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Light in the Dark
Since swapping bodies with Clark Kent in Transference, Lionel Luthor is a new and better man -- John Glover talks about his character's transformation to Paul Simpson.

Smallville: The Official Magazine
Issue #8, May 2005


"I've had such a strong heart and soul," John Glover says of Lionel Luthor, whose shift to the side of right and light has been one of the many surprising turns of the fourth season of Smallville. The actor took time from traveling around North American to chat with Smallville Magazine about his character's very different journey this year...

SMALLVILLE MAGAZINE: Last time we spoke, you had just received the script for Transference; what was it like to film it?
JOHN GLOVER: We had a great time. It was very difficult for me to be simple. I wanted to complicate everything but they kept saying, "No, no." I said, "Bit it doesn't look the same when I just stand there and listen." I've spent my whole career trying to find a way to be interesting because I just don't look as interesting as the other kids. There were certain things that I picked out from Tom's performance that when I did them, because Tom is young and gorgeous, they didn't look the same. I had a lot more trouble than I thought I would.

I thought I'd have an easier time of it. It was a big challenge for me, and because Tom's so busy, he couldn't be there all the time. He had to keep running off to shoot other stuff. I was on the set for him so I could watch and give him little pointers, and when he was there I could say, "Tom, say that line," right before I got ready to say it myself, and he would just shoot it out at me. When he was there, it was just a lot easier. There were some times when he had to go away when he couldn't [be there]. It took a while.

All my scenes were in the prison and the first scenes we shot were the fights. Chronologically, the first time we change on screen is when Lionel and Lex are talking and Clark rushes in. But we didn't do those first, so I kept thinking that at this point, Clark already knows that he doesn't have the powers...no, no, no, that's not it. I didn't understand quite what was going on!

Once we got that straightened out, I just had problems with playing a 'simple' hero -- I've never really played heroes. I always play neurotics, or psychotics or people like that. I kept wanting to deal with the part of Clark that was insecure because he didn't have the sorts of things he used to have but [director] James Marshall and everybody else wanted me to emphasize the hero part of it, which was harder than I thought it was going to be.

I'm a 'talking' actor, so for me it's all about twisted, neurotic minds. That's what my thing is -- villains, twisted, neurotic psychotics -- it's what I've built a career around. I'm not really called upon to play a hero, and I never did when I was younger. As a juevenille actor, I was the funny juve or a strange, weird one. It was quite a lesson in trusting myself.

The whole event of shooting Transference was a wonderful experience for me. I was there for three days after I finished shooting my stuff, and I would just come on the set as me in my clothes and sit with them, with headphones on, behind the monitors. Tom would do a scene, and James Marshall would turn around to me and say, "What do you want to say to him?" I wanted to say something to Tom that would allow him to understand Lionel's head, rather than give him a line reading.

People always say to me, "Don't you want to direct?" One of the strengths of a really good director is that patience that they have when you're floundering around. Instead of giving you a line reading, they can say something to you that makes the lightbulb go on. That's what I wanted to be able to do, and that's what James Marshall has done for me so many times -- he's just asked a question or said something like, "Feel it, but hide it." He's given me the emotion, not the mechanics, and I found that was my challenge on the set. Sometimes I would come through but there was that feeling of, "Oh my god, there's not enough time to go home and figure out what to say, I've got to say something right now that will maybe unlock something for Tom and make him understand that there's a different way to go than the obvious villainous way." So much on the page of what Lionel does and says is just the mustache twirling thing, but finding some kind of alternative choice was what I was trying to help Tom understand -- not just being a bad person.

Sometimes I succeeded -- the challenge of that was good.

Have you watched the final episode?

I don't usually watch them -- but I will eventually.

At the end of that episode, there's the big scene where Lionel 'sees the light,' and there is an apparent change of heart. How much do you know about the reality? Has Lionel really changed?

I'm just playing that Lionel has had a change of heart. I think that is the only way to go. Like when I was blind, in my mind I was blind; I was playing as realistically blind as I could be, not trying to wink at it. I hope that I'm not really good because I have too much fun -- there's too much to be had from Lionel being villainous -- but I'm attacking it as a person who has realized that what he was doing was a huge waste. With a mind like his, if he turned it toward goodness, it would be incredibly powerful.

The challenge is not to lose Lionel's exciting charisma! There's a blandness that can set in in some people's minds when somebody is good. We'll see what happens by the end of the season.

Do you have any idea at all what is coming up?

What they're talking about is that Lionel is going to be pulled by Genevieve and Martha in two opposite ends -- it's sort of a triangle of Martha pulling him toward goodness, and Genevieve heading for the dark side.

I just played a nice scene with Jane Seymour--we had a great time together. But I have no idea what is going to happen, I can only trust that what is coming will be spectacular. I've also been told that Lex and I are going to have another dueling scene.

