This morning at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, KSiteTV and many other media outlets participated in roundtables involving members of Supernatural’s cast and crew.
You’ll be seeing those interviews – as well as interviews regarding other series – throughout the week, but for now we share what Jensen Ackles – aka Dean Winchester – had to say about the show’s upcoming seventh season, which premieres in September on The CW. Jensen’s directing the third episode of the new season – an episode that was shot first in the Season 7 production schedule.
So, enjoy the interview. Questions are in bold; answers are not. Please do not reproduce this onto other websites. Instead, just place a link to this page! Thanks!
Be warned there may be some spoilers within.
What can you tell us about what it’s like to be directing again?
It will be Episode 3 when it airs, but they graciously let me direct it first, so I could prep without having to work on an episode [at the same time].
Being the second go-around, I thought it would be a little easier. I thought the knowledge that I learned last year would kind of parlay into something that would be making it a little lighter load for me, but it proved to be just the opposite of that. I think the more I learned, the more that I realized that I had to deal with. I think last year, there was a bit of ‘ignorance is bliss,’ and not to mention they help you out. Not to mention last year, I think the script that they gave me was a lighter script. It wasn’t quite as heavy in the technical aspect of directing. This year, they flung me into the deep end. To give you an idea, normally in one of our scripts we have between 40 and 50 scenes. I had 78. So there was a lot going on.
What can you tell us about this season?
Nothing. Actually, there’s a shock collar around my ankle that’s — [makes zap noise].
I think we know from last season, that obviously there’s a big shift in the character of Castiel. That proves to be a big, big problem for the guys. Not only has this all-powerful being appeared, but it’s also taken away their only ally that they really had in that realm. With that transfer of power, there’s also a big fallout of that, because without giving away too much, due to that aspect of this new God, there’s released an evil that the boys have no idea how to handle. There’s no lore to tell them what to do. There are no books written about it. There’s no hunters that have ever dealt with anything like this before. And that’s going to basically render them completely helpless, because all of the tools of the trade that they’ve used over the past six years, or all of their lives, are pretty much useless.
That’s going to be interesting. I’m anxious to see what they come up with.
Are Dean and Sam going to have different ways to deal with this?
I think they’re on the same team, which is refreshing for me as an actor, because last season, it was just a nightmare, not having that partner in crime. Soulless Sam, even though Jared did an amazing job, I thought, of playing him, what it did was it took the character Sam out of Dean’s life, and for me as an actor playing Dean, a lot of playing Dean is the relationship that he had with Sam, and because that was gone, I was a little lost in how to react as Dean with Sam. It was kind of a confusing thing, but I think this season, we’re all on the same team. They’re all headed down the same road together. Where that’s going, I’m not quite sure how they’re going to get there, and it’s, of course, going to be difficult.
What can you tease about Dean’s individual arc this season?
I don’t know necessarily what the individual arc is going to be yet. We’re still setting up the major arc right now, with the first several episodes. As we get a little further down the line – probably episodes 6, 7, 8 – we’ll start splitting off on the individual arcs. That would be a writer question. I kind of focus on what’s in front of me as opposed to what’s in the future.
What is the storyline for the episode you are directing?
It’s a bit of a slice of life from Sam’s standpoint. What we learn in Episode Two still translates into Episode Three, that Sam is battling some inner demons, to say the least. He comes across a job, and we get back to that old formula of Supernatural, where he goes and hunts, and Sam decides to go do it himself, because it’s something from his past.
We actually go back into his past, and we see Sam at age 15 which of course Colin Ford who’s played him before as a young Sam, he comes and plays him again, and does a really good job. But we get to go back in time and see Sam as a 15 year old, hunting and doing what he doesn’t really want to be doing at that age, but doing it anyway because that’s what his father and his older brother are telling him to do. It’s a slice of life from Sam’s point of view and his past.
Will we see your dad in the episode?
We don’t see Dad. Unfortunately. Trust me, I’d love to bring him back, as much as anybody, but Jeff’s a big movie star right now. Of course, I talk to him a lot. He’s always like “Man, I want to come back!” But his schedule… he’s a little busy.
We’re seeing Sam’s past, but will we delve into Dean’s past as well?
What I’ve seen so far, which is only the first three episodes, we’re still setting up the major arcs of the story for all of the characters. The episode that I directed isn’t really setting up an arc for Sam; it was more of just a Sam-heavy episode, so to speak. We’ll get into Dean’s episodes, and what’s going to take off from that, I’m not quite sure. A lot of the Young Dean and the dad stuff is done over the phone, so we don’t actually see those sides of the conversation, unfortunately, but it’s all implied.
1 Comment
Thanks for the Jensen interview- I always love hearing from him! And a special “thank you” for asking about Dean’s individual arc next season. That’s been a hot topic of discussion among many fans, who’ve been wondering what’s going on with the lack of Dean spoilers. I have to say that it’s pretty dang disappointing that even Jensen himself doesn’t know about the direction for his character this season. Dean not having a storyline that many episodes into a new season has never happened before- even last year, he had more going on. I’m kind of worried about this lack of show runner investment in Dean’s character, especially when it’s clear that Sera has an abundance of interest in Sam’s character. Hopefully things will improve once the season starts; otherwise, it might be time for this fan to just move on.