SUPERBOY'S GIRLFRIEND,
LANA LANG
Stacy says: "Gosh. Having to say, 'Superboy,' and being in love with a guy named Superboy!"
Interview with Stacy haiduk, by Daniel Dickholtz. Spectacular Magazine, 1991.
Looking out a 29th-floor, window of the Manhattan building where Viacom, distributors of the 'Superboy' TV series, is headquarted, Stacy Haiduk pauses. While her character Lana Lang might prefer stylish outfits and having her hair brushed out, Haiduk seems more comfortable with blue jeans, a loose, patterned jacket and her tresses pulled back into a pnytail. As she glances down and over the New York skyline, it's apparent that she's relieved, in a whimsical way, not to have to see the Teen of Steel flying by.
"The oddest thing [about working on the show]?" she wonders at one point. "Gosh. Having to say, 'Superboy,' and being in love with a guy named Superboy! I mean, come on. That's a little odd, all right? I still haven't gotten used to saying his mame. They'll go, 'Ok, Stacy, it's your close-up now and we want you to run into the scene, Superboy's flying off, and 'Superboy!' Say it, OK? Ready. And action!' And here I come, running up. Suddenly, I'll just break out laughing! It's not like saying, 'Dean' or 'Jack', you know. I mean, you try saying 'Superboy'! It really is hard."
Weathering the turbulent changes the series has undergone during the last three years has provedmuch easier for the young actress. When the show began, John Haymes Newton (COMICS SCENE #6) wore the caped Kryptonian's red, blue and yellow costume; for the last two seasons, Gerard Christopher (COMIC SCENE SPECTACULAR #2) has worn it whenver he races to her rescue. As the Teen of Steel's arch-rival lex Luthor, Scott Wells' bored, upper-class chicanery soon gave way to Sherman Howards' more manical machinations. Clark kent's first year roomate, T.J. White (Jim Calvert), was followed by the deal-making Andy McCallister (IIan Mitchel-Smith), before Clark decided he was better off living alone. And where Clark and Lana once committed as much of their time as possible to their studies at Shuster University (located in sunny Siegeville), they now have internships at the Bureau or Extranormal Matters in shadowy Capitol City. All of this leaves Haiduk as the single on-screen element to survive into what will soon be the show's fourth season. "'The old veteran,' I call myself," she remarks.
Yet when she's asked how she has managed to stay on where seeminly nothing else has, Haiduk admits, "I don't know. I think just the different circumstances. People change and they get a little greedy. My whole thing was just learning a discipline on the show and it has helped me out a lot. But, that's a hard one to really answer. I really enjoy the show. I believe whatever you start, you finish. And maybe people like me!"
SMALL TOWN GIRL
For decades in the comics, Lana lang spent her high school days in Smallville trying to uncover Clark's other identity as a fervently as Lois Lane later would. More recently, though, John Byrne revised the character' histories to have Lana learn of Clark's superhuman abilities early on, but remain a close friend of his into adulthood. The version Haiduk has brought to the small screen is "'a mess'. No, she's a person who's very curious about life and wants to venture out into as many things as posible. A part of her would love to be with Superboy, but I think another part of her has this thing with Clark. Everybody says they have this brotherly love. Well, I definitely think it has more to do with [the fact] that they're the same person, so there's something she really likes about him, but she's blind to it all. She's young. She's in a man's world, so she's trying to be as business-like as she can, but still has that ecitement and curiosity that any young person would have."
"We're seeing that she has grown up," the actress states. "At least, I've seen her grow up from way back when to now. It's a learning process for any young person who's growing up. She's going through times that are exciting, but I also feel that she's in an adult world where she has to be a little more sophisticated and not like she was before--just kind of out there, whatever happens, happens."
To tie in with the TV series, DC has been publishing a comic book | (Superboy The Comic Book) that closely follows the show's continuity, one which Haiduk sheepishly confesses to never having looked at. But then, she never sought out any of the older Superboy comics to help prepare her for the series either.
"I wasn't a comic book person when I was younger," she reveals. "I did watch the Superman movies, and I remember Annette O'Toole playing Lana, but I believe you have to create your own character. you want to be original; you don't want to be like everybody else."
Consequently, Haiduk can find nothing to connect her Lana Lang with the one O'Toole portrayed. "They're totally different, plus she was dealing with a Superman and not a Superboy, so I thik there's more for my character now than hers'." And so, despite a comment executive producer Ilya Salkind once made that this TV series could fit into the films' continuity, Haiduk deosn't see her version of Lana ever returning to Smallville to become a divorcee and a mother. "My Lana would probably run off to Europe," she laughs, "and be some who-knows-what--an archaeologist like her father, maybe a designer. That's the fun part about it because you never know what it could be. You could go in any direction."
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