10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Smallville

7. Brandon Routh Was Up For Clark Kent

Smallville Supernatural Crossover
The CW

Brandon Routh went on to play the Man of Steel in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns and more recently in the Arrowverse's monumental Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event, yet Routh was actually up for the Superman role a couple of years before Singer's 2006 movie.

As revealed by Routh at 2019's Motor City Comic Con, he auditioned for Smallville's Clark Kent role that would ultimately go to Tom Welling.

Direct from Routh, "So when Smallville came around, I had an audition for that. This was 2000, 2001. I had that audition, and then I had a callback and I was like, ‘oh, this is gonna happen, right?’ Very naive. Then it didn’t go any further and I was pretty crushed.”

Skip ahead a couple of years, and the actor would land the Boy Scout gig for Superman Returns. While that film was a mixed bag, Routh's performance at the centre of proceedings was largely well received. As such, fans geeked out upon hearing the news that Brandon - who by that point was playing Ray Palmer in the Arrowverse - was to suit up once more as Superman for Crisis on Infinite Earths.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.