USA Weekend – For eight seasons, The CW’s Smallville has reinvented characters and events from Superman comic books, and the tradition continues into the ninth season, premiering Friday night, with the introduction of Zod, one of the Man of Steel’s fiercest nemeses. The fascist leader was famously played by Terence Stamp opposite Christopher Reeve‘s Superman in 1980’s Superman II, and he becomes the resident villain on Smallville courtesy of British actor Callum Blue. Our Brian Truitt talked with Blue when both were at Comic-Con in July. Read below for the full report and check out this clip featuring Blue as Zod.
Stamp’s deep-throated “Kneel before Zod!” movie catchphrase is popular among comic book fanboys, and Blue is proud that his version makes it into the season premiere. “I’m milking it for all it’s worth. I love that line,” Blue says. Also, “I’ve already chopped somebody’s head off, which was fantastic. Start as you mean to go on, that’s what I always say.” Blue remembers being “terrified” of Stamp’s steely coldness when he watched Superman II as a kid. “He’s not over the top at all in that movie. I’m just going to rip him off, basically.”
In Smallville, Clark Kent (series star Tom Welling) is taking steps toward becoming Superman, and at the same time Zod — who has been mentioned and appeared in previous seasons — hasn’t reached his full rank yet either. When he’s plucked from the jail-like Phantom Zone (incarcerated there for major crimes against the planet Krypton), he’s just Major Zod. He will turn into a general who becomes a nefarious enemy for Superman and his family, but when Smallville fans meet Zod, he’s got enough problems avoiding a mutiny among his troops when they don’t receive their promised super powers. Eventually, Zod will get similar powers to Clark/Superman’s. “I can’t wait to do all the flying stuff,” says Blue, who also hopes that later in the season, he’ll be wearing a costume similar to the one Stamp wore in the movie, with a plunging V-neck. “I’ve gotta do a few more weights before that happens, though.”
Blue’s signed on for two seasons of Smallville, which films in Vancouver, where he lived while doing two seasons of Showtime’s Dead Like Me. The 32-year-old actor, who also filmed a couple episodes of SyFy’s Sanctuary recently, admits that he’s not a longtime fan of science fiction. “When they tried to tell me the storylines, I just go blank,” Blue says. “But you know what? Because I’ve been filming sci-fi for a little while, I’m getting more and more involved and more and more into it. The whole history of these characters, they’re really loved, aren’t they? It really turns me on because I’m just getting into this kind of stuff.”
