Supernatural star Jensen Ackles, who famously played demon hunter Dean Winchester, is sharing his thoughts about the show’s dedicated fans.
During a June 25 interview with Collider, Ackles shared he is aware viewers have found comfort in the horror series, which aired for 15 seasons until 2020.
“I think the show, because of the subject matter that it dealt with — but also because of these two brothers who would never say die — gave not only an escape for people who are dealing with whatever they were dealing with, but it also gave them maybe a little inspiration,” said Ackles to the publication. “There’s an old saying on set if things get a little too emotional or a little too intense, or whatever it might be, people used to say — I haven’t heard it anymore, but they used to say, ‘Hey, we’re making TV. We’re not curing cancer.’ I remember when it hit me, somebody said, ‘We may not be curing cancer, but we might be giving somebody a little inspiration to fight it.’”
Ackles shared that he and Jared Padalecki, who played Dean’s younger brother Sam Winchester, didn’t spend too much away from the show’s set while Supernatural was on air.
“We were doing the show. Our heads were down. We weren’t going to premieres and red carpets and parties and doing all that kind of thing. We were working. And when you’re sitting on a set and you’re working around 80 crew members, they’re your only audience. They’re the only people that you’re getting a reaction from because the camera’s not giving you anything,” said Ackles while speaking to Collider.
Ackles then shared that he and Padalecki have enjoyed interacting with fans at conventions.
“[The fans] would tell us their stories about how the show may have impacted them and how much they love it or how much they bonded over it. I’ve met generations of, ‘This is my grandmother and this is my mother, and we all sit down and watch it, and it brought us together.’ That was really when it dawned on me that we were doing something special,” said Ackles.
During a January 2022 interview on the Inside of You podcast, Ackles said he didn’t love Dean’s ending on Supernatural. He said he believed Sam should have died, instead of Dean. in the series finale.
“I always thought that if someone was going to go, it was going to be Sam, honestly, as the martyr. And Dean would be left to stumble through the rest of his life,” said Ackles.
According to the actor, he decided to speak to the show’s creator, Eric Kripke, who left after the show’s fifth season, about the ending of Supernatural. Ackles said that Kripke convinced him that it was “a great ending.”