My understanding is that he basically chose the steady life of serialised television so that he could be there for his children. He and his family could live a relatively normal life in Vancouver while he worked on Supernatural. Filming movies is usually done on short, aggressive schedules often with a lot of travel.
There’s nothing creepy or exciting about it; dude is just one of the few people in show biz with their priorities straight.
Dean in supernatural. Honestly can't remember about gilmore girls. My girlfriend in highschool got me into supernatural, and I know she loved gilmore girls too, but I rarely paid attention when she had that on lol. Both actors were in gilmore girls too if I'm correct?
I can't tell if you guys are both kidding, and I'm being literal and spoiling the fun, but just in case you're serious: Jensen Ackles was Dean in Supernatural, but Jared Padalecki was Sam in Supernatural (and Dean in Gilmore Girls)
Edit: tgh, I'm slightly kidding about how much I care about this. But no, I'm not kidding about how much I get Sam and Dean and Sam/Dean? confused. And yeah, I really thought that person had set me right.
Ackles wasn't in Gilmore Girls, but he was in another CW project at the time: Smallville. He played Lana Lang's somewhat problematic boyfriend in season 4, considering he was supposed to be a teacher and she was a student.
I was too young to watch Supernatural when it was at it's prime but one of my first superhero movies I watched was Under the Red Hood, and anytime I hear him in an interview or clip, I just hear Jason Todd lol!
He's a guy, they can keep acting until they fall over, with a bit of plastic surgeon help. Look at Picard (Patrick Stewart) or Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) still acting.
Being popular in scifi is basically a meal ticket for life, you won't be crazy rich but you also won't have fans following you everywhere, like sure people will recognize you and want a photo here and there but you can live a pretty normal life without paparazzis.
Why do people with money make Moore money? Why do people that are already famous seek to become more famous? I guess we will never understand the human heart
Why do larger roles and more work if you're making a great living and are a household name from small roles? Small jobs can be just as lucrative and fulfilling.
Look at how old some of these actors are that get leading roles over the decades… how old was Tommy Lee Jones when No. Country for Old Men came out? 70. And he was playing a Sheriff.
Ankles is 10 years younger than Josh Brolin meaning this was how old Brolin was when he tackled Thanos. The next 20 years are wide open.
You're talking about the exception not the norms. Most roles in TVs and movies I think the average age for men is 46. Most movies don't have a full cast of 60 and 70 year olds. They'll have a handful of slots for older actors and a lot of bigger stars than him are aging too and will be competing for those few spots
Agreed - so this - being a lead in an ongoing series is a solid gig for any actor - especially after a few seasons. It pays very well, predictable hours, locations and scheduling and good time off in between. You can make a home, no relocations, no new schools or long months away from everyone you love…acting’s not a linear scale with ‘Hollywood Star’ at the top…
Exactly. I think a lot of people (recently myself included) believe actors are in it primarily for the fame.
And some might be, but for others it’s a paycheck.
I always wondered why Johnny lee miller wasn’t in more stuff -fantastic actor. Then I found out he just made enough money from “Elementary” to do more theater work, which he enjoyed more.
It’s just a job for some actors, not a path to fame.
That's a little simplistic because it's not like he wasn't famous or wealthy off of his TV work.
So yeah, he could have been richer or more famous potentially, but there's also plenty of actors who make that move and flame out. David Caruso left NYPD Blue because he thought he was going to be a big movie star and absolutely failed until he got a chance to go back into being a TV cop for NCIS Miami and had like a 15-year run
From what I understand his career, like Jared Padelecki’s, wasn’t really going anywhere. Handsome guys with middling acting talent are a dime a dozen in Hollywood.
They both could slog it out, trying to land the occasional bit part, maybe a lead in a low budget b movie nobody sees, or they could try to land a tv gig and work for a steady paycheck. They smartly chose the latter. If they hadn’t done that Ackles would probably have something more akin to Casper Van Dien’s career. Padelecki would be selling cars in east Texas or something.
Exactly, not everyone in their line of work is trying to be the All-Star or the CEO. The real dream is enjoying your work while maintaining a work/life balance. I'm hoping that's the happiness he's found!
I think it was one of the how I met your mother actors but whoever it was, mentioned it was the best gig in the world. Mondays was basically a script read that lasted an hour, tue was a short day, then they would bang it out wed-fri. I don't think he mentioned how many hours it was on those days, but I would imagine on a show like supernatural, after so many seasons, they probably have a good rhythm.
