Raising a Hero

It didn’t seem like the right time to be talking to John Schneider about “Smallville.”

It’s Sept. 14, and there were more important things on both our minds. Just minutes before arriving at Schneider’s sprawling, two-story English Tudor in Agoura Hills, President Bush had closed an early morning memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., with a prayer for those killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon three days prior. The country was in mourning.

As it had been for the past several days, the conversation at the Schneider house was similar to that of the rest of the country: the sight of a plane slicing through the second tower in Manhattan, the rescue workers and just everyday folks assisting anyone who needed help in the midst of the disaster. As we talked about family and friends on the East Coast--I knew some among the dead--without warning, standing in the middle of Schneider’s living room, I was spilling tears all over the actor’s crisp white cotton shirt.

“It’s OK,” he consoles. “We all need to cry right now.”

With planes grounded, Schneider had driven 22 hours from the set in Vancouver, Canada, to Los Angeles the day before to do this interview, making sure to be available after weeks of rescheduling to talk about “Smallville” and a fantastical kid named Clark Kent. Still, it seems awkward.

Schneider attempts to bring it into perspective. “We are truly in a time where there is an unprecedented need for heroic figures right now,” says Schneider, who plays Jonathan Kent, the strict but doting dad to teenage Clark Kent in the WB’s new fantasy adventure, which premiered Tuesday and drew an estimated 8.4 million viewers nationally, the network’s biggest ever for a season premiere. “It is out of such times of national turmoil and concern that came such people as Audie Murphy, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. Now we have ‘Smallville.’ And it’s really about the raising and teaching of a true American fictional hero.”

As Hollywood has had to reposition itself since Sept.11 to reflect the times, “Smallville” is unexpectedly in sync with the current worldview right out of the box. Its themes of patriotism, of the battle between good and evil, resonate from the 63-year-old mythological DC Comic strip with a Z Generation appeal--with the sci-fi elements of “Roswell” and the teen angst of unbelievably attractive young people, a la “Dawson’s Creek.”

With its protagonist not yet the warrior for truth, justice and the American way, “Smallville” fills in Clark’s clumsy adolescent years as an above-average-looking nerd discovering, and learning to cope with, his supernatural powers. He is guided by the adoptive parents who found him after the spaceship that bore him to Earth landed in Smallville during a Kryptonite meteor shower.

Heroes are not born, they have to be nurtured. Unlike other WB teen shows, the parents will play an important role in Clark’s development. Schneider often describes him a “special needs kid.”

“Superman doesn’t exist yet,” Schneider says. “What exists is a young man who is very fast and who seemingly can’t be hurt. If it’s Superman, these are great attributes, but if he’s your 16-year-old son who, if he got upset, has the strength to hurt, maim or kill anybody, you’ve got a potential problem.”

He continues: “Clark didn’t come to this planet uniquely good. He came to this planet a little boy. And like all little boys, he has to be raised. If we do a good job, we’ll have what people will one day call Superman. If we do a bad job, we might wind up with some bad guy who’s as bad a bad guy as we’re hoping to wind up with as good a good guy.”

At the top of the stairs, overlooking the Schneider’s living room, son Chasen, 9, and daughter Karis, 7, appear from out of nowhere like the littlest Von Trapp children to announce that they’ve just scored high marks on a quiz given by their home school tutor.

Schneider is beaming. (His oldest daughter, Leah, 16, is an honor student at a private high school nearby.)

In a Norman Rockwell moment, they slide down the wooden banister to politely greet their houseguest with a hearty handshake and smiles that could sell loads of Crest.

After hearing about spelling words and math problems, Schneider sends his children off to the kitchen with his wife, Elly, where they’ll hang out until it’s time for them to go to a noon prayer service at a church a few minutes from their home. It’s a scene as Americana as any producers could script for the show.

During the course of interviewing Schneider’s cast mates and series producers, I’m told that Schneider, a co-founder of the Children’s Miracle Network, is, among other things, both “spiritual” and “an all-American dad.”

“He’s very much the cornerstone of the set--not just of the Kent family or even of the cast,” Tom Welling, who plays the teenaged Clark, says by phone from the set. “He definitely commands a presence when he arrives, and it’s very much deserved.”

Welling adds that the loving father-son bond they have on-screen is akin to his relationship with Schneider off the set. “And it’s funny,” Welling says, “John said to me once, ‘I started my career as John and Tom, and here I am years later in another John and Tom duo.’ I think John has a kick thinking about what he used to do when he was a young guy.”

He’s referring to Schneider and co-star Tom Wopat, who as good ol’ boy cousins Bo and Luke Duke, respectively, spent their days jumping in and out of the window of a 1969 Dodge Charger and outrunning dimwitted lawmen on CBS’ “Dukes of Hazzard.” It premiered in January 1979 and was a prime-time favorite for seven seasons, eventually earning Schneider more than $1 million a year.

“I made more the first week of ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ than I had made in my whole life [to that point],” he said. “It changed my life dramatically in that regard.”

A native of Mount Kisco, N.Y., Schneider, 41, first appeared onstage when he was 8. He continued starring in local theater productions when he moved with his mother to Atlanta at the age of 14. In 1977, producers were scouting in the area for a “genuine country boy,” and the precocious 18-year-old answered the call.

“They were looking for people from the South who were 24 and older,” says the statuesque, 6-foot-4, sandy blond-haired actor who voices Rick O’Connell in the Kids’ WB! animated series “The Mummy.” “I, of course, told them I was from Snellville, Georgia, and 24 years old,” he laughs. “Fabrication was a big part of the early years.”

But the results paid off big. “Dukes” became one of TV’s top 10 shows from 1979 through 1982, and spawned million of dollars in merchandising. Schneider and Wopat didn’t appear in more than half of the episodes in 1982 after walking off the set because of a royalty dispute with the show’s producers, but the suit was eventually settled and the duo returned. (He recently reprised the character in the TV movie “The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood.”)

By the time the series ended, his two-year marriage to former Los Angeles news anchor Tawny Little had also ended amicably. (“Our timing was off,” he said.)

Beyond “Dukes,” the East Coast guy who “was brought up more like Frasier Crane than Bo Duke” went on to score with several hit country singles. He was the epitome of country machismo. It’s an image that’s been difficult for the actor, writer and director to shake, even after countless TV specials and series--including a stint on “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman”--and theater performances.

“It was such a strong image, that show and that character,” says Brian Robbins, one of the executive producers of “Smallville.” “And if anything, that persona, at least in my mind, was a negative before he came in the room to audition. But after he read, there was no doubt in any of our minds that he was Jonathan Clark.”

Miles Millar, “Smallville’s” co-creator, co-writer and co-executive producer, adds: “What he brings to the show is a down to earth, middle America, genuine feeling of a farmer who is trying to do the best he can for his family. This is definitely Bo Duke all grown up and struggling through life.”

Later at the Friday afternoon church service, Schneider stands with his family, praying aloud for the victims, for the heroes and for our nation’s leaders; praying that truth be revealed, that justice be swift and that one day we’ll return to our peaceful, “normal” American way of life. And there was not a dry eye in the sanctuary. *

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“Smallville” can be seen Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the WB. The network has rated it TV-PG-V (may be unsuitable for young children with a special advisory for violence).