Why“ Smallville ”Star Tom Welling Left Los Angeles to Raise Horses on a Ranch (Exclusive)
- - Why“ Smallville ”Star Tom Welling Left Los Angeles to Raise Horses on a Ranch (Exclusive)
Gillian TellingJanuary 11, 2026 at 3:14 AM
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The CW Network; Bryan Thompson
Tom Welling as Clark Kent; Tom Welling in 2025 -
Smallville actor Tom Welling opens up about leaving Los Angeles for life on a ranch
He and his wife Jessica raise horses while bringing up their two young boys
He's also starring in a new rom-com with Iliza Shlesinger
In 2020, when Tom Welling and his wife Jessica Rose took their young son on a trip to Northern California to visit grandparents, the Smallville actor had no idea that they'd return to the area as homeowners. What he did know, however, was that he wasn't loving living in Los Angeles in the middle of the global pandemic.
“L.A. was wild at the time,” Welling tells PEOPLE of the city during COVID.
“There were no cars on the street, you couldn’t go anywhere. People weren’t leaving their homes. Our first son was starting to crawl and we only had this tiny deck for him to play on. There was this thought of, we don't know if we can be here anymore.”
During the visit up north, they saw a ranch with two homes on it and they fell in love.
Bryan Thompson
Tom Welling at the Diamond Cross Ranch in Jackson Hole, WY
“I thought, 'This is what I want in five years... so why not just do it now?'” he says.
The vibe of a small rural town also suited him just fine. "No one bothers you in a small town," he says and laughs that no one cares that he was on one of the hottest shows on the early aughts. "Everyone’s famous in a small town.”
He never left the industry, however. He's currently hosting the Smallville rewatch podcast TalkVille with his former costar Michael Rosenbaum (who played Lex Luther), and he's starring in the upcoming Iliza Shlesinger-penned comedy Chasing Summer, which will make its debut at next year's Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
“It was so fun to shoot. Everybody wanted to be there,” Welling says of the film. “All the decisions were made right there on set, it was collaborative, and it just reminded me why I love this job.”
Bryan Thompson
Tom Welling and wife Jessica Rose at the Diamond Cross Ranch in Jackson Hole, WY
When he's not filming, he's busy raising his family (he and wife Jessica welcomed their second baby in June 2021) and working on her business breeding sport horses.
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"We have American sport horses, jumpers, and we breed. I’m more than happy to help, but she's the captain of that ship," he says of the operation. But he loves life on the ranch. "It’s peaceful,” he says. “And it feels real.” (In Jan. 2026, the actor was arrested for a DUI, which he hasn't commented on.)
Welling's own rise to fame almost doesn't feel real. He got his start as a model, after being discovered at age 20. He was on a beach in Nantucket and seen by a scout for photographer Bruce Weber who was looking for Abercrombie & Fitch campaign models.
"Next thing I knew, I was in New York doing runway shows," he says. "But I was too tall, too big for sample sizes, my feet didn’t fit the shoes. I got away with it for a while, but I knew modeling wasn’t forever. But when it came to performing in commercials, yeah, that clicked. So I gave myself a year to try acting."
Soon after moving to L.A., he landed the role of Clark Kent on Smallville.
Michael Courtney/The CW \
Tom Welling as Clark Kent in Smallville, 2008
"I think I got it because I looked the part," he says with a laugh. The show aired from 2001-2011.
"I think the producers probably thought, 'He's green, but he looks right. We can work with this!" He learned his craft as he went along. "I never went to college, but I did my master’s degree in television on Smallville," he says. “Plus, the character didn’t know what he was doing, and I didn’t know what I was doing, so it worked."
Welling says he can't believe how many fans the show still has. "I think it’s amazing that something we made all those years ago still means so much to people."
Warner Bros Tv/Kobal/Shutterstock
Tom Welling on Smallville in 2001
As for what might come next? Welling jokes he might fit right into one of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone spinoffs.
“I already love horses and can ride,” he says, laughing. “I mean I can't break the new horses, but I can hold my own. Let’s get that Sheridan spinoff going!”
Bryan Thompson
Tom Welling at the Diamond Cross Ranch in Jackson Hole, WY
Either way, he's happy he found the perfect balance of work, family and stability. “When I was younger, I was always looking for the next big thing,” he says. “Now, I just want to be where my feet are.”
Chasing Summer debuts at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
