Justin Hartley to Play Green Arrow on Smallville

Justin Hartley suffered something of a disappointment this spring. The young actor was slated to star in Aquaman, a new show from Alfred Gough and Miles Miller, the executive producers of Smallville. Like Smallville, Aquaman was to be the coming-of-age story of another DC Comics superhero.

The new series went into development soon after the Smallville episode “Aqua.” In that episode, a young Aquaman (this one not played by Hartley) came to town and soon met Clark Kent (Tom Welling) and Lois Lane (Erica Durance). This Smallville episode did so well in the ratings, it convinced Miller and Gough viewers would be interested in an Aquaman series.

To many, Aquaman seemed like a sure thing, the perfect series for the new CW network’s fall schedule, and an obvious choice to follow Smallville on Thursday nights. So, when the CW announced that they would not be picking up Aquaman after all, everyone-from the Hollywood insiders, to potential fans excited by what they were hearing about the new show-was caught by surprise.

But, while the series wasn’t picked up by the CW, it seems like Justin Hartley made quite an impression on Aquaman’s executive producers. So much so that Miller and Gough asked him to portray Green Arrow, yet another DC Comics superhero, in the sixth season of Smallville.

Born in 1977 in Knoxville, Illinois, Justin Hartley majored in theater and history at Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2002, he landed his first major television role. On the NBC soap opera Passions, he played spoiled rich boy Nicholas Foxworth Crane. He left that role in early 2006, and was soon cast in the title role in the ill-fated Aquaman series.

On Smallville, Hartley will be playing Green Arrow, a DC Comics character first introduced in 1941, in a multi-episode, recurring role. Green Arrow’s alter ego is Oliver Queen, a wealthy young man in his 20s who went to boarding school with Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum). But, rather than being the free-wheeling playboy most would probably expect, Oliver is interested in fighting crimes and righting wrongs. In fact, when he arrives in Smallville, he is looking to recruit like-minded individuals to start a Justice League, of sorts.

It would seem Oliver Queen and Clark Kent were destined to meet.

You can catch Justin Hartley on Smallville this fall. The sixth season of Smallville begins Thursday, Septemter 28th, on the CW network.