SUZANNE GORDON: Hi, everybody. Here today to talk about "Lois & Clark," which begins its second season on ABC, are executive producer Robert Singer, and its stars Dean Cain and Lane Smith. We'll take questions now.

QUESTION: For the producers, could you talk a little bit about the sort of departure of Deborah Joy LeVine, who's now moving on as a consultant. Will that affect the show's direction that much? There's already talk that you're going to try to change the show a little bit to make it a little bit more action oriented. What will her -- you know, now that she's going to be in a different role, how will that change the show, and how do you see the direction of the show for the next season?

ROBERT SINGER: I missed the first part of that.

QUESTION: Her role being reduced to simply an advisor.

SINGER: Deborah, you mean?

QUESTION: Right.

SINGER: I don't know. I mean, the show will change a little bit. And your information is correct. It'll be a little more action oriented. We really hope to retain the charm that Deborah brought to it. I think Deborah had an itch to go write some 10:00, and that's why she's not here, and she'll be missed.

But I think the good things that Deborah brought to the show, and they were many, we're going to try to carry on in that tradition. So I don't think it'll change drastically. I think we want to define our villains a little better and maybe put a little more action in the show. But essentially -- hopefully we'll do the good things we did last year and continue to do them well.

QUESTION: Are you basically, is it true you'll be pursuing sort of a villain of the week type of thing, almost like a "Batman," instead of Lex, who'll only be in about six or seven episodes? Could you talk about that?

SINGER: Yeah, I mean, I think that was conceptually a tough thing to do, to have the same bad guy every week. I think in our minds, and probably in the audience's mind it's like, God, when are you going to catch this guy? So by changing villains and giving Dean a new challenge every week, and Perry a new story to have to deal with, I think that'll help the show. So I think that's a good thing, yeah.

QUESTION: Mr. Singer, how is it that you came into this in the first place? Because when we think of you I think we think of things like "Midnight Caller," "Reasonable Doubts," things that are kind of moody and dark in nature. How was it that you came into this project?

SINGER: Gee, I'm glad to be known period. Is Matt Roush here? Actually, I got into it because he said -- he gave me -- he said my trademark self-conscious gloom, so I wanted to get out of that. [laughter] I wanted to get into something lighter, and here I am. Although he's going to go through a terrible emotional crisis this year.

QUESTION: Dean, can you talk about how your life has changed since the popularity of the show? Because it was very evident that when you were attending basketball games in New York sitting there ringside with Brooke Shields all cameras were on you two. So obviously you were a little more in the spotlight than you were.

DEAN CAIN: Yeah, well I wasn't -- everyone always says you star in an hour-long series you're going to lose your life, or something like that. You don't really know what it feels like until it happens. And it happened to me this year. It was very interesting.

The biggest shock to me, I think, was going to Europe. I went to Europe for a month, right after the show -- after we finished shooting the regular season. And the show is hugely popular out there. And to have people that I've never -- you know, a country that I've never been to, have people recognize and such, it was very, very surprising. It was exciting as hell, but it was also, it was very scary. You know, to be that accessible.

My day to day life really hasn't changed that much. I mean, I get a lot of children, a lot of kids and a lot of people come up and say, "You're Superman, that's great." And they're very supportive and I enjoy that. But free time, I guess that's the biggest thing that I'm missing these days. Having free time Just to do--

QUESTION: [overlapping] So what's your day to day life like?

CAIN: Well, it depends on the day really. I spend a lot of time now working out, because I have to get back in that wonderful blue suit. And so I'm spending a lot of time in the gym these days, and going to see movies. I'm in the middle of producing, and hosting and directing a special for ABC, a one-hour special that should come out this fall.

QUESTION: What's it called?

CAIN: It's called "Off Camera." And what it basically deals with is basically the question you Just asked me now, what people do in their off time. I've had that question asked me so many times in the last year, what I do in my spare time. Well, I play basketball, I surf, I do a million things. And this sort of centers on what other television and film stars do in their off time. Because a lot of people are actually good athletes, or musicians or things that people don't realize. And it's done very, very fast-cutting, very fun and I'm excited to have it finished, of course. I start back with Superman, but it certainly keeps me busy right now.

QUESTION: Dean, you mentioned "green screen headaches" and the physical demands of it. With all this new tilt towards more action, do you think this is going to be tougher than football? What's ahead for you?

