July 2002

Michael Rosenbaum: The New, Improved Lex Luthor

At the WizardWorld comics convention in Chicago, last Saturday, Comics2Film's Mikey Mason caught an interview with actor Michael Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum is well-known to most fans as Lex Luthor on Smallville and the voice of the Flash on Justice League. Behold, the myriad delights of his picked brain...

Mikey Mason (MM): What's in store for Lex next season?

Michael Rosenbaum (MR): Every year we're going to get closer to the inevitable. But it's going to be baby steps. There are going to be huge things coming up, but... Ahh... I can't give away too much information here. I know that... You know, there's going to be some interesting things happen with my father, and Lana, and Clark.

MM: So (Lionel Luthor's) not dead?

MR: Oh, no... I didn't say that. Away from my father... I can't tell you what happens with my father, but I can tell you that something else happens that's going to be the main focus of next season. Something big in the comeback... What do you call it? The first show.

MM: The premiere?

MR: The premiere of the second season. The season premiere.

MM: Do you seek out comic roles or do they just kind of fall out to you?

MR: Comic roles?

MM: Yeah, cause you've done Lex, you've done the Flash, you read for the new Spidey animated...

MR: It fell in my lap. I was doing Batman Beyond. I was doing voice-overs. You know, like guest stars and stuff... and Bruce Timm and Andre Armano auditioned, and said "Do you wanna be the Flash?" and I said, "Sure." I wasn't really familiar with the Justice League, and now it's like people come up to me and go "I know you", and I go "Yeah, I'm from Superman," and they go "No. You're the Flash." (laughs) And that's cool. I mean, it's something different.

MM: How do you justify Lex, being as smart a person as he is, not being able to put two and two together and figure out, later, in the aftermath...

MR: I'm always asked these questions. They always say, "How does he not know? How does he not know this?" "Why didn't he go into this?"

MM: Right now it's kind of like blind ignorance. Blind faith in Clark.

MR: Yeah. There's just something in Clark I can see. Something I can find in Clark that no one else has. It's like I almost feel-- Lex feels comfortable around Clark. And he's a good judge of character. He doesn't have a lot of friends, obviously, so he doesn't want to... You know, in the old ways he would have just said, "No. This isn't working out. You're lying to me. You're deceiving me." But he's trying to change his ways. Trying to, you know, give in a little bit.

MM: Battle Royal: You. Gene Hackman. John Shea. Who wins?

MR: Ahh... Oh, man... That's a good one. Me. I win. I'm the new, improved Lex Luthor. I'm the young one, and no one's ever done it, you know, before at all. They started out evil, now you get to see the journey. And I'm going to get more evil than you can possibly imagine. There's going to be reasons why. I think that's why people are embracing my character now, is because they feel for him They feel sorry for him, and along the way you'll see why he becomes evil and how do you hate somebody who you understand?