Supernatural On Set: Jensen Ackles Previews Dean’s Return From Purgatory

Earlier this week, KSiteTV joined other TV journalists on a whirlwind tour that included a stop at the set of The CW’s Supernatural, which sees its eighth season premiere on a new night on Wednesday, October 3… only a few days away!

While there we spoke with actors Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins. Jared’s interview can be found here, but today, let’s hear what “Dean Winchester” himself, Jensen Ackles, had to say about what happens next after Dean and Castiel get sent to Purgatory.

“The time that he spent there, and what happened there, has changed his outlook and his perspective on things,” Jensen says of Dean’s time down below. “These guys are always kind of at war with the evils of the world, but he got a heavy, heavy dose of it down there, because he’s surrounded by all the things that he kills when he’s topside. So it was almost a concentrated version of what he’s used to. [Dean]’s come back really a hardened warrior, and ready to use those sharpened skills in the real world.”

“It’s going to take him a little while to adjust to the lack of threat, and the lack of combat, and I think that that’s his motivation,” Ackles explains. “It’s almost like in the Hurt Locker, when Jeremy Renner’s character comes back from war and he’s sitting there looking at a cereal box aisle, and it’s just so foreign to him. But what isn’t foreign is being on the ground and fighting, and I think that Dean is feeling a sense of that. It’s a year that he’s spent down in Purgatory, so he was down there for a whole year doing this, and fighting and battling non-stop, covered in blood, covered in mud, covered in dirt, for twelve months, and now he’s back, topside, and he’s got his car, he’s got his brother… but it’s just like ‘wow. I didn’t realize how easy I had it up there’.”

Another situation that will require some adjustment is the reunion between the brothers, who have both had very different experiences in the intervening year. “It’s going to take a little bit of time to warm back up to the relationship that [Dean] has with Sam,” Jensen says. “There’s also what Sam did for the past year, which kind of compacts the odd element that these two brothers have spent time apart, but it’s what they were doing. Whereas Dean was in this concentrated war zone, and Sam was literally just the opposite. These two brothers have really been living two different lives for the past year, and now they’re having to come back together and pick up where they left off.” We will see how things pan out when the show returns on October 3.

While we were on set, Ackles and his castmates were shooting an episode that has been previously revealed as “Hunteri Heroici.” Without revealing any spoilers, Jensen did talk about how unique the episode will be. “The great thing with our show is that we haven’t really found where our parameters are yet,” he says. “You take episodes like ‘Changing Channels’ or you take episodes like ‘The French Mistake’ where we go so outside the box, but yet, we always somehow find a way to bring it back, to make it make sense. This is one of those off-the-wall episodes. It’s not something we’ve done before. When I heard the concept, I was like ‘REALLY?’ But I’ve had that reaction several times with this show, and it’s always worked out.”

Are you ready for Supernatural Season 8? Come talk about it on the KSiteTV Forum and don’t miss the season premiere on Wednesday, October 3!

Disclaimer: Travel and hotel accommodations for KSiteTV’s Vancouver set visits were provided by Warner Bros. Television. Read some of our other Supernatural interviews including Jared Padalecki!