Reinventing Lex

Turns out Superman's nemesis wasn't always so evil.

Michael Rosenbaum, 30, has done the seemingly impossible: He has "Smallville" fans rooting for Lex Luthor. On the WB's hot show (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. ET), the actor plays a not-yet-bad 20-something to Tom Welling's teenage Clark Kent. Rosenbaum, who every day arrives on the set 90 minutes before the other actors so he can have his head shaved and shined to perfection, recently spoke with us about toeing the line between good and evil:

Do you miss having hair?
I had long hair in college. Then I moved to New York. I didn't have money; I just had long hair and a pleather jacket. And I was happy.

Now fans call you Sexy Lexy.
Women are really liking the bald head. They want to touch it, which I don't usually mind.

We're drooling to see Lex turn bad. Do you have a dark side?
Oh, yeah. One of the lines I'm about to shoot is, "If a person's deceived me once, I find it hard to give him a second chance." I can relate to that. I'm the nicest person in the world, but it's that one time when someone deceives me ...

But people make mistakes.
I don't think it's necessary. I don't think deception is inadvertent.

Is there a real-life villain you'd like to see thwarted?
There's this guy back in high school. He punched me in the mouth once. I just wish I was bigger at the time so I could have kicked his [butt]. I still think about it. When you get beat up, you always remember it.

Too bad you didn't have superpowers. What power would you want?
Invisibility. Everybody wants to be invisible sometimes. You're having those bad days and you've got people going, "Hey, how are ya? What's going on? How's your day?" and you just want to strangle that person.

Temper, temper ...
If I'm invisible, you can't ask me that question, and I can just go about my day.

What would people be surprised to know about you?
I listen to [music] of the '70s and '80s. There's something about it that relaxes me. I'm very nostalgic about different moments in my life, and music does it for me. I've seen Journey three times. I saw Gordon Lightfoot two weeks ago. I went and saw Foreigner last night and went backstage and hung out. I've never been so happy.

How funny!
I put people on this show through so much suffering with my music! Most people think it's garbage, but ... they can listen to their '90s crap music and I'll continue to listen to my cool music.

Now, that sounds more like the Lex we know! OK, so who's your hero?
My grandfather Irv.

Your granddad? That's downright sweet.
He's the best person I've ever known. He's always been there for his family. [And] he has the best sense of humor.

Contributing: Michele Hatty, Kathleen McCleary, Brian O'Connell

Photo by Jeffrey Thurnher, WB