By TERRY MORROW
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Call it an occupational hazard for a guy like Justin Hartley.
He was down to his shorts and the occasional T-shirt as Aquaman in the ill-fated "Smallville" spin-off that never aired, "Mercy Reef." Now he's all masked and wearing confining leather as the Green Arrow in "Smallville" this season.
Which suits him best?
"The Green Arrow costume," he says. "I prefer it because I am on land, so it's more comfortable in that aspect."
The Aquaman costume is "much more comfortable if you're on the land, but you're always in the ocean, and you're freezing in it."
But, hey, the Knoxville, Ill., native is happy to have the work, no matter the garb. Once a soap-opera hunk on NBC's "Passions," Hartley got his big prime-time break this season as the arrow-slinging vigilante in "Smallville" (8 p.m. EST Thursdays, the CW).
The character _ industrialist Oliver Queen by day, skulking Green Arrow by night _ has been around for 65 years in comics. On TV, he could be the new heir apparent if "Smallville" ends its run soon.
Hartley, who is married to "Passions" star Lindsey Korman and has a daughter, is scheduled for seven episodes of "Smallville" this season. He isn't about to dream of a "Green Arrow" spin-off. At least, not yet.
"People ask me all the time if it is going to happen," he says. " I don't even want to entertain the idea right now. I want to see how (these seven episodes) go first."
He's also learning the tricks of the trade. To master the role of an archery pro, Hartley took lessons that didn't always go well. Once, the bow scraped him across the arm.
It hurts more than it sounds.
"I got this huge welt," he says. "I don't even want to call it a welt because it looked like another forearm coming out of my forearm. It's ugly."
And then there's the grief he takes from buddies who claim they know better than he about the old bow and arrow. They are finding that you can't tease the Green Arrow about his archery.
"I've got a friend who calls me, and he says, 'Ah, you can't shoot a bow. That's not how you shoot a bow.' He's like a hunter or something," Hartley says with a laugh.
"I called him back and said, 'That's exactly how you shoot a bow. You're doing it the wrong way.' Sure enough, he looked it up and went to an archery class, and I was right. I shut him up real fast."
