At yesterday’s “Bad-Ass Boys of the CW” panel at the 2012 TCA Winter Press Tour, Jared Padalecki arguably became the star of the show, displaying a sense of humor that we don’t always get to see from Sam Winchester.
Following the panels, The CW hosted a reception to celebrate One Tree Hill’s final season, but also, the six stars on the panel ended up speaking with press at the party. We jumped in on a scrum of journalists for a few minutes of Jared Padalecki time. Here’s some of what he had to say.
On Bobby’s death raising the stakes raising for Supernatural: “More than just killing somebody to raise the stakes, I think the fact was that we were killing our ‘cheat sheet,’ they erased the cheat sheet,” Jared says. “I think that was necessary for the show, whether it was season 1, 2, or 20, because otherwise, it becomes ‘Oh, Sam and Dean are in a corner! They better pray for Castiel!’ And now we’re free. That gets old after a while. You need to see the boys. Obviously, we won’t assume the boys are going to die either, but you see the boys who are humans going through their struggles. So that becomes more exciting than, ‘oh! Call the friend, and then he’ll help you out’.” The characters’ absence will definitely be felt by Sam and Dean. “It’s been difficult to lose them. I won’t say ‘I doubt they’re really gone,’ but it’s been nice for Sam and Dean to have that crutch to fall back on. On the flip side, I guess that’s why they had to get rid of them. Because if Sam and Dean have God on their sides, and Bobby to help them do everything, it’s no longer hard for Sam and Dean. We could die, and Castiel could bring us back. We got in trouble, Castiel fixed it. The storyline couldn’t happen there. With God as your friend, there’s not really tension. So I see why the storyline had to find a new role for Castiel.”
Jared still has good things to say about departed cast mates Misha Collins (Castiel) and Jim Beaver (Bobby), who played the recently departed. “As an actor and as a friend, I love Misha first and foremost, and as an actor, I love working with him. I think he’s a great guy, and he’s a great actor. He’s done a lot of really cool stuff for the show. His final episodes for the show were fantastic. He’s amazing. Just like Jim. In his final episode, you’re like ‘Oh God. He’s really good. Bring him back!’ So as a fan, you miss them. As an actor in the storyline, I understand why that had to happen,” he explains.
On castmate Jensen Ackles as a director: “He’s great,” Jared says. “We kind of – I don’t want to say direct each other, but as actors, we help each other out. We’ll say ‘hey, man. Raise the stakes here because I want to give more anger here, or I think Sam would be upset about this, so I’m going to come at you, and I want you to fight back so we could get at it.’ So we kind of speak to each other as actors and as friends anyway, so that part was very similar.”
“He’s a very giving actor and director and he’s there for you. He cares about the show, so he’s not giving bad advice to steer you wrong,” Jared adds.
On his favorite Supernatural villain: “I want to say my favorite foil has probably been… you know what? It honestly may be Ruby. Other than the obvious [reason], I think what was amazing is that I didn’t know until the very end of the season, the last two or three episodes, whether she was going to be good or evil. I had no clue. It was so well orchestrated by Kripke and by the other writers, and the directors, and Gen, that I honestly didn’t know. It was like ‘I love you, but I think I hate you. You’re helping me do what I want to do, but I don’t know…’ It was a conundrum. I loved it, and it kept me going. It wasn’t boring for me. Not like it’s ever been boring… I never knew what she would do. I was trying to read into ‘is she good? Is she evil? Is she good or bad?’ And so I want to say I had a lot of fun with Ruby,” Jared says. [Jared is married to actress Genevieve Cortese and they are expecting a child soon.]
What was it like playing a “bad actor” in “The French Mistake?” “You know what? God’s honest truth, that scene terrified me,” he said. “I was so nervous to do that scene. Nervous, nervous, nervous, nervous. I was like ‘this isn’t going to be funny. I don’t know what to do.’ So we just kind of played it. You know what I loved, from the scene? As we were shooting it, Misha was laughing so hard that he had to excuse himself. He was like ‘hey, guys. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when I’m done saying my lines, I’m going to walk off camera, because I can’t watch you and not laugh.’ So I was like ‘all right. That’s cool.’ I had a lot of fun, and it turned out to be pretty fun. I was really happy.”
A new episode of Supernatural airs TONIGHT at 9PM on The CW! Take a look at some images and drop by the forum to come and talk about it!
1 Comment
Awesome quotes! I especially loved what he had to say about Misha, and how he and Jensen help each other out as actors.