Ken Horton In Smallville
Magazine #7: Highlights! Issue
#7 of Smallville Magazine is now starting to hit newsstands.
This latest issue features Tom Welling (Clark) on the cover,
with a feature about Clark Kent inside.
The
magazine also includes interviews with executive producers Alfred
Gough & Miles Millar, executive producer Ken Horton, and
now-departed Smallville writer Mark Verheiden.
Here
are some things executive producer Ken Horton had to say in
his interview with editor Richard Matthews. The interview touched
upon many of the technical aspects of the show that we don't
normally hear about.
On
hits and misses: "There are certain episodes where you swear that everything
about them is great... until you try to finish them and they
just don't come together. - - It's not that they're bad: you
had a good script, a good director, it was shot well and the
actors were good, but somehow the internal pace of the show
just never got to a place of emotion. When it works, like the
final episode of last year, Covenant, which had a good script
and was well directed, then it's like butter - it just got better
and better as we added elements to it. The visual effects complemented
the story; they weren't just there as eye candy. Crusade this
year was also like that. It just felt good. If the Clark element
of our show lacks emotion, then it just doesn't work. Every
now and again you just get one where all the elements build
on each other - effects, sound, Mark Snow's score, they all
back each other up. Shattered was another - it all came together,
and all of the resources at our disposal enhanced each other
and those are the ones where you just feel the show getting
good at a certain point."
About
Season 3: "I thought last year, the whole dark Lionel side of
things was some of our best work, but it was a very dangerous
tunnel for this show to go down because you have to pull back.
To keep the serialized arcs, the trick is that they're not separate,
that they appear to be completely natural to what's happening
in the episode, that you don't literally stop to do this and
you don't literally stop to do that. I think one of the criticisms
of the 'Freaks of the Week' is that they have a tendency to
pop in and pop back out again, but what they really do is provide
great eye candy that breaks up that element, otherwise it's
all serial. When we're at our absolute best, the episodic event
of the week actually accentuates the serial person."
His
nominations for "most interesting character": "Year one, I thought Chloe was the most interesting
character because she had the hardest role to play in many ways,
kind of obnoxious, pining after our guy. If you were an actor
you'd go, 'Oh - how do I do this and remin likeable?' Lex is
always an interesting character, but Clark has become the most
interesting character for me now - Tom has stepped way, way
up in his acting technique and his preparation and his understanding
of who Clark is and what is expected of Clark."
About
his choice of a guy for Lana: "I never liked Adam [Knight, played by Ian Somerhalder]
- they didn't have a chemistry. Jensen and Kristen appear to
like each other and that's throwing a dagger right into the
heard of the audience who believe that Clark and Lana should
be together forever. BOOM! [But] in my heart I believe that
Clark loves Lana, until he goes to college and she goes away,
whatever. Some kind of separation makes his heart turn to Lois
at some point. For the life of the series, from my perspective,
every time he sees Lana he thinks 'I should be with her, she's
what fulfills me.' Lana, on the other hand, has legitimate reasons
for moving on and, much like a high school crush, 40 years later
when you run into someone at the high school reunion there is
still a little spark there, but that doesn't mean that that
person loves who they're with now any less, so she's far freer
to have her live expand. Without that gut-wrenching, 'I-can't-have-what-I-really-want'
Clark becomes less sympathetic and less vulnerable. Lois will
earn it over a period of time - how she works out in terms of
an acceptable love triangle for the audience, you have to earn
that. Going back to the pilot, the minute you met Clark and
saw him meet Lana, you just went 'these people should be together,
now!' You can't force that. We can write stories, try this and
that and present them - until the audience accepts that Clark
loves Lois and it's what is meant to be, we can claim it until
we're blue in the face, the audience are the ones who validate
us. I don't believe he could fall in love with Lois like that."
Stay
tuned for more details from Smallville Magazine #7 over
the next few days.. If you'd like a copy of Smallville Magazine,
check your local newsstand or bookstore, visit http://www.titanmagazines.com,
or contact Express Mags at 1-877-363-1310.
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Ken Horton In Smallville
Magazine #7: Highlights!