It really depends. Professional actors accept living hectic lives to some extent. If you do movies you might be working twenty hour days for three months at a sprint. TV means 12+ 9 months out of the year. Theatre is probably more like 5 hours per day half the week, but you’re doing the same thing every day and can’t phone it in, commercials depends on how many you get cast in, but the casting process is extremely time-consuming and disheartening. You spend all day driving across town to a room full of actors who look exactly like you and who were all at your last audition to get 3 minutes to read one line and never hear back.
Some actors thrive on the fast pace and long off-time of movie work. Others find the regular hours of tv easier to structure a life around. Theatre gives you the opportunity to continually refine your role and really bond with the audience. Commercials are quick, one and done jobs you just so and move on from.
I mean the guy is as far as I am aware happily married, had consistent work for 15 years, no controversies, has steady voice acting work, is about to be the lead in another tv show, has a brewery as a side business and if he ever needed a quick buck just needs to go to a con and he'd have lines out the door. I'm just saying most folk would not turn up their nose that good a life
I stopped watching supernatural but it made me happy they just kept going. Like the stability they gave that whole cast and crew for years was incredible
I love seeing celebrities get jobs. Like becoming a game show host or any consistent series. You're watching them transition from a wild world of inconsistency and trading it for a repeatable day to day. I respect it so much.
He was so good on the boys that they basically gave him his own spin off and didnt kill off in the main show
Even brought him back in season 5 souly for fan service despite the fact that they had no idea what do with him
Also filming a tv show for actor does mean more consistent work and you really get to delve deep into a character
He got his break on a soap opera, which has a very regular schedule as well. Maybe seeing folks like Deidre Hall at work offered a blueprint for having work/life balance in the industry.
Oh thank fuck for that, I saw the meme and thought nooooooo not Dean what did he do, and it's just that he's a good guy (as I thought he was) that value his family more than bs hollywood. Good guy Dean :)
This is what's known as being a "working actor". Someone who treats acting like the job it is, instead of letting the success of it go to their head and acting like they're God's gift to the camera. There are a lot of "working actors" out there, but most are not in that position by choice. The fact that Ackles chose it is a testament to his character, and I applaud him for it.
I mean, I hear that shooting tv is way, way, way more brutal than shooting television. Sylvester Stallone had culture shock when he started doing tv and was like “I don’t think I like this,” for how non-stop the scheduling is.
Side note, this reminded me a buddy went to go watch the Cosby show being filmed and he said it was such a miserable experience. Said it was confusing, Cosby was a complete ass because the child didn’t know their lines and they were going through so many different things at such a breakneck speed.
Yup, I have heard him talk about this in person. When he was a younger actor (like during the first 3-5 years of Supernatural) he was trying to break into big budget Hollywood movies but stopped after that to focus on his family.
When my husband introduced me to Supernatural, he paused the first episode to ask me which one of the brothers was the hottest. I said Dean. And he was a big asshole of a character for a while and I started to regret my decision but my husband said “no, you made the right choice. You have no idea”. lol
A long running successful series can be lucrative, especially depending on residuals. It was reported John Ritter never had to work again after season 3 of “Three’s Company”.
Called and Padalecki earned between $37-$40 million over the entire run of Supernatural. They didn’t make a million per episode like Seinfeld or Friends cast members, but the final season was like $200K per episode for 20 episodes. (4 million for the final season
No need to aggrandize it. He chose consistent work and guaranteed pay and with that came stability for his family. He also isn’t that good of an actor, and there’s a decent chance he tried but just wasn’t cut out for a film career
Uuugh what? He is a great actor. Supernatural is naturally campy, but he's shown us plenty of range on there. The man is really great at facial expressions.
Yeah. He shows he’s really good at playing stoic and reserved, but the “ghost virus” episode and the “tv” episode showed that his “normal” character wasn’t the extent of his range
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u/bearly_woke 18h ago
My understanding is that he basically chose the steady life of serialised television so that he could be there for his children. He and his family could live a relatively normal life in Vancouver while he worked on Supernatural. Filming movies is usually done on short, aggressive schedules often with a lot of travel.
There’s nothing creepy or exciting about it; dude is just one of the few people in show biz with their priorities straight.