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

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.