Actor enjoys playing evil Lex Luthor in ‘Smallville’

Michael Rosenbaum, who plays bald future baddie Lex Luthor on The WB’s “Smallville,” is on his way to have some fun.

“You know where I am right now?” he shouts into his cell phone. “I’m in the car – (headed to) Motley Crue at the Staples Center, front row. This interview needs to be started with that.”

Before he rocks out, though, Rosenbaum is eager to talk about the next original episode of “Smallville,” called “Onyx,” which airs tonight (8 p.m. on KSKN-22 in Spokane).

After a kryptonite explosion, Lex is split in two, releasing his truly evil side, Alexander, whose first act is to imprison Lex inside stately Luthor manor.

Alexander then heads out on a rampage, which takes him across the paths of future superman Clark Kent (Tom Welling), upright farmer Jonathan Kent (John Schneider), high-school journalist Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack), bad dad Lionel Luthor (John Glover) and lovely Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk).

“The first thing I do when I get a script, I don’t read it, I go through and see how much I’m in it, like every other actor,” Rosenbaum says.

“I started looking at it and realized, ‘There are 50 pages in this script, and I’m in 47 of them.’ I freaked out and took a Xanax.”

Playing two characters, in essence, also turned out to be twice the workload.

“It was something like 15, 16 straight days,” Rosenbaum says. “It was just a lot of dialogue. Once I started to get into it, I got really excited. A lab experiment goes wrong; Lex splits in half. It’s the stuff people have been waiting for, for four years.

“There are a lot of fun things, all the things Lex has wanted to do all the years, in all the episodes, like tell Jonathan Kent to shut up, give him a little smacking. I’ve been dying to hurt Jonathan Kent, and in this episode, I get to.”

In its fourth season, “Smallville” is taking on some stiff competition in its time slot from ABC’s runaway castaway hit, “Lost.” Some fans have also complained that it’s the show’s weakest season creatively.

“I can’t comment on it being the weakest season,” Rosenbaum says, “because I’d get smacked. I’d just say it’s very difficult to write series television. I think next year, it’s definitely going to be more adult-oriented.”

Asked how many seasons he thinks “Smallville” has left in it, he says, “You’re asking me a very dangerous question. Are you asking me how many years I hope it goes for, or how many years I think it will go? I’m going to say, it’ll probably go another season or two.”

All this time, Rosenbaum – who has a full head of hair – has been shaving himself bald.

“When I look at anybody with hair, I’m jealous,” he says. “I’m tired of shaving my damn head. I should get paid more just for that.”

Rosenbaum would like to do more comedy, but apparently there aren’t all that many roles for bald white dudes.

“A lot of directors say, ‘Michael, I want to work with you, and I will work with you, when “Smallville” is over and you can grow your hair back,’ ” he says. “I’ve had some directors who put wigs on me, but then I hate the wig.

“But it’s only another year or two, and then I’ll grow it back, God willing, and I don’t all of a sudden go bald the last season. A nasty trick to do to me in the final season would be if I go bald. Wouldn’t that be the irony of it all?

“But I have some good hair. I have some strong hair. It’s going to be OK.”