CAIN: Well, I'll tell you what -- physically it's not tougher than football. I don't think it ever can be. But mentally it's a beck of a lot tougher. Because it's a grind for nine months. We're 12, 14, 15 hours a day, every day, five days a week for nine months. That is more difficult. Football is a more finite period of time. It's a shorter period of time. It's more intense but it's shorter.

Physically, if we're running around doing more action, you know, it depends. I don't know. I haven't seen the first script yet, so I don't know exactly what that more action means.

QUESTION: Is there going to be less romance and more special effects?

SINGER: Probably some more special effects, not less romance.

QUESTION: Mr. Singer, we had heard at the end of last season that James Earl Jones was joining the cast in a recurring role. Is that still true? And in your villain of the week panoply, are you going with essentially sort of businessmen and corporate raiders or are you sort of going a more fantasy route, or what?

SINGER: It~11 really run the gamut on the villains. Some of them will be more towards fantasy, others will be based in sort of modern reality. So we're not really locking ourselves into any kind of villains specifically except to say that he'll be -- you know, whatever the villain is they'll be formidable.

James Earl Jones has a pretty busy schedule. And if we can get him for a couple of episodes that would be great, but there's really nothing set right now.

QUESTION: Does John Shea come back at the start of the season to round out Luthor in any way?

SINGER: The Luthor questions will be answered, and John will appear periodically through the year. Which I guess answers one Luthor question right there.

QUESTION: Also, Dean, when Phyllis Coates [sp] guested on the show did you discuss with her at all how she felt about your interpretation of Superman versus George Reeves?

CAIN: I didn't get a chance to speak with Phyllis actually. But Teri had a chance to speak with her. And she said that I was cuter than the other Superman. So that's about as much as I got.

QUESTION: Dean, let me ask you, when you were on the other side of the fame thing, when you were dating Brooke Shields and she was famous and you weren't -- at that point, a couple of things -- first of all, how do you first get up the nerve to ask someone out on the first date when you're both college students and she's already a movie star? And second of all, along the way did you feel sorry a little bit and say, "Gee, I'd hate to be that famous, I'm sure glad I'm not," or anything like that?

CAIN: Well, to answer the first part of that question, absolutely. I said it would be really difficult to be sitting there at dinner every night of your life, you know, and having people come up and talk to you. Well, I live that now. And it's kind of difficult. But it's not something horrible, you know. The places that I frequent, my day to day life again, I don't really have that much of a problem at all. But whenever I go out to certain functions or certain things you sort of make yourself more available to that type of thing.

And as far as the other portion of it, I was never concerned -- it never bothered me. I mean, Brooke was just a regular person, as I was. And she actually asked me out, so I guess that solves that.

QUESTION: Dean, last summer you told us in pretty good detail about how uncomfortable it was being in the harness for the amount of time that you had to be. Were there any improvements made as the season went on, either in terms of the harness itself or being able to put those scenes together so that you didn't have to be on it say, as frequently?

CAIN: One of the biggest improvements is that Lincoln Simonds, who's my stunt guy, he got to do most of the lighting. And that was a great improvement. Because he hung up there for a long time, and then I get to hang in there and get it pretty quickly. Of course Lincoln didn't like that so much.

The harness itself is uncomfortable. And if you're going to shoot two or three scenes in a hurry it's okay. But if you're going to spend an entire day shooting green screen it's very uncomfortable, regardless of what you're doing.

I mean, there's just no way to make it comfortable.

QUESTION: Lane, last year it seemed to me as though you were having an awful lot of fun, as opposed to even working. Maybe that's just because you're a good actor. But are you worried that the new direction of action and super-villains and stuff is going to take away from sort of the wry fun that you might have had last year?

LANE SMITH: Well, you know one of the characteristics of an actor is paranoia, I suppose. So I do have a certain amount of paranoia about that. But you know, Bob Singer and I go way back. We did a series called "V" many years ago. And I've talked to Bob. I don't think we're going to -- the character of Perry White is kind of set where he is. And you know, I think the sense of fun is going to still be there, I hope.

That was a big part I know of me wanting to do the series. When the thing first came up they sent a script over. I tell you, I wasn't that interested. I mean I was but I wasn't. And then I came in and did this outrageous audition for them, and I think we signed a contract that day. So I'm not worried about it. I think we're going to have a good time like we did last year.

