We're just days away from the ninth season premiere of Smallville.

The CW hit returns with new episodes on September 25, as TV Guide Magazine sat down with show star Tom Welling to ask him about his role as a producer this season, as well what it was like to put on the Superman shield for the first time.

Here are excerpts from the interview:

On serving as a producer: I’ve always tried to be open and collaborative and make the show better. I guess in the end one thing that has really changed is that there’s a lot more paperwork that comes to me! Now I literally have a stack of memos like this at the end of every day.

On Clarke's season nine journey: With the events of Jimmy’s death [in May’s season finale], along with the eight seasons building up, he realizes that his view on humanity has been wrong. And he goes to Jor-El and says, ‘I messed up, what do I do now?’ Jor-El takes him in, and Clark starts his training. His training ultimately is what will prepare him to be who we all know he’s going to be in the future. So it’s him spending time at the Fortress of Solitude downloading all this information.

At the same time, information is given to him that the fate of the world depends on Lois Lane’s survival. So Clark has to struggle between his destiny and his humanity. Especially in the first few episodes it gets in the way of the training, because he just can’t help but deal with humans and help people, when all Jor-El wants him to do is shut everyone off, forget about them, rise above them and be the hero he needs to be.

On relationship between Chloe and Clark: They’re both changed people. They’re not the Chloe and Clark who used to run around the Torch [in the first few seasons of the show]. They’ve both grown up and they both have better ideas about what they want to do with their lives. And they’re trying to figure out what their relationship is. But right now it’s rough seas.

Visit our Smallville spoilers section for more insight into season nine.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.