Interview: Jensen Ackles & Jared Padalecki Talk Supernatural

Article by Craig Byrne

Please do not reproduce this interview on other websites. Instead, just link to the original source. Thank you! Beware of potential SPOILERS within this interview.

Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are about to enter their sixth season as the Winchester brothers on The CW hit Supernatural. KSiteTV’s Craig Byrne was one of several journalists who were lucky enough to get to talk to Ackles and Padalecki on the eve of the new season premiere, as they are in the process of filming the season’s eighth episode, “All Dogs Go To Heaven.” The interview follows.

Season 6 of Supernatural begins Friday, Sept. 24 on The CW – right after Smallville!

Based on the Season 6 trailer, it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of brotherly love. What is the state of the brothers’ relationship as the show picks back up this season?

JENSEN ACKLES: It’s a lot different in the fact that it’s a year later, and Dean’s basically been living a year with thinking that [Sam] is gone. So when Sam shows back up unexpectedly, obviously there’s surprise, but then there’s also anger at the fact, that “How long has he been around, and why hasn’t he told me?” So that’s the first bit of friction that they get.

JARED PADALECKI: Also, my character’s a bit different because I went to Hell for a little bit. Not only Hell, but Lucifer’s cage with an archangel battle, so I come back much less lovey-dovey, and more like “All right. I’ve been to Hell a couple times. I’ve been to Heaven. I’ve died; I’ve come back, I’ve done this, and I’ve done that; so I think Sam’s kind of more “no bull$#!+.”

Whose experience in Hell was worse?

JARED: I’d say mine, I think. We’re only eight episodes into it, we don’t know too much about mine. [Character redacted to avoid a spoiler] says, “I can’t imagine what it’s like in the cage, and I can imagine so many things.”

Will we be seeing fights between you guys?

JARED: I hope so.

JENSEN: Well, there is — in the trailer, there’s a shot of me hitting him, and that wasn’t edited to look as though it was; that actually happened. So, there are physical confrontations. There are verbal confrontations between the others. But they do have their common denominator, and that is that they’re both hunters, so they get back on the right track, eventually, but there is still a strain in the relationship that has yet to be worked out.

JARED: I think it kind of hearkens back to Season One where there’s Sam’s story, and Sam’s like “Dean, with all due respect, I deserve respect as well. I have my own life. I’ve done my own things. I deserve my own credit, and I’m going to do things my way, and I deserve to do things my way.” And Dean’s like, “well, you don’t know what I’ve been through in this last year, and my priorities have changed and shifted. Now I don’t want to be so cavalier.” And Sam’s like “What? Why not? I just came back from Hell again!” So I think there are personal frictions with both brothers, and they’re sort of amplified by the fact that we hunt.

JENSEN: There was a big kind of a shift in Dean’s character, actually much to my chagrin. I was not happy with it. Dean was really kind of being written soft. We spent five years with this guy being a tough, shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy, and now all of a sudden he’s lived one year in more of a domesticated life, and he’s gone soft on us. As a fan of the show myself, that kind of made me upset, but I did my best to kind of curve that in the acting. It read pretty soft on the page, but I think I toughened it. I’m like “Look, if I’ve got anything to do with it, I’m gonna beat this guy up a little bit.”

JARED: In all honesty, you kind of kept it true to the character. It wasn’t like you were just not doing what the writers were writing for. It was like “How can I work this in to where I don’t completely lose….?”

JENSEN: Which was different, because after five seasons of playing this guy, now I actually have to think harder about how to play this guy correctly than I have before.

JARED: It used to be easier.

JENSEN: I’m like “What happened to the gravy bone here?”

JARED: We talked to Tom [Welling], and Tom’s like “Yeah, Season 6, it’s easy from there on out.” We’re like “it got harder!”

JENSEN: I’m having to think harder, like “Okay. How would he actually react to this situation?” Because he’s never been in a domesticated situation like this, where he’s got a kid, and a girl.

JARED: Sam is not so heartfelt anymore. [In Episode 8], we go up to this dead body, and my line is “Yeah, we’re specialists. We answer the questions of mouth-breathing dickbombs.” Stone-faced. “You’re going to tell us what’s going on?” It’s like “Who is this dude?”

JENSEN: Dean’s reaction is [jaw drops] “…Okay. Wow. He’s come so far.” So there is a little bit of change in the characters, but I think, from what I understand, once we get towards the meat of the season, everybody kind of gets back on the same track. We find out a lot more as to why their motivations shifted.

JARED: I think the common denominator is also that Sam and Dean both want it to be better. In their own way, albeit; but they at least both want the same things. Maybe they work differently, but it’s no longer Sam going “All right. I’ve got this demon. I’m going to go see what’s happening this way. You do whatever you want. We’ll meet up later.” But I think we’re just wording differently what we want. We’re trying to work together and let it flesh itself out.

Are we ever going to see Dean’s necklace again?

JENSEN: That’s one of those kind of trivia questions. It’s like “What happened to the necklace?”

JARED: All I know is that Kripke said that we’ll never see it again.

JENSEN: I think he may have been inundated with so many questions with that damn necklace that he was like, “You know what? Screw it. I’m getting rid of the damn thing. That’s it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore; I’m melting it down.” But you know, now that Sera’s taken the reins, she definitely has the power to bring it back. Unless Eric goes [foot stomp] NO!”

What’s it like having the transition to Sera Gamble as executive producer?

JENSEN: She’s been a big part of the game since Day One, and Eric’s still kicking around, still putting his stamp of approval on just about everything.

JARED: I’ve always been a fan of her work with my character. I’ve always really enjoyed what she did with Sam. So I was really excited. I was like “cool!” Fresh ideas, but still somebody who’s worked with the family for a long time.

Is this like a new series, a Season One all over again?

JENSEN: I think it’s in the same vein. I don’t think it’s exactly like that “Monster of the Week” thing. We’re starting to get a little bit of that, but there’s definitely an overpowering storyline going on, whereas in Season One, we were kind of lighting the fire of that storyline.

JARED: We have vampires, and skinwalkers…. So it’s not like “Monster of the Week.” I think it would be really hard to go back to Season One, just because our characters have been developed, and part of Season One is to develop the characters, and try a bunch of different things. And now we’re the characters that we’ve built, and are now more developed, and are hunting different monsters.

Is it difficult to play Dean as a domesticated family man?

JENSEN: Totally. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Just even the dialogue, the way it was written, being so soft and affected. I was like, “This is not the guy I’m used to playing.” So I had to find a way, literally, to think “How would Dean react in a situation like this?” And I would kind of skew the dialogue a little bit to make it work in his favor. But it was definitely different. It was an odd situation for Dean to be in.

The sixth season of Supernatural begins Friday, September 24 on The CW. Take a look at some images and talk about Supernatural on our forum!