To most fans of Smallville, Lex Luthor was the show's most iconic villain. Actor Michael Rosenbaum gave such a standout performance that he is still considered by many to be the quintessential star to play the famed Superman villain. When Rosenbaum left the show, the writers needed to find another villain-shaped void to replace the gaping hole left by Lex's absence in the show. Doomsday/Davis Bloom (Sam Witwer) came onto the scene as the main antagonist in Season 8. By the end of the same season, Zod (Callum Blue) would be introduced as the next formidable force for Clark Kent (Tom Welling) to face. However, this version of Zod would be completely original to the show and different from what had been previously depicted on the CW series.
Blue entered Smallville Season 9 as a new and dynamic version of Zod who would plague the town of Smallville for the final two seasons of the show. Blue was coming off a few other successful appearances in popular series at the time, including a breakout hospital drama, but his performance on Smallville as Zod was one to rival Rosenbaum's Lex.
Callum Blue Acted in Two Other Successful TV Series Before Appearing on Smallville
Smallville wasn't the first successful TV show on which Blue worked. He was also part of the main cast of the Showtime series Dead Like Me. The show was a comedy-drama starring Mandy Patinkin and Ellen Muth as grim reapers located in Seattle, Washington. It ran for a total of 29 episodes over the course of two seasons from 2003-2004. He was also cast in a 2009 movie based on the series: Dead Like Me: Life After Death.
In 2005, Blue was in an episode of the then-new Shonda Rhimes series, Grey's Anatomy. In Episode 3 of Season 1, "Winning a Battle, Losing the War," Blue played a cyclist named Viper. The main plot of the episode centers on a competition between patients and interns within the hospital and a series of injuries following an unauthorized bike race. Viper is one of the victims of the bike race gone wrong. He winds up at Seattle Grace Hospital impaled with bicycle spokes in his side. Blue's character had a romantic interest in Meredith, but the flirtation didn't last beyond a single episode.
Three years after the final episode of Dead Like Me and two years after his appearance on Grey's Anatomy, Blue landed another important role. He played Sir Anthony Knivert in yet another Showtime series: The Tudors. The Tudors followed the exploits of a young Henry VIII, his famous marriages, and eventual personal ruin. Sir Anthony Knivert is a fictionalized version of the real-life figure Sir Thomas Knyvett. Sir Thomas was a young English nobleman in Henry VIII's inner circle. Still, Blue's role didn't last beyond the show's first season.
Smallville would actually be the second CW series in which Blue would play a part. He played the husband of a main character on the short-lived show, Related. Related ran from October 2005 to March 2006 and was a comedy-drama that aired on The WB (eventually The CW). It followed four sisters of Italian heritage living in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Although the show didn't have a long lifespan, it gave Blue an "in" with the network. And despite the show being created by Sex and the City writer Liz Tuccillo and produced by Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman, it didn't earn enough ratings to be picked up for a second season.
Callum Blue Played an Original Version of the Superman Villain Zod in Smallville
Zod appears at some point in almost every iteration of the Superman story. He's one of the hero's most formidable opponents and is a fellow Kryptonian. Before Zod appears in physical form as a recurring character in Season 9 of Smallville, he manifests in different ways. He first enters Smallville in Season 5 as a bodyless phantom imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. After unsuccessfully possessing Clark, Brainiac (James Marsters) chooses Lex to be the human vessel that Zod's phantom wraith will enter. The season ends on a cliffhanger with Zod imprisoning Clark in the Phantom Zone.
The Season 6 premiere of Smallville showed Lex as still very much possessed by Zod's phantom wraith. He captures Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) and demands she sires him an heir. Clark manages to escape from the Phantom Zone with the help of a fellow Kryptonian and faces off against Zod. After a struggle between the two titans, Clark is able to trap Zod in the Phantom Zone once again, putting an end to his possession of Lex. Zod does not appear as a fully-fledged character again until Season 9. By this point in the show, original creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar had departed the creative team — so it's possible Zod was never meant to make a return to Smallville.
At the end of Season 8, audiences glimpse the back of Zod as he emerges from a mysterious Orb in the garden of Luthor Mansion. This version of Zod is technically a clone of the Zod trapped in the Phantom Zone and is referred to as Major Zod throughout his tenure in the series. The actor on-screen in the scene was actually Witwer who was first offered the role of Zod after his run as Doomsday.
Blue was then cast in the role and went on to play Zod for the remainder of Season 9 of Smallville. "I was thrilled to bits," he said at Comic-Con International in San Diego in 2009 (via KryptonSite). "I remember Terence Stamp's portrayal of him in the movies, and he terrified me as a kid. So to play such an iconic character is both a good thing and a bad thing. I've got a lot of plans for him. I'm going to play it to the fullest. I was chuffed. I have come to Earth with a whole army of Kryptonians, so I've been interacting with those. They're my army; it's like a fascist party, and I'm their leader. They don't have their powers that they were born with, so he's got to work that out first. He's not even aware of Clark at the moment. What he is aware of is that Jor-El survived, and they were friends. That's what he is aware of."
While Lex Luthor is still a fan-favorite villain in the eyes of Smallville loyalists, Blue's take on Zod gave the show an even stronger foil for Clark Kent who could stand up to him just as much physically as he could mentally.