Tom Welling talks conventions, cats and creating characters in massive fandoms

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Oh, are we geeking out today? Tom Welling, you

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know him from Smallville, Supernatural, and also

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Lucifer. And he's got a new movie out called Mafia Wars.

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Good morning. Welcome to the KJ Today show.

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Tom Welling. I

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have to tell you, we have this barrier because you can't see me right now,

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but we have worked together through Celeb

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Photo Ops for many years. I have been ushering fans in

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and out of your photo booth and giving them their photo

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opportunity to meet you. I had to wrap my brain around the

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fact that we could actually have a conversation today because we never have.

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There's no, there's no time. There's no time. Those photo ops

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are crazy. I mean, they're crazy fun, but they're crazy. Thank you.

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Um, you know, I can't do those photo ops without people

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Oh, yeah, it's so much fun, because I get to sit there

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and watch thousands of people have their most amazing moment meeting

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you. So thank you, because it's always a

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blast to work with you. And I'm a fan of your work

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as well. So let's start off, Tom, because today's a

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big day. It's kind of like a New Year's Eve

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or a Christmas Eve when you have a new project that's about to come out.

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Yeah, Mafia Wars, I'm really proud of this. You

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know, we shot in Rome. Scott, who directed and

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wrote it, with the first conversation I had with him, one of the first things he said was, I'm

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not doing this movie unless we shoot in Rome. And I was like,

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I'm in. Because it becomes a character of the film itself.

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And it was so magical to shoot there. It's

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really helpful as an actor to be on location

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when you're shooting and being immersed in it. And Terry is a guy who's He's

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a good guy who got caught for doing bad things. He's

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in a bad situation, but for good reasons. He's

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really trying to help his family. So it's an action film with

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What is it like for you when you're going into knowing

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there's going to be a lot of action? You obviously have

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a lot of depth to your character with it being a good guy in

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a bad situation, but did you have to prepare a little bit

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differently to know you were going to be doing so much action in this film?

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I love the action. Those are my favorite days

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is when we have action. Because we're on a tight schedule

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and it was a very challenging shoot. And actually, I want to give some props to

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the director because he really navigated day to day and moment to

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moment, sort of all the challenging things we had going for us. But a lot of the action

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we had, we had like maybe five, 10 minutes to get ready for. And

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thankfully, Cam, who plays the psychopath in the film, who is great to

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work with, it came to him very easily as well. So

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we were able to kind of figure it out quickly based on

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both of our experiences. So listen, it would have been nice

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to have like a John Wick six months getting ready for all the action, but

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Mafia Wars is the new movie. It is available on

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digital and on demand October 11th,

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which is tomorrow. Tom, I always like

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to go to our fans here

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and there are, it's so interesting. You've

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been a part of two really big fandoms between Superman,

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Smallville, and then with Lucifer. So I

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do wanna start off Devin asked me

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to bring up, and I had forgotten about this. You had

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this amazing moment through Smallville where

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you got to work with Christopher Reeve. And we've got the Superman Christopher

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Reeve story out now. Would you be willing to

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Absolutely. It was one

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of the most wonderful things I've ever experienced. I mean, we flew to New

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York from Vancouver to work with him. And he was only supposed to

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be there for about two or three hours. because we were going to shoot all

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his dialogue and then we were going to, you know, he was going to leave and then we

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would shoot all my dialogue and he wouldn't leave. And to be

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honest, it got to the point, I think six and a half hours in, his nurse said

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to him, if you don't come with me right now, I'm going to call the

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police because she had probably the attorney over him or more or

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less. And he just sort of laughed and he looked at me and he said, they're

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always telling me what to do. Like, he was so funny, and he didn't

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let you feel sorry for him. It was very inspirational, is what

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I take it. And every time I think about it, I get I get the chills because, you

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know, it was really, it just, it really,

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So are you telling me originally, you didn't think you were actually going to be

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Oh, no, I'm sorry. I knew I was going to be in the room with him. I knew I was going to do

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the dialogue with him. It's just the way you shoot a scene. One

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person's on one side, one person's on the other. And we were told we

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only had three hours with him. So we were going to film his side

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That's amazing. Have you had a chance? I know you're busy doing

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all of your press for the new movie, but have you had a chance to

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I have not. And I mean to see it very soon because

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I think, again, I'm going to come away with even more inspiration, I believe it.

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All right, moving over to Lucifer. Shannon is

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a huge fan, and she wanted me to ask you, Tom, did you know from

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the beginning that your character Marcus would be revealed as

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the Sinner Man and then also be Cain?

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It's a good question, and

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I also want to add a third to what you said. You said Superman,

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Lucifer. I'm also part of the supernatural world because I

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Yeah. And but to

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the question, the answer is no, because

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what I did is I met with I've met with the creators and

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they started telling me about the character. We got as far as Sinner Man and

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he and literally he said, you want to know more? And I said, you know what? I don't. And

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so when he turns into Kane, I didn't know that even the first day of shooting. I

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just played it as the Sinner Man. And so I was able to, because sometimes, I

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mean, for me as an actor, sometimes you don't, you want the information you

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need to be utilizing right now.

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You know, unless you really need to know, if you know what

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I mean. But we were both on the same page about,

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let's just figure out the Sinner Man, and then we move forward through there. So that's just

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a little thing that I do. It's sort of like with Smallville, I didn't

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play him that he knew he was gonna be Superman. You know, he

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doesn't know that information. So all that stuff that ended up happening was

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All right, and I cannot let you go, Tom, without bringing

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up the fact that Nikki, who's listening right

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now, put it on my radar that your wife is a

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huge animal lover. I'm the kitty correspondent for

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Pet Pals TV as well. So we got to talk about these pets. It's

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We did. They both disappeared in the

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last six months. They were outdoor cats that we loved. Yeah,

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I know. It's sad. It's sad. But I guess I never

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had cats before. And when I talk to people who've had cats, they're

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like, that's the cat life. You know, it's like, and we

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live on a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere. So we've, we've got, we've

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got coyotes and owls and eagles and

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hawks. So, you know, it's a, it's tough being an outdoor

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It is, but like you said, that's the life and respecting that.

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Some cats want to be, it's what we call working cats, right? They

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want to be outside. They don't want to be trapped under the roof. They want to

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be doing that job for you.

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I'll tell you a quick story. One

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of the cats we had, his name was Biggie. My son named

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him Biggie when we got him. And he was sort of like

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the hunter. And I remember a couple of months in, we started thinking,

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oh, what if they wander? And I put a collar on him that had a little bell

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on it. And he looked at me like, bro, you

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are totally screwed on my vibe here. I'm a hunter. I'm not

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going to catch anything. And I remember him looking at me like that. And I was like, all

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Tom, I wish we had a little more time together, but

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it's been wonderful to have more time than we usually have in photo ops.

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Yeah, my pleasure. I'll see you down

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Thanks for joining me for another celebrity interview. KJ Today,

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where you'll find the positive vibes of pop culture, people to

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know, and pets. If you like this interview, please make sure

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