It’s his birthday today.
Jared Padalecki talks a lot about his process (when he’s asked, which is not too often unfortunately). He reads the script over and over again, reciting the lines over and over, as he takes a run, as he drives, as he walks around. He doesn’t just get “familiar” with the lines. My interpretation of this process is that the lines are IN him as a rhythm, he doesn’t need to think about it consciously.
Padalecki started working as a teenager, and absorbed lessons on the job. He was a cute late teenager, floppy hair associated with early-2000s boys. The BANGS. He has spoken about the trend for young American actors at the time: it was all about introspective brooding, inspired in part by Jared Leto on My So-Called Life. Hair/bangs/brooding. Padalecki is many things, but he is not a brooder. He has told funny stories about his initial audition for Sam Winchester in Supernatural, and how he went in there brooding like Jared Leto. This wasn’t the right vibe for Sam at all. Creator Eric Kripke wasn’t keen on Jared. Padalecki’s manager gave Jared the feedback: “Sam is smart. We’re looking for someone who seems smart.” A pretty brutal note, but Jared took the coaching for the callback, abandoned the brooding and came in just as himself. And it shows.
There’s very little difference between the audition and the pilot. There he is, there’s Sam!
The audition I want to see is the “chemistry read” between Jensen Ackles and Jared, but it’s not available. During the filming of the pilot, they commiserated in private: “This is … really good, actually. We might get picked up.” Never could they have guessed the show would be on for the next fifteen years.
In the first half of the first season, Jared was finding his way. Gilmore Girls didn’t really prepare him for Sam Winchester or for long-form season-wide arcs of torment/anguish. Supernatural was dark and emotionally complex, and – at least in the first season – the show was a two-hander. It was a heavy load. He’s in every scene. The characters were, at first, broadly drawn: Dean is the tough wise-cracking older brother (Han Solo), Sam is the intellectual idealistic younger brother (Luke Skywalker).
The brother conflict as presented in the first half of the first season are pretty on the nose, and Jared hits the conflict hard. This is not a criticism. This is an acknowledgement of the challenges in the material, and also acknowledging how young he was. This was new ground: he had to step into this new space, where he had more room to maneuver than he had on Gilmore Girls. Season one, you just watch Jared Padalecki grow as an actor, and it happens really fast. You can actually see him expand in confidence and subtlety as an actor. By “Asylum” you are watching him really step into this new space as an actor.
On the heels of “Asylum” comes “Scarecrow” and “Faith”. These episodes show Sam finding himself and his voice, his own leadership abilities, but it’s happening with the actor too.
As a viewer, “Nightmare” was where I first felt Jared Padalecki step into the role and into his own talent and strengths. In my massive re-cap of “Nightmare”, at one point I said “From here on out it’s the Jared Padalecki Show”. It was a revelation for me. I suddenly SAW him and I SAW what he brought. Most of this has to do with listening: listening is active, and in the power of Padalecki’s listening IS his objective (Sam’s objective). This is esoteric actor stuff but it’s super important when we are trying to understand what an actor is DOing. (My acting teacher at the Actors Studio always said, “The name of the job is ACT-or. Not FEEL-er.”)
The way Jared listens to “Max” in “Nightmare” is so active it’s an object lesson in the concept. I’ve said it so many times it’s probably tiresome but:
All great actors are good listeners. There are no exceptions.
Let’s take a moment to remember Paula, a community member here, a member of the Supernatural fandom, and one of the best Sam-interpreters we had. We miss you, Paula.
Often, Jared’s funniest moments aren his REACTIONS. (This recalls John Wayne’s famous comment: “I’m not an actor. I’m a RE-actor.” Jared is such a great example.) There are moments in Supernatural when something absurd happens and the “button” on it is Jared’s reaction. It’s not schtick. It’s organic. There’s a moment in a later season – I think “Paper Moon” – where Sam and Dean are trapped by a pack of werewolves, who force them at gunpoint to kneel, and Dean says something grandiose and macho, a wisecrack in the face of death, and Jared flashes him a look like, “Oh God that was corny.” It looks involuntary. I would bet it is involuntary. (And perhaps is an example – of which Supernatural has many – where the two talented leads subverted the lines, adding shadings that might not be there in the actual text. Jared laughing at the corniness of the line.)