What was so great last year was that some of the stuff was almost, you know, close to "Saturday Night Live" business that they would do. But I think at the same time I was able to make it real and pull it off that way. And hopefully we'll be able to do some of that this year.

QUESTION: Do you think that same sort of "Saturday Night Live" feel -- I think you answered it then -- do you think that's going to continue?

SMITH: Well, I don't know. I think one thing that we're going to try for is to have more suspense in the piece. And certainly -- but you know, everything can't be serious. You know what I'm saying? And when it's serious we're going to be serious about the problem at hand. But also, you know, Perry White's got this wonderful humor about himself, and a sense of humor about what's going on. And I think that'll still be at hand.

QUESTION: Mr. Singer, in a further attempt to delete the self-conscious gloom that you have, are you going to make it a real point to keep that kind of silly humor into the show?

SINGER: I wouldn't call it silly. But yeah, we're going to keep that humor. I mean, in tens of the Perry White character, we could write the phone book and Lane is going to make it funny. That's an easy Job. You Just give Lane the idea and he'll put it into words and make it fly. So he's the keeper of the Perry White character. So I don't think you're going to see a lot of changes in that area.

QUESTION: Mr. Singer, what is the reason for either the subtle or the unsubtle changes in the series? Is it that the opposition is trying to compete more directly with adventure with NBC "SeaQuest?" What is the thinking behind the changes of getting more action and et cetera?

SINGER: I think, and I don't want to overplay this changing too much, because it's not that big -- we have a real solid audience that comes to us every week. We, and the network and anyone concerned with this show, would like to have that audience grow a little bit. Keep the core audience that we have, but get a few more share points. And it's really intended to bring in that segment of the audience that's sort of vacillating. Maybe they don't want to watch "seaQuest." They can get a little more action with "Lois & Clark" and just get a few more fannies in the seats.

QUESTION: Robert, two questions to follow-up on what you said before. One is in terms of the fantasy villain part of the equation. Presuming that you're going to pull some of those from the comic books, can you tell us which ones you've already decided to do, and if you've got any casting on that? And then the second question would be, if you would tell us which of the supporting cast members that have appeared, especially in the last half of the season, will be back for next season?

SINGER: Well, in terms of the villains -- I mean, fantasy I don't think is really the right word. I mean, one thing that I know that the network is very serious about wanting is to keep this based in some kind of reality.

I mean, you know, we make the buy that there's a guy in a blue suit who can fly. But beyond that to try to keep it reality-based. So if you get into characters like Morgan Edge, who is head of InterGang, who's a reality-based character.

Even someone like the Prankster, who's a real person and does real things. He can be a nemesis, but it's not really, you know, way out there in sci-fi land. And I didn't quite understand the second part of the question.

QUESTION: The second question was, of the supporting cast members who were in the show last season, especially who got more prominent in the second half of the season, how many of them will be back next year?

SINGER: Like who?

QUESTION: I guess Chris Demetral, Tracy Scoggins.

SINGER: Tracey will not be back. Tracey's actually off doing another show. We thought Tracey did terrific work. But that was frankly a hard character for us to write in an organic way and give her interesting stuff to do. I think as a competitor for Clark's affections that never really worked for me once I came in. Chris has a contract with --

CAIN: HBO ' s "Dream On."

SINGER: With "Dream On," thank you. And you know, if we can sneak him in for a few episodes if he has the time, that'll be great. We liked him a lot.

QUESTION: This is for Dean. I'd like to know, can you tell us how you spent your hiatus? I know you did the special. How you spent your hiatus, and also how do you reward yourself?

CAIN: I think those things kind of went hand-in-hand. The first month of it, I spent in Europe like I said. It was only I think, three and a half months, and it's rapidly winding down. I spent the first month of it in Europe doing publicity for the show. A lot of that was doing pre-publicity before the show came out. So it was actually kind of nice to be in Italy and to be in France. And I got to visit all the really nice spots in Europe. It was nice to be there without being recognized.

And in Britain, when I went through Britain that was kind of frightening. Because the show does very, very well there and I wasn't quite prepared for the sort of mobbing fans that happened to me a couple of times. It sort of was a little frightening.

