Kent. Although Cassidy Freeman was only on "Smallville" for its last three seasons (and arguably the period where the show had lost some of its cultural relevance), she made a strong impression.

Tess Mercer was Freeman's first major role, and after "Smallville" ended, she jumped right into her next big project — playing Cady Longmire on "Longmire," a modern-day Western that ran on A&E for six seasons. She also had a recurring role on the legal drama "Doubt" starring Katherine Heigl, which was unfortunately canceled after just one season due to weak ratings. But nowadays, you'll likely recognize Freeman for her work on "The Righteous Gemstones," where she plays Amber, the ambitious wife of Jesse Gemstone (Danny McBride), the oldest son in a family of megachurch royalty.

Although several characters on "Smallville" were on the show from the very beginning, Aaron Ashmore was a late addition to the cast, joining in 2006 as Jimmy Olsen for the last four seasons. Clark Kent's cheerful yet often-unlucky colleague at the Daily Planet, Olsen brings a bright quality to the show's increasingly dark proceedings.

You might feel as though you've seen Aaron Ashmore everywhere, but while he's certainly had a prolific career, part of this confusion likely stems from the fact that he has an identical twin brother Shawn, who is also an actor. (And interestingly enough, they've both had a foot in the superhero world — Shawn played Iceman in the "X-Men" franchise and even had a two-part stint in "Smallville," too.) 

For his part, Aaron has done some of his most prominent work on television, starring in shows such as "In Plain Sight" and "Warehouse 13." And he's really just getting started — some of his biggest roles have come in just the past few years. From 2020 to 2022, he played Duncan Locke in the Netflix fantasy series "Locke & Key," and in 2023, he embraced a very different type of character, playing Georgia's abusive ex on the frothy teen drama "Ginny & Georgia."

Aside from the main roster of characters on "Smallville," Zod is one of the most important figures in Superman canon, so he casts a long shadow even though he's only in the final two seasons of the show. Played by Callum Blue, once Zod recovers his powers, he's up to his old world-conquering tricks again. By the time Blue was cast in "Smallville," he'd had several career-defining roles under his belt, including playing the chaotic reaper Mason on "Dead Like Me," Sir Anthony Knivert on "The Tudors," Alex on "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," and Andrew Jacoby, Duke of Kenilworth — Anne Hathaway's fiancé before she's swept off her feet by Chris Pine's Lord Nicholas — in "The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement." 

In the years since "Smallville," Blue was a main cast member on the supernatural drama "Proof," where he played a writer moonlighting as a psychic. Most recently, he had an interestingly meta recurring role on "9-1-1" as Brad Torrance, an actor who plays a firefighter on a hit television series called "Hotshots." And in 2025, he wrote and directed a short film called "Paint" starring Heather Matarazzo, his "Princess Diaries" co-star from way back when.

Jason Teague, played by Jensen Ackles, turns up in the fourth season of "Smallville" as competition with Clark for Lana Lang's affections. Or at least, that's what it seems like at first. But like so many characters on "Smallville," there's much more to Jason Teague than meets the eye. By the time Ackles was brought on board for Season 4 (although he originally auditioned for the role of Clark Kent when the show was first being developed), he was already a hot commodity in the frothy TV drama world. He appeared as Eric Brady in 469 episodes of the daytime soap opera "Days of Our Lives," and had recurring roles on both "Dark Angel" and "Dawson's Creek."

After "Smallville," of course, Ackles found a role that has ultimately defined his career thus far: Dean Winchester on "Supernatural," the horror-adjacent CW series about a pair of brothers who make a career out of hunting demons, ghosts, and other otherworldly creatures. He starred on the show alongside Jared Padalecki for an exhausting 15 seasons as the two developed a fervently devoted fanbase. In the years since "Supernatural" went off the air, Ackles has reprised his role for 13 episodes of the spinoff show "The Winchesters" and took on the character of Soldier Boy in Prime Video's anarchic superhero series "The Boys." Ackles is set to reprise the role for the show's fifth and final season and also in a prequel spin-off titled "Vought Rising."