I think my favorite moment of his in Supernatural comes in Season 6’s “Like a Virgin”. Castiel (Misha Collins) spills the beans about what happened to Sam during the previous whatever months. Sam had no idea. He’s shocked and upset, but he has to pretend like he already knew, mostly so he won’t alarm Castiel. He wants Castiel to keep talking. Tears flood his eyes, but on top of the emotion is this faux-casual expression, placed over the depths which have been STIRRED. Jared plays so many different things, simultaneously, in this small moment. My friend Dan Callahan, who writes about acting, says that so much of good acting is about proportion. A lot of bad or ineffective performances are mostly because the actor gets the proportions wrong. This small moment is in perfect proportion.
Jared is well-known for his advocacy for mental health awareness and is disarmingly open about his own struggles. He has had to advocate for himself to get a handle on his anxiety. When he is able to draw on this in his acting, it’s immensely powerful. (The final section of season 8 in Supernatural, the section in season 7 where he hasn’t slept for weeks and is running on fumes.) This is not to say that art is autobiographical: I really dislike such assumptions. Jared is an ACTOR, and he thinks clearly and deeply about Sam. But when you play the same character for 15 years, it’s hard to separate: they are you, you are them, you have distance, you have no distance – it’s all the same.
In the mid-2000s, Jared did a Christmas movie with Peter O’Toole. At one point, he got overwhelmed by the emotions in a scene and was teared up between takes. O’Toole intervened, telling him to give all that emotion to the character. It belongs onscreen, otherwise it’s just you. This advice from a veteran like O’Toole blew Jared’s mind. You cry real tears, you feel real feelings, but put it all into the story. It’s not about you.
I feel him do that, consciously, in those “sequences” I mentioned in Supernatural. He had to go to a very dark place. It’s difficult to even look at him in the “insomnia” section in Season 7, and the “trials” section at the end of Season 8. By then, he was a veteran actor himself. He knew how to work. He can be incredibly buoyant, and goofy, and his laugh is huge and free and joyful. Emotions come easily to him. He can go deep fast. He’s got easy access to what’s going on down there. A lot of people don’t.
When he broods now, it’s because he’s lived it. My doctor told me once during the period when I was trying to get well, that I was going through life trying to drive with the emergency brake on. I could only go so far, I could only accelerate so much. I had to get the right diagnosis and get treatment before I could finally pick up some momentum. Once you face the monster, once you actually are brave enough to look at it and say “No” to it … you can accelerate. It’s such a good analogy.
We’ve watched that happen with Padalecki, unfolding in real time, evident in his personal appearances as well as in his performance onscreen. But struggle, as it tends to do, has left its mark. It is part of what makes him him as an actor.
aw Sheila this is such a lovely tribute to his work and the learning process as a whole – someone capable of taking on a big job and stepping up to it, episode by episode. It’s hard to think of a more facilitating environment: locked away in the north for 22 episodes, with a naturally skilled and supportive colleague, surrounded by craftsmen and technicians, talking with actors every scene. I think those training grounds have virtually vanished in US TV now. I find the O’Toole experience moving as well, the lineage of craft, the grace afforded to a younger actor by an older one.
I feel like, because of his facility with suffering, what his masculinity brings to the show is underrated (often by fans who really enjoy and identify with a kind of frail, victimised Sam). The way the show is kind of structured by the twin poles (uh oh) of Jensen’s masculine vulnerability and Jared’s masculine steel. We’ve talked a lot about this down to the level of me falling off my chair when Jared just, like, is in Hollywood Babylon haha. But I feel like the end of S1 when he’s facing off with John the writers were like shit!! What we’ve got here is the willow and the oak, and the different ways they endure the stress of what comes to them will underpin the see-saw of our plots for 11 seasons.
