Supernatural's Jensen Ackles

Jensen Ross Ackles is an American actor, director, and singer. He has starred in various television series including Days of Our Lives and Supernatural. He has also starred in My Bloody Valentine 3D and was the voice behind Jason Todd in Batman: Under the Red Hood.





Born in Dallas, Texas, he modeled on and off since the age of four. Originally, he had planned to study sports medicine at Texas Tech University to become a physical therapist. Instead, he moved to Los Angeles to concentrate on his acting career. He guest-starred on Mr. Rhodes, Sweet Valley High, and Cybill before going on to Days of Our Lives. Ackles won a 1998 Soap Opera Digest Award and a Daytime Emmy Award for his work on Days of Our Lives. In 2005, he joined the cast of the Warner Brothers show Supernatural where he stars as Dean Winchester along with his co-star Jared Padelecki who stars as Sam Winchester. The show is currently in its 15th and final season and holds the title of the longest-running North American sci-fi series in history. After years of performing at various Supernatural Conventions, Ackles has released his first album earlier this month called Radio Company Vol. 1 after collaborating with musician Steve Carlson.

His creative process is unlike his other co-stars. When getting ready to shoot an episode of Supernatural, Ackles has been said to read through the script one time the night before they start shooting the episode. Jensen Ackles has also been directing various episodes of Supernatural. In this last season, he decided he wanted to direct one final episode of the series. He decided to take many risks with this episode which opens with an action-packed sequence, unlike anything the show has ever done before. The scene features Dean Winchester and other stunt men fighting in the bunker. Talking with Rob Hayter, the stunt coordinator on the show, he stated "Let's go hard here. We're gonna go big. We're gonna do like a full Dean Winchester as John Wick."

                             

Also with directing the episode, the editor had asked Ackles about his new music being in the episode. The song from his album, "Sounds of Someday" was debuted in the episode in a montage sequence. Ackles stated that "it felt like it was written for that moment...there's no way that Bob Singer [co-showrunner] and Andrew [Dabb, co-showrunner] were going to let that go."

Jensen Ackles is seen to have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Not only does he love his job, but he also does it for the massive fan group that has been behind the show for the past 15 years. For those of you who do not know, the Supernatural Fandom is said to be one big family. Not only Ackles, but also Jared Padalecki, Misha Collins, who plays the angel Castiel, and Mark Sheppard, who plays the demon Crowley, have started various campaigns throughout the years. Padalecki, who has been very open about his struggles with depression and anxiety, saw that fans were helped by celebrities being open about these struggles so he started the Always Keep Fighting campaign. Misha Collins co-founded the charity Random Acts which has done amazing things over the years including raising money to build an orphanage in Haiti after the earthquakes and even sending people to do it. Mark Sheppard's campaign raised money for a camp to teach self-management skills for diabetes since his son had Type I Diabetes. Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins started the You're Not Alone Campaign which raising money towards the #SPNFamily Crisis Support Network.

                          

I believe Ackles to be a little c creative. Thousands of people have been touched by these campaigns and Supernatural itself. For fifteen seasons now, millions of people have been watching Sam and Dean Winchester take on pretty much anything that life in their world could through at them. Ackles started out with small guest-starring roles and has grown to be in one of the biggest roles that anyone could hope for. Jensen Ackles himself has done a lot of work for mental health awareness and suicide prevention over the years. The Supernatural Family is a support system that is not seen anywhere else.



Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jensen_Ackles'
https://ew.com/tv/2019/11/06/supernatural-jensen-ackles-atomic-monsters-directing/
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/supernatural-family

Image Sources:
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/762782102693613568/n5QWDNsg_400x400.jpg
https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sn1501a_bts_0441r-1.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1
https://ewedit.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/000237295-ew-05412005.jpg
https://www.cwtv.com/shows/supernatural/https//images.cwtv.com/images/shows/og-image/supernatural.png