Then in the off time that I spent doing this series, or this particular special for ABC. But I've been trying to sort of relax and spend time with my family and my friends and such. And I've been doing a lot of writing, and a lot of working out as of late.

QUESTION: You said your experiences in the UK, could you explain one of them that was particularly frightening?

CAIN: I can give you two that were particularly frightening. One of them was I ended up in this place called New Castle, up in the northern part of England, And basically I was there for Warner Bros., and they publicized the fact that I was going to be there and they expected a few hundred people to show up, And about 5,000 people showed up,

And it was amazing, People were just freaked out that I was there, I mean, there were problems, they almost didn't let me go out, It was one of those, like, sort of " 90210 " things you read about, and that sort of thing where everyone was freaking out. And it was really hot, and people were passing out. I'd see people come up to me and they'd be shaking and I wasn't quite used to that. That was shocking.

And another funny little anecdote was we were leaving the BBC after taping a show that was live. And a bunch of people, I guess, fans and such had come and congregated at the front. And when I drove out they chased us in cars.

And it turned into this very James Bond-007 chase. And the security guys that were with me Just loved it. They're, "Okay, you know, back on the other side." They're backing up, going all down the aisle, down these little tiny streets and things. It was a lot of fun, but -- and we lost them.

QUESTION: Mr. Cain, I understand you have a screenplay deal, or a three-picture writing deal at some studio? Is that right?

CAIN: I was writing for Hollywood Pictures. I have not signed a deal right now. That's not correct. I haven't actually signed anything. Negotiations are going on as far as the things with my writing. But nothing has been signed, no multi-picture deal or anything like that has been signed at this point in time.

QUESTION: Can you tell us anything about your screenplays, what subjects you're writing about?

CAIN: Should I give the whole thing away right now? No, for me writing action, sort of action/thriller/romance kind of things are fun for me. That's the kind of thing that I enjoy writing most. And that's where the brunt of all my writing is at this point in time.

QUESTION: Dean, as was said earlier, Teri's off doing her movie in New Orleans now. It seems a lot of the people who hit very big on TV last season, David Caruso, they're making feature films during the hiatus. Did you have a lot of those opportunities present themselves to you?

CAIN: I had an enormous number of opportunities this hiatus. I chose -- the reason I chose not to do anything this hiatus is basically I didn't want to make a mistake. I want to come out with a film that I feel feels right on, it feels good. And the things that I saw this summer just weren't exactly it. Or the things that I did like the time frame was a problem. So I didn't do a film this hiatus, but I'm more than sure that I'll be doing a film next hiatus.

QUESTION: Are you okay with -- I guess they're showing your "90210" episodes again now, are you fine with that?

CAIN: There's not a damn thing I can do about it. No, of course, I'm fine with that.

SINGER: And you get a residual check.

CAIN: Yeah, but it gets smaller, and smaller and smaller. It's funny because, you know, now people will see that and know it's me. That's sort of a weird thing, sort of the past coming back to haunt you. It's not haunting me. I enjoyed doing that work, and that was very valuable to my career. I think it led very directly to what I'm doing now. But it's funny for me to look back on it. It's sort of like looking at myself as a senior in high school or something like that, and now being a college junior maybe.

QUESTION: For Mr. Singer and Mr. Cain, when we last left off in the last episode, you had sort of toyed around with the relationship between Lois and Clark. It seemed like it was just on the edge. It seemed like Clark had admitted his love for Lois and then took it back. .How much longer can you go on teasing the fans with this sort of relationship? How exactly will the relationship progress and how quickly?

SINGER: Well, not that quickly. [laughter] Because we don't want to lose our audience. You know, it's interesting. I think we can keep them apart romantically longer than Dave and Maddie, or Remington Steele because Superman has a real problem. I mean, it's -- you know, Clark would love to have this happen, but to reveal this secret to Lois could be dangerous to her. I mean, there's a lot of ramifications to this triangle.

So I think we can bring them together, take them apart, dance around this. There's no real plan as to time length. I think we'll just keep playing with it until it really feels old for some reason and then deal with it then.

QUESTION: And also in the last episode it appeared that Lex Luthor had in fact plunged to his death. But John Shea said he started filming on July 6th, so apparently he will be back. Is Lex alive and if so, how do you suspend that disbelief? How did he survive or can you not reveal that?