Inevitably I must get into Dabb-posting and how and the thinness of those seasons seemed to undermine Jared’s process. Everyone fell back onto crutches and bad habits in those years but Jared’s were particularly noticeable, with Sam being so criminally underwritten. I didn’t follow Jared into his other ventures although I respect his commitment to the procedural! But I am guardedly excited about The Boys – my biggest hope is that it taps into the cold and arrogant vein of his work – still get chills thinking about his Lucifer in that red light in season 15! thank you director Jensen! More like that please!
Finally – that picture up top is ARRESTING. Phew.
Jessie – hi! really insightful about him, thank you! and you are so right about there being no more “training grounds” like that.
// because of his facility with suffering, what his masculinity brings to the show is underrated (often by fans who really enjoy and identify with a kind of frail, victimised Sam). //
YES. I have felt this but not put it into so many words. As you know I kind of came to this show in a backwards way, through the fandom – the Tumblr fandom – which gave me very skewed preconceived notions about the show and the two main characters.
// The way the show is kind of structured by the twin poles (uh oh) of Jensen’s masculine vulnerability and Jared’s masculine steel. //
I love this. Frontierland, with all its silliness, pointed this out so strongly – it really was ABOUT that.
// when he’s facing off with John the writers were like shit!! What we’ve got here is the willow and the oak, and the different ways they endure the stress of what comes to them will underpin the see-saw of our plots for 11 seasons. //
so true! Jared is so strong as an actor – and his choicees are equally as BIG as jensen’s are – like sometimes when he’s angry even the way he inhales – it’s like with every inhale he’s making contact with whatever it is going on down there.
And agreed that Sam was the primary casualty of the Dabb years – and Jared did his best to fill in the blanks but I think he eventually just got tired of having to do it, and I don’t blame him. The writers literally seemed to not remember what happened in former seasons – no continuity – “why are planets round” – the less said about the better.
// my biggest hope is that it taps into the cold and arrogant vein of his work //
Oooh that would be amazing. He’s SO good in that particular key.
your rant about “why are the planets round” on the plaidcast was very cathartic! or does it count as cathartic if I can’t actually purge the feeling? It was relatable, anyway!
Fingers and toes crossed for The Boys…… it’s so frustrating that we have to wait a whole year.
// does it count as cathartic if I can’t actually purge the feeling? //
hahahaha I know. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with it.
“What we’ve got here is the willow and the oak, and the different ways they endure the stress of what comes to them will underpin the see-saw of our plots for 11 seasons.”
So beautifully said! I love this. And it felt like such a reversal in the early seasons, with a young Sam that still said “gosh” – but turned out to have a backbone of steel.
One of my favorite places where we highlight Sam’s steel (especially in comparison to Dean in similar situations) is with Crowley. The number of times that Sam is like, “Absolutely, we should kill Crowley. I’ll do it right now, and I won’t be shedding tears for him” – well, it’s more than once! Dean talks a big game, but he’s ultimately more susceptible to Crowley’s long game. Sam has his own susceptibilities…but putting up with Crowley is not one of them. There’s a part of me that wishes we would have let Sam just destroy Crowley in a way that was shocking or cathartic, instead of letting him rot in side plots with Lucifer and Rowena in that godforsaken warehouse-dungeon set.
a young Sam that still said “gosh” – but turned out to have a backbone of steel.
he’s the one who left! as a kid! he’s extraordinary.
oof, you said it about Crowley. His unwilling, roundabout affection for the Winchesters was so effectively used for s9 and his and Dean’s ‘summer of love’ – and Sam hates him so much! I would have rather have seen him kill Crowley than be told to care about him killing Rowena.
// than be told to care about him killing Rowena. //
God, it was endless. I never could get away from the thought that Rowena was brought in to keep Crowley occupied – so they could honor Sheppard’s contract but essentially sideline him. Sheppard was very interesting on the whole thing on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast – he said something like “I had to play the same scene 5 times – ” his “plot” spinning its wheels – so he knew the writing was on the wall. But just a really gross way to treat a beloved regular character!
Bethany – I so agree with you – wow – Sam taking out Crowley would have been perfect – and also a death WORTHY of Crowley’s status (not to mention Mark Sheppard’s incredible performance).
