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The stars of Supernatural break down the moments that changed the show

Finding John Winchester (portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was the boys’ goal in season 1, though that ended up being about as difficult as getting John to stick around once he was finally discovered. The Winchester family reunion was short-lived: Season 1 closed with a car crash and the fates of all three men up in the air. And then there was that demonic deal John made with the same monster they had been hunting.

JENSEN ACKLES: Everything up until that point was about finding Dad. We found Dad, we continued to fight as a unit, and then we lost Dad, and now we were two orphans.
JARED PADALECKI: And I think that was the first time we ever brought back somebody from the dead, and it was you [to Ackles].
ACKLES: I died in the car crash, and he traded his life with Azazel.
PADALECKI: I think that was the first time we ever saw a major character die and come back. And that was a total leap of faith. So we told the story of Reapers and the veil and what happens to your soul.
ACKLES: That’s when we got into afterlife.
PADALECKI: That was a big title shift in what Supernatural could do…
ACKLES: With the introduction of Hell and making deals with demons — which is funny, because you think about that now, and [creator] Eric [Kripke] must’ve always known because Mom made the deal with the yellow-eyed demon.

Reflecting on Reaching Episode 200
[…]
Jensen Ackles (“Dean Winchester”): I still don’t even know what’s happening. Everybody’s like “200!” and I’m like, “Is it? Oh yeah, we did do 200. Gosh, I felt like we were just at 100!” Jared and I have this saying… We didn’t come up with it, but it’s, “Success is what happens when you’re too busy working to pay attention.” I feel like he and I have been too busy, just head down, cranking out the episodes, working with our crew, taking the material the writers give us, making it come to life. Then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, we’re at episode 209! It’s like, “What happened? Well listen, we can’t stop and smell the roses because episode 210, episode 211, episode 212 are on deck, so keep moving, pal.” We ain’t got time. We can smell the roses when the show’s done.

How Much Longer Can Supernatural Go?
[…]
Jensen Ackles: I still really enjoy playing the character. He’s not boring to me. I have fun playing Dean. I still get along famously with the people I work with. The fans are fantastic. It has changed my life, this show. I really feel so blessed and so thrilled and humbled by what this show has given me and I’m not bored. Some people are like. “Wouldn’t you rather be in a really big hit show or wouldn’t you rather be in movies?” or something, and I’m like, “No, I’m working! I’m a working actor.” Look, just because the show’s not the number one show on television, and just because I’m not in the biggest blockbuster on a box office weekend doesn’t mean that I’m not doing what I love to do. I would still be doing the same thing but I run the risk of A: not liking the people I work with, B: working on a show that I don’t like the character, the writers don’t write for me, whatever the case may be. Right now I’m in a pretty good position and I’m in a position that people who are in those more notable positions might envy and I’m okay with that. I like my job!

Jensen Ackles talks about directing and Supernatural

Ackles remains to answer some follow-up questions, including how it is that his “Soul Survivor” both is and is not the first episode of Season 10.

Jensen Ackles: It’s not the season premiere. It will air third, but it was the first one that we shot [for the season]. They basically did me a very nice favor in moving the episode that I’m directing to the first one to be filmed, so that I could prep without actually having to act in another episode. Because otherwise, I’d have to be working on Episode Two as an actor, trying to prep for Episode Three as a director, and that would be very, very difficult. So they bumped mine up to the front of the list to allow me to come back a little early from my hiatus, do the prep, do the shoot, and now, we’re actually starting our season premiere today, which they kindly wrote Jared and I out of the first day, so we could come and spend the day with [the Television Critics Association].

After recurring on SUPERNATURAL since Season 5, Mark Sheppard is now a regular this season. Did the show discover it just couldn’t live without him, or …?

Jensen Ackles: I think it’s just simply the beginning of an end [laughs]. No, he’s on as a contract player now, we’ve got Misha [Collins, who plays the angel Castiel] fully contracted now, and I couldn’t be more excited. Personally, I think it’s something we probably could have done a couple years ago, because I think that they are integral to the story and to the boys’ moving forward. It definitely is going to make for some interesting storylines and arcs this year, having them both available to us full-time. We’re not going to be having to share Mark with another series or having to share Misha with something else, so the fact that they’re both on full-time is welcome to us.

Do you have a favorite moment in the ten years of SUPERNATURAL?

