Supernatural star Jensen Ackles on playing Dean again in The Winchesters finale: ‘It was a mixed bag’

Supernatural star Jensen Ackles on playing Dean again in The Winchesters finale: ‘It was a mixed bag’

Warning: This post contains spoilers from The Winchesters season 1 finale.

Once again, Dean Winchester saved the day.

In the season 1 finale of The Winchesters, Dean (Jensen Ackles) finally revealed (some of) who he was to John (Drake Rodger) and Mary (Meg Donnelly), with the big twist being that this show exists in an alternate reality to the one Supernatural fans lived in for 15 seasons. Dean explained that his decision to meddle in this world had everything to do with keeping the Akrida away from his world, where Sam (Jared Padalecki) is currently living out the rest of his days after losing his brother.

EW spoke with Ackles, who also serves as an executive producer on the series alongside his wife, Danneel Ackles, about what it was like to once again put on Dean’s boots and finish out what hopefully isn’t The Winchesters’ last season.

JENSEN ACKLES: Yeah. People were like, “Are we gonna see more faces in the finale?” And I was like, “Of course you are, but I’m not telling you who.” [Laughs] There’s a treasure trove to choose from. And moving forward, God willing, there’s been plenty of interest by folks that are deeply rooted in the Supernatural lore who were like, “Hey, why didn’t I get a call?” I’m like, “Wait till season 2.” Hopefully we can bring those familiar faces. We want to make the most entertaining show we can. That’s what we set out to do in the beginning and what we hope to continue to accomplish.Let’s talk the alternate universe twist, which is a great way to sidestep canon.

That’s the thing. Everybody’s like, “I can’t believe you’re gonna mess with the show’s lore,” and it’s like, “Hang on, just trust us.” And in fact, it plays right into it. You’ve got Bobby, you’ve got Jack, you’ve got the fact that Sam is still on Earth, and here’s Dean, literally in heaven trying to do things to protect the life his brother’s living. So it furthers the lore.

And then it opens the door to other characters, a different Sam and Dean, etc.

Right. It would’ve been a fool’s errand to try and box ourselves in with what had been created on Supernatural. We would be boxed in by that. In order to get our two heroes together and make it make sense in that timeframe, it had to be messed with. And the only way to really mess with that was just to make it a completely separate, alternate thing, which luckily the mothership had established with Chuck [Rob Benedict] when he was like, “I’ve made multiverses, and you guys are my favorite.” So we knew that there was still stuff out there. And then also to tether it to the fact that, oh, if this was a fail safe that Chuck created, how many other fail safes does he have?

Obviously you played Dean in the pilot, but you didn’t have any dialogue. You’ve been doing the narration. But what was it like to really be back playing him again in this setting?

It was a mixed bag. It’s weird because we’re in a different city, filming with a different crew. I’m working with different actors. Having Jim there and having Calvert there, it was almost like we were brought in from another team to come and show these new recruits how to play baseball. [Laughs] Like we weren’t on our home turf. But it was a position that we were all very comfortable with jumping into and, how could you not be with playing those characters as long as we all have? It was like Dean was on location.