The question of the brothers’ susceptibility is endlessly interesting – early seasons really played with this, as the show did in general – the issues of consent and penetration and also taking over someone else’s body/autonomy. Dean remains “intact” more than Sam does – Sam is usually the one “taken over” – again at least in earlier seasons.
But the emotional susceptibility is such a deep rich topic – and they had so much fun playing around with it early on. Dean is clearly more susceptible to John’s manipulations – it;s almost Dean’s version of being possessed. His body language changes when John calls – he has to put on his shirt! Sam is the oak! I have my own headcanon about this – Dean’s boundaries were compromised early on (in my opinion) – so he has a harder time maintaining his shape – even though it’s Sam who is being inhabited by Meg and losing his soul and all the rest.
And so Dean being groomed by Crowley – and just being vulnerable in that particular way – is fascinating – and of course it happens when he and Sam are basically broken up, lol.
I love LOVE this aspect of the show and these wonderful characters!
What a wonderful article, filled with so many insights. Thank you!
Marcy – thanks so much for reading!
This is really beautiful, Sheila! I love seeing his progression through your eyes and learning more about his process. I’m sure he and Jensen have both absorbed their characters over the course of 15 years, to the point where they can respond instinctually in character. But some of my favorite Jared performances are the ones that let him try on other characters. I love the deadness in his eyes as Meg, the way he holds his shoulders and turns his head as Gadreel, as if he’s not used to being embodied. And of course the half-season eternity that he played Soulless Sam. He’s a really thoughtful performer, and we were lucky to have him!
Bethany – hi! Sorry it took me a while to get back to this, I was away with my family.
// some of my favorite Jared performances are the ones that let him try on other characters. //
Me too!! I also love the scene at the end of The End, when he’s Lucifer in the white suit in the garden. The way he chose to approach it – with zero threat or sneer – nothing overtly evil – just gentle sympathy and understanding – is SO smart and he does it so well. He’s so much more frightening there because he’s so soft-spoken, elegant, and understanding. But it’s so different from Sam’s brand of understanding.
// the half-season eternity //
it went on FOREVER and I love it! they made us work for our catharsis!
Also – I love that moment in Paper Moon! Dean is making a sexually charged quip about being “flattered” after being put on his knees, because OF COURSE he is, and you can see Sam silently wondering if the last thing he’s going to hear before he dies is his brother defensively flirting with a werewolf. A great example of both of them fully inhabiting their characters in a 2-second throwaway exchange.
// is his brother defensively flirting with a werewolf. //
hahahahahaha
Defensively flirting is Dean’s stock in trade.
I’ve watched Walker, and while there were some good acting moments, mostly it just makes me ache for Supernatural – what an incredible vehicle for an actor who can do so much: drama, comedy, subtle, screwball, scary, physical… I hope he eventually gets to work on something else that lets us see the breadth of his talent.
Thanks for this post, Sheila! Several friends are currently starting Supernatural for the first time, which is totally because of me (I’m very proud/happy about it) and it makes me ache for the show. I might re-watch. I had to stop my backwards re-watch because starting with the latest seasons was so painful, but I recently re-watched some season 2 episodes – Tall Tales! I told my friend, who lives far, no we need to watch this one together! He’s so funny “Listen Dean, we don’t have time for your blahblah blah blah, BLAH”
Also, very touched by the mention of Paula. We do miss her.
// what an incredible vehicle for an actor who can do so much: drama, comedy, subtle, screwball, scary, physical //
I know. The more I think about it the more I realize the “industry” right now is not set up for this kind of thing. Things are simplified, ironed-out, meant to be easily digested. Clear and unambiguous.
He doesn’t seem to have ambitions in re: creating his own stuff. Writing, for example. It doesn’t seem to be his thing. I mean, to be fair, he never needs to work again, but still …
we miss him!
Even if he does a guest spot, it won’t give him the range to show what he can do.
However, at least it happened – at least the impossible (Supernatural) happened. And we have “we don’t have time for your blah bluh-bluh-BLAH” forever. It seems a miracle something SO SILLY was allowed to exist in this so-called serious show.
HOW did they do it.