I played a wonderful scene with Kristin when I was up to shoot Sacred. We realized then that this is the fourth season and Kristin and I had never played a scene together. We had rehearsed a scene in Transference when she comes to see Clark at the barn and it's really Lionel. James asked me to be on the set with all the Clark/Lionel scenes that Tom was playing, so I would block the scene, with me being Clark--like I did for the scene with Martha where he's got his shirt off looking at his big muscles. We were doing the scene, and in it Clark bends over and kisses Lana. I lent down and kissed her--you should have seen the look on Kristin's face. It was such a surprise! It was brilliant.

Assuming he has turned to the good side, what do you think Lionel thinks of himself when he looks in the mirror?

I think that's part of what's remarkable. In my mind, what's happened to him is the realization. He's not wasting a lot of time punishing himself for what he's done, he's realized that he made a huge, huge mistake in his life and that to move forward he's got to create as much good in the world as he can. That's what he's trying to do, as opposed to spending the rest of his life punishing himself for what he did. He's moving forward in a positive way, which is what all religions in the world encourage you to do. That's what he's dealing with, and that's how I'm trying to attack the scenes that I've been given to play.

I've done T-shirts for the cast the past two years, and last year I wrote on them, "The fun of it embraced the mystery" in French, and on the back was "Don't forget--Lionel is your friend." That "embrace the mystery" is coming back to me so much now--to play as an actor, where Lionel is going right now. He's never been there before in his life, a place of giving people as opposed to take, take, take, so he can get ahead, so he can get richer and more powerful. What he is doing with his life now is an exploration of a generous life. The adventure of what he's dealing with is that he realizes he's got these choices. He's patterned himself, from growing up in Suicide Slum and always just grabbing and pushing, climbing over people to get where he wanted, using people as a ladder, stepping stones to get to the top. I'm sure that pattern of behavior is grained in him, so when he reaches this point, and he looks at all these alternatives in his life now, he sees that there are other choices to make than what he's used to doing--reaching out in front and grabbing. I'm trying to make it an active thing that he's going through -- he'ss learning from this quite unusual thing, he's come to a place where he's got to make a choice.

Once I get to Vancouver it's very exciting for me, because it was what I was trying to create when I offered my hair to be shaved off. I wanted a change, and I certainly got a change. It's exactly what I wanted.

But it's given me a chance to do other things I want to do. I just went to the Sundance Theater Lab, at the White Oak Plantation, which is an Arts Center that Howard Gilman, the paper billionaire, created for Mikhail Baryshnikov. Two times a year, the Sundance Theater Lab goes down and works on new plays. There's a documentary, Grey Gardens, which the Maysles brothers--relatives of Jackie Kennedy's--made, and they're doing a musical of that, and then I was working with a cast of ten people to help Terrence McNally write his new play, called Some Men. We spent two weeks down in Florida, going into a rehearsal room with Terrence listening and writing, and rewriting new stuff. It was quite wonderful and fantastic. So I've got other stuff to do.

When I do get [to Vancouver] it's so exciting--it's a puzzle to figure out who this man is now. It's okay that I don't know--in fact it's a bit more exciting that I don't know if I am going to go back to where I was. I'm hoping I do, but I just want to completely gain the trust of the audience so they truly believe that this is a change. Then see what's next--the creators haven't disappointed me so far with what they've given Lionel! Hope springs eternal!


Roll Camera...
Sometimes what attracts an actor to a scene may not be the same as what attracts the viewer. John Glover looks back at some of his favorite moments from his four years on Smallville.

There was a scene at the end of Memoria -- the final scene between Lex and Lionel, which sticks out in my mind. It dealt with so much honestly with Lionel about himself -- when Lex was telling the story I wanted Lionel to have a moment of realization of what could have been, of the mistake he made. It was a challenging scene: I love working with Michael. It was Miles' [Millar] first day as director, so Al [Gough] was there, and [consulting producer] John Litvak -- the set was full of people from New York, which heightened the challenge. It was an exciting, challenging day, and memorable.

The other scene that comes to mind is the scene with Blair Brown in Lineage, when I was blind in the library. Blair and I are old friends, and we've played lots of stuff together.

Any scene I play with Allison I would put on the list. She's such good fun.

The whole of the stuff that we did in Insurgence when Martha [Annette O'Toole] and I were taken hostage was fantastic -- Annette's just such an amazing actress. When you watch her performance, there's such a belief in what she's doing that's almost mystical, I find. That's what excites me about the idea of a triangle with her and Jane Seymour!

I've had such good luck with so many good scenes: they've taken Lionel to some pretty spectacular places. The fight with Schneider in the cave in Legacy was one I was really dreading. I'm more mental: I'm a talking actor, so the thought of coming in to do that scene, which I knew was going to be done with stuntmen and all kinds of physical stuff, I felt very insecure about, but I had such a good time. Schneider and I had a great time together and kind of bonded that day. It was very exciting.


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