Jensen Ackles: My favorite moment? That’s virtually an impossible question to answer [laughs]. There have been many, many moments. I would say personally, it was probably a toss-up between marrying my wife [actress Danneel Harris] and having our daughter. Professionally, it is a collection of amazing events. I truly do get along with Jared as well as anyone could ever hope to get along with a co-worker, and that really makes for just a fun place to work. We laugh with our camera crew, we laugh with our sound guys, with our props department, with our electrics and grips and everybody, and it’s just one happy, dysfunctional family. And I think that the fact that we have these relationships is probably the greatest thing that’s happened to me since the start of the show.

“My father is an actor, so he brought me into his agency when I was young. It wasn’t something I wanted to do until high school, when I started taking theater and really liked it. Then an agent found me and wanted me to come out to Los Angeles and give it a shot. I gave myself six months, but it only took me like a week to get a job.”

“What I enjoy most is travelling to different places and meeting new people. For me, it’s all about life experiences, and I’m very grateful that acting allows me so many interesting and fulfilling ones.”

“When we started, we knew the show was going to be hit or miss, and we needed to find a core audience to really make us survive. And I think we’ve been able to do that.”

“Comedy, drama, Westerns, sci-fi… it’s all fine if the story’s compelling and the character is interesting to me. I do like action a lot.”

Their ‘Supernatural’ ways

Is it weird or kind cool watching yourself getting shot or stabbed on screen?
JARED: “It is, it is, but it’s almost like really cool to watch on screen and kind of really just exhausting to do in life. It’s like a sex scene or something. It’s like, ‘Okay, well we can kind of see your breast so kind of lean to the right a little. Okay, yes, okay. Now your neck.’ It’s just so calculated it’s almost like, ‘Okay, well if you stab like this, then we’re not going to see the light shining off the blade, so make sure you stab like that.’ And you’re like, ‘Oh,’ and you realize like man, it really takes a lot. It’s not just like, ‘All right, go in and stab, and then go like wow!’ So, you know, and the hand coming down and it has to look dead. ‘Oh the hand flexed a little bit, we could tell you were, so like really keep the hand…’ You don’t think about that. It’s a very painstaking process to kill somebody on screen. And especially for a horror series. Filming death takes a long time.”

How do you feel about it, Jensen?
JENSEN: “I agree. The best looking special effects that you see us doing probably took forever to get right. From the make-up, wardrobe, lighting, camera – everything has to be perfect and it has to run perfect all at the same time. Sometimes a demon has to throw you a certain way, so you have to rehearse that scene until the stunt coordinator feels you’ve got it right. And most of the time you don’t. (laughs) So, it’s a double-edged sword, the stunts can look really cool when they are done, but ten hours after you started them, I guarantee you are usually really sticky, sweaty and just want to deck the first demon we see.” (laughs)

“The drama teacher had asked me to be a part of the annual play. I thought: ‘This is my last year. I’ve been doing baseball for three years.’

“I went to my coach. I thought he was going to rip my head off. Surprisingly, he said, ‘Good for you. You’re only in high school once’.”

Singing in West Side Story in front of his confused peers on opening night was nerve-racking.

Venice: Congratulations on another terrific season of “Supernatural” as well as My Blood Valentine 3D. One thing that impressed me about the movie was that the 3D effects aren’t all about things coming directly right at you.
Jensen Ackles: You never want to get to gimmicky. I remember talking to the director and one of the first calls we had he was very clear how this was going to go. He didn’t want to make it gimmicky but he definitely wanted to pay homage to the old throwback horror movies and include some of those great clichés that would honor them.

I love how everything is right in front of you, almost like you can reach out and touch everything. It just has to be the wave of the future.
I’m surprised it has taken this long to catch on. I think with the new technology… I can’t event fathom what i’ts going to be like in the future.

Honestly, when you first heard about this project did you ever think, “Do we really need to remake this movie?”
Well, it’s been something I’ve just vocalized to my friends, and some of my peers. ‘Geez, are we that hard up for original ideas these days that we continue to do remakes or steal ideas or shows from other countries? Is the writing that lackluster these days?’ But when you think about it, and what really hook, line, and sinkered me with this was the fact that it had a cult following but it wasn’t a huge, huge movie. My Bloody Valentine was not a blockbuster, smash hit. It wasn’t like a Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street.

