Michael Rosenbaum: Smallville's Lex Luthor, from Clark's friend to the finale

Before Smallville: Indiana, Urban Legend and Sweet November

Michael Owen Rosenbaum was born on July 11, 1972 in Oceanside, New York State, and grew up in Newburgh, Indiana. With a drama degree from Western Kentucky University, he moved to New York and then to Los Angeles in the late 1990s, where he lived off small roles and stand-up.

Film took notice of him with Urban Legend (1998), a slasher in which he plays Parker Riley, the prankster student. Then came Sweet November (2001), alongside Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron, where he plays Brandon, the heroine's drag queen neighbor. Two comedic roles, the opposite of what awaited him.

At the same time, he lent his voice to Wally West, the Flash, in the animated series Justice League from 2001, then in Justice League Unlimited until 2006. A delicious detail: for seven years, the same actor was, in the morning, Superman's sworn enemy and, in the afternoon, one of his best friends.

This double register, comedic and dramatic, explains a lot about his Lex. Rosenbaum isn't a villain actor; he's a performer who knows how to get laughs, and who would use that natural likability against the viewer.

The Lex Luthor casting in 2001

When Alfred Gough and Miles Millar put together Smallville, their idea was to adapt Clark Kent's youth without costume or flight. For Lex, they wanted a twenty-five-year-old young man, exiled by his father to a small Kansas town to run a fertilizer plant, who hadn't yet chosen his side.

Michael Rosenbaum auditioned with his hair, then agreed to shave his head for the role. He has said that this shaving, repeated every two or three days for seven years, ended up weighing in his decision to leave. But at twenty-nine, he didn't hesitate.

The pilot, aired on October 16, 2001, opens on the meteor shower that costs young Lex his hair and Lana Lang her parents. Within the first hour, Lex and Clark meet when Lex, at the wheel of his Porsche, hits Clark on a bridge and ends up in the river. Clark saves him, and a friendship begins.

The first season earned him the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor on Television. Rare for an actor who was practically unknown a year earlier.

A Lex who's Clark's friend: the series' gamble

The boldest idea of Smallville lies on that bridge: Lex Luthor owes his life to Clark Kent, and he sincerely wants to be his friend. Our article on Lex Luthor recalls that, in the comics, this youthful friendship has existed since the Superboy era, but no adaptation had explored it over the long term.

Rosenbaum plays this Lex as a man who wants to repair his family's name. He gives gifts that are too expensive, saves the Kent farm, protects Clark from his own father. Jonathan Kent distrusts him, and the viewer, who knows how the story ends, wavers between hope and certainty.

What makes the character heartbreaking is that the betrayal comes from Clark as much as from Lex. Every season, Clark lies to his friend about what he is, and Lex, who is no fool, eventually understands that he's being manipulated. His fall isn't just a story about power; it's that of a man nobody trusted.

Opposite Tom Welling, Rosenbaum builds a friendship the two actors carried on in real life. This real bond gives the breakup scenes, from season 4 on, their weight.

Seven seasons of falling: the major stages

Lex's trajectory can be summed up in a few milestones:

• Seasons 1 and 2 : the grateful friend, obsessed with Clark's secrets and crushed by his father Lionel, played by John Glover.
• Season 3 : the committal to Belle Reve, the electroshocks that erase his memory, and the first real tipping point.
• Season 4 : the definitive break with Clark and the quest for the Kryptonian stones.
• Season 5 : the possession by Zod in the finale, and the marriage to Lana Lang, the woman Clark loves.
• Seasons 6 and 7 : Lex takes back LuthorCorp, conducts experiments on the meteor-infected, and ends up killing his own father.

The season 7 finale, in May 2008, shows him in the Fortress of Solitude, facing Clark, finally uttering the name he had been searching for for seven years. The Fortress collapses on both of them. It's Rosenbaum's last scene as a member of the main cast.

The marriage to Lana, played by Kristin Kreuk, remains the cruelest arc: Lex gets everything Clark failed to take, and loses it just as fast.