SINGER: We'd rather not reveal that. He's a clever fellow. [laughter]

QUESTION: Dean, you said about writing, when you write do you write with a part for yourself in mind?

CAIN: In the past I haven't at all, no. There's one particular project that I'm writing that I have a part in mind for myself. But other than that I've written basically just to write the story. And one of the past projects they've now asked me to tailor one of the roles so that I would play it. And that requires a lot of changes in the script and that's something that's being negotiated now.

QUESTION: Dean, as far as this matter of preparing for success, first of all which kids did you grow up with that became actors? And along the way as some of those kids became actors, did people tell you this over the years? Did people keep on saying, "Hey, you really should be an actor?" Were you thinking of this even when you were playing football?

CAIN: I had thought about acting, only because I had seen it forever, my father and such. The kids I grew up with -- it was actually a tremendous number of the kids -- kids like Rob Lowe, Chad Lowe, Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Chris Penn, Sean Penn, Holly Robinson -- all these kids grew up in this small area. Their being actors -- at that age, that these kids were acting, I hadn't even considered it. It was the last thing on my mind. All I wanted to do was play football or basketball, or whatever it was at the time.

When I started thinking that I should be an actor was when I was 17, I believe, just between my junior and senior year in high school, my father was doing a film called "The Stone Boy". Just because I looked like the kid who was playing the younger brother, they asked me to come in and play the older brother. And that was sort of the first shot at really acting I had that made it seem interesting to me.

I knew I would go back into film into some point in time after I finished college and finished football. I didn't know that it would be as an actor -- in fact, my father, that's the last thing he wanted me to do, was be an actor. He's a director, my father.

QUESTION: If you hadn't blown out your knee, you might have played 10 more years of football, and probably not acted and gone straight to directing or writing instead?

CAIN: That's very possible. Very possible. In fact, my plan had been to screenwrite and play football, that had been sort of my plan. However, as a football player, you become visible. And I'm sure that I would have been visible as a person, as a personality, and possibly even gone into acting even though I hadn't planned on it then. I didn't plan to be in it now, so I believe that I would have ended up -- on the other side of the camera, anyway. The front of the camera.

QUESTION: Dean, you mentioned that young kids who recognize you now come up to you. When they do approach you, what do they want to know? And if you can address what you would like young people to get from your show? What kind of message would you like to put out to them?

CAIN: Most of the time when children approach me or come up to me, they are amazingly polite. They are so polite, it shocks me, how friendly and polite -- they're like on their best behavior. I guess they don't want to screw it up with Superman or something. They're very very very very pleasant.

And it's like they've rehearsed -- they come up and say, 'Excuse me, sir, would it be okay if I had your autograph?' and they're so wonderfully friendly. As far as what I would say the show gives these people, I think that the Superman character lends itself to-- I know there was .one particular story someone told me that there was a child, and he's very hyperactive and such, and the only -- he was prone to violence, actually -- and the only superhero, the only show they'd let him watch, where he had sort of a role model, was "Superman," on television.

And I think that the strength and the strong values and the honesty, and you know, Just because you're the strongest person, you don't have to dominate everybody all the time --I think that stuff shines very clearly through to these kids. I think these are values that we on the show, we want to present to people. I think given the fabric of today's television, the things we see on television all the time, that this is a very positive role model, as opposed to a lot of the others that are on television.

GORDON: This will have to be the last question.

QUESTION: A question Lane was asked earlier about the new super-villains that were coming in, and perhaps some of the romance being lost, do you have any worries about that? I mean, I think that you achieved your aim very well last season, in terms of getting both in in equal quantities. Concerns on your part about that?

CAIN: What I feel like we're going to do this year is --basically what I feel like what's going to happen is, we're going to take the things that work for the show, and we're going to concentrate more on those. The romance worked, we're going to concentrate plenty on the romance; the action worked, we're going to concentrate on the action. I think all we're doing is just enhancing the things that worked on the show.

I'm certainly not worried that anything's going to dissipate or go away or be less than it was. I think the banter and the funness between the characters is going to exist, and I think it's going to continue and actually move forward, and it'll be quicker and better and cleaner. I am very excited about this year. I have no problems with anything that we have going on at all.

GORDON: That will conclude this sessions. You can take all follow-up questions outside.