“It was like riding a bike”: When Jensen Ackles made his feelings known about turning director for Supernatural

During his 15-year-long stint on Supernatural, Jensen Ackles not only played the lead role but also took up direction responsibilities for multiple episodes. The actor debuted as Dean Winchester in the first season in 2005 and remained associated with the show till its end in 2020.

Meanwhile, during the sixth season of the fantasy horror series, he made his debut as a director by helming the episode Weekend at Bobby's. In the 15th and final season, he directed the fourth episode, Atomic Monsters.

Around the time of Supernatural Season 15’s release in 2019, Jensen Ackles opened up in an interview with Variety about his behind-the-camera duties. The actor said he was initially hesitant to try out a few things during his initial days as director, but eventually the process became smooth:

“It was a little bit like the first time I did it just - just a little hesitant on a few things - but really, once I started rolling it was like riding a bike. We’ve got such a solid crew up here, from all the department heads all the way down. And this is not a crew that wants people to fail, and they certainly don’t want me to fail - or at least they put on that hat.”

Jensen Ackles once talked about turning director for Supernatural

During the interview, Jensen Ackles revealed the extensive preparation that he and the Supernatural production team used to do before he arrived on the set to direct an episode. He stated:

“So to be honest, you just have to do the work: You’ve got to put in the hours and make a lot of decisions, answer a lot of questions and then just hope that you’ve created a detailed enough roadmap than when you get on set you can navigate everything really easily. That’s what we did.”

Jensen Ackles, who is also a musician, further talked about incorporating his own music into the show. His song, Sounds of Someday, played during the climax of the episode that he directed in the finale season. Highlighting how it was the editor’s call, Ackles said:

“To be honest, our editor inquired about it. He said, ‘I know you did some music over the break, do you think we could take anything and plug it in?’ I wasn’t angling for that, I wasn’t pushing that, and in fact we didn’t even tell Bob or Andrew [showrunners] or anybody. We just floated it in there and waited to see if anybody said, ‘I don’t really care for that song, I don’t know who that is. And nobody said that.”

Ackles directed six episodes of Supernatural: Season 6 Episode 4 (Weekend at Bobby's), Season 7 Episode 3 (The Girl Next Door), Season 8 Episode 3 (Heartache), Season 15 Episode 4 (Atomic Monsters), Season 10 Episode 3 (Soul Survivor), and Season 11 Episode 3 (The Bad Seed).

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Following the conclusion of the show, he directed an episode of The CW crime drama Walker, which starred his Supernatural co-star and on-screen brother Jared Padalecki.

For more news and updates about Supernatural, keep following SoapCentral.

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