Why he left after season 7

The departure was announced in early 2008, in the middle of the writers' strike, which shortened season 7 to twenty episodes. The producers promised an occasional return, which wouldn't happen for three years.

Seasons 8 and 9 therefore tell the story of an absent Lex: presumed dead, then hidden, then cloned. The series invents Tess Mercer, played by Cassidy Freeman, to fill the seat at LuthorCorp. Many viewers felt the series had lost its engine.

Rosenbaum, for his part, shot comedies, recorded voice work, and distanced himself from Warner. He notably refused to come back for a mere cameo in season 8, feeling the character deserved better.

The return in the 2011 finale

On May 13, 2011, The CW aired the two-part finale of Smallville. Michael Rosenbaum returns for a few scenes, and they count among the strongest in the series. Lex, resurrected by cloning, meets Clark again in the ruins of the Luthor mansion and explains that they are destined to be enemies, because the world needs a Superman, and a Superman needs a Luthor.

The actor hesitated for a long time. He finally accepted on the condition that he wouldn't shave his head, and wore a prosthetic. He explained that he did it for the fans, and for Tom Welling, who had called him personally.

The final scene with Lionel, in the afterlife, and the handshake with Clark give the character the exit that season 7 had denied him. Seven years of waiting, ten minutes of screen time, and the impression that nothing had changed.

Our feature on the cast of Smallville looks back at the other returns of this finale, from John Glover to Annette O'Toole.

After Smallville: Guardians of the Galaxy, podcast and Talkville

Since 2011, Michael Rosenbaum has led an eclectic career. He plays the lead in the comedy Impastor on TV Land (2015-2016), a con man who passes himself off as a pastor. On the big screen, James Gunn gave him the role of Martinex, the crystal Ravager, in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and then Vol. 3 (2023).

But it's the podcast that got him rediscovered. Launched in 2018, Inside of You hosts actors and musicians for long conversations about mental health, careers and regrets. The format suits him perfectly: Rosenbaum is funny, direct and vulnerable, as his Lex could never be.

In July 2022, he launched with Tom Welling Talkville, a podcast in which the two actors watch Smallville episode by episode and share their memories of filming. Twenty years after the pilot, the success with fans was immediate.

He also sings in the band Sun Spin and continues doing stand-up. A jack-of-all-trades career, in the image of an actor who never wanted to be reduced to a shaved head.

What he leaves to the character of Lex Luthor

Before Smallville, Lex Luthor on the big screen meant Gene Hackman's Lex : brilliant, comedic, never tragic. Rosenbaum brought the missing dimension, that of a man you watch become monstrous, season after season, without ever ceasing to understand him.

This approach influenced the versions that followed. Our article on Lex Luthor in the movies shows that Jesse Eisenberg's Lex, and then Nicholas Hoult's, both look for the character's intimate flaw, jealousy rather than mere greed.

He also leaves a model of longevity. No other actor has played Lex Luthor over more than one hundred and fifty episodes. That span allowed an evolution that neither a film nor a single season can offer.

Finally, he showed that Superman's best enemy isn't the one who hates him from the outset, but the one who loved him first. A lesson since taken up by the comics, from Geoff Johns to Brian Michael Bendis.

Conclusion

Michael Rosenbaum made Lex Luthor a tragic character, something neither the comics nor the movies had really dared before him. For seven seasons, he played a man who wanted to be good and whom everyone, Clark included, pushed toward the worst. His fall remains one of the most accomplished arcs in all of superhero television.

Two other pillars of the series have their own profile: John Schneider, the Jonathan Kent he faces in the election, and Erica Durance, the Lois Lane who arrived in season 4.

His departure left Smallville orphaned of its engine, and his return in the finale reminded everyone, in ten minutes, what the series had lost. Since then, he has found in podcasting a way to remain himself, and in Talkville a way to come back home.

To go further, our profile of Tom Welling tells the story of the other half of this friendship, and our article on Lex Luthor goes back to the origins of Superman's enemy.