I’m old and I’m a horror guy, but who else remembers the original?
Right, it’s a select few that latched onto those unique little horror movies, and this is one of those. And I think that was unique in itself, and throwing all this modern technology onto it and using the 3D format, I was interested from the get-go.

There’s a scene at the hospital where your character says he’s not selling the mine and Kerr Smith pops out from behind a curtain and everyone laughs because it’s so ridiculous.
And even in the very beginning when Tom Atkins turns and he’s framed with the heart on the window, there’s just the right amount of mozzarella shredded over the movie that people will understand that it’s not trying to take itself too seriously and that it’s a nice throwback movie done in a way where you can sit back and enjoy it. It’s like a ride.

Probably because you’re in it, but when your character first arrives back in town you can’t help but think this is a job for the Winchester brothers.
Yeah. [laughs]

Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Wow, Jensen Ackles. How are you, dude?
Jensen Ackles: I was just talking about you, you idiot.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Yeah, are you saying good things?
Jensen Ackles: Here, sit down. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, everybody. Plays the dad on the show.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Dead dad.
Jensen Ackles: Dead dad.
Jensen Ackles: How are you?
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Good, man. How are you?
Jensen Ackles: How’s that coffee treating you?
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Pretty good.

You look like you needed it.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: We had a bit of a night last night.
Jensen Ackles: Yes, we did have a bit of a night last night, didn’t we?
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jensen Ackles: Hey, well, you know, that’s what happens when sons get with their pops, right?
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: You know, we reunite for an evening out.
Jensen Ackles: Yeah, that’s right. I was just talking about how you croaked.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Yeah.
Jensen Ackles: Yeah.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Yeah.
Jensen Ackles: And how it affected me.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: He’s having issues. He’s having a lot of issues.
Jensen Ackles: A lot of issues, yeah. Dean’s definitely having issues on camera. I’m just having issues because I don’t get to hang out with him anymore.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Oh, God.
Jensen Ackles: I don’t really like you. I’m just saying that.

Actor Jensen Ackles shares his spooky experiences of playing a spirit-slaying Supernatural brother

Supernatural’s one of the spookiest shows on TV, with a fresh demon or murderous monster appearing each week, but after a lifetime of watching Horror films star Jensen Ackles thought he was immune to being spooked. That was until the show filmed an episode in a disused asylum…

“That episode, Asylum, was actually filmed in an abandoned mental institute and it was so spooky the art department didn’t have to do anything to it,” he says, “It was a huge five-storer building, completely deserted and not used. We were filming on the third floor and when they called ‘lunch’ the whole crew started walking towards the stairwell, so I took a shortcut down the back stairs. So I went down it was just completely dark, and there was this long, long hallway with little light at the end of it, it was really freaky. I walked a little faster, and then I was running past all these rooms. So that was a little freaky. It made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”

Even after a jet-lagged night hoofing lager in a British pub Supernatural’s ghost busting brothers Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles incite out horniness. Alone in a London hotel room axm ask the Texan pair to bump us in the night like gay “spirit people”. For some reason they refuse.

Young US stars par-excellence, Jared, 24, and Jensen, 28, breeze into our plush room the very definition of nonchalant lust appeal. Even more gallingly, they’re blissfully unaware of just how hot they are. It’s hard to think about anything other than sex, so we barely bother.

You two came second in an internet poll of sexiest fellas on Tv, just behind Patrick Dempsey form Grey’s Anatomy…

Jared: You mean we were beaten by Dr. Mcdreamy?

Jensen: Hey, it’s flattering to come behind him.

There’s a joke there… Anyway, do you get hit on by many gay fans?

Jensen: That hasn’t happened to me, at least not that I’m aware of.

Jared: That happens in Los Angeles, but it’s not like they come up to me and say: “I’m gay, do me!” It’s more like: “I really like the show and my boyfriend likes it too”. I had one guy come up to me and say: “Can I have your autograph? My boyfriend is gonna be so jealous.” They don’t proposition me, but then I don’t get proportion but girls either.

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The stars of Supernatural break down the moments that changed the show

Supernatural: The Cast and Creators Looks Back on Making 200 Episodes and Ponder the Future

Jensen Ackles talks about directing and Supernatural

Jensen Ackles speaking about acting

Their ‘Supernatural’ ways

About acting and his past

Venice Magazine’s Interview

Interview with Jensen Ackles and Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Haunted Hunk

Supernatural Sex Appeal