Too soon? Jensen Ackles wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Dean Winchester on Supernatural after portraying the character for 15 years.
The actor, 42, told Entertainment Weekly earlier this week that he became emotional when he visited the writers’ room in Los Angeles with costar Jared Padalecki to discuss the series finale.
“Yeah, so, during the hiatus between season 14 and 15, Jared and I went out to L.A. and sat down in the writers’ room, which I think is the first time we’ve ever done that,” Jensen said. “It wasn’t like a brainstorming session. It was, like, ‘This is what we have, take it or leave it.’ And I just walked out of there kind of uneasy. I don’t know if it was just the fact that I just heard the ending of a show that had been going for 15 years and I’m just too close to it to really accept a finality to it.”
He added, “It certainly wasn’t settling in as easy as I kind of hoped. I struggled with it.”
Although Ackles didn’t feel comfortable saying goodbye to the CW fantasy series, a conversation with show creator Eric Kripke helped him come to terms with the end.
“He just kind of put things in a perspective that really helped me kind of identify why I was having trouble with it,” Ackles explained. “But also, why it was a really great idea for an ending. And so, from then on, I was kind of all in.”
Supernatural aired its series finale on Thursday, November 19, ending its run after 15 seasons. The show, which premiered in September 2005, followed brothers Sam Winchester (Padalecki) and Dean as they road-tripped around the U.S. hunting monsters. The series finale, titled “Carry On,” followed the brothers on one last adventure.
Dean and Sam get back on the road to hunt down a kidnapping ring of masked vampires, including a cameo appearance from Jenny (Christine Chatelain), who appeared in the show’s first season.
The fight ends up becoming Dean’s final battle and the younger Winchester brother dies after he’s impaled on a metal rod. However, the show has a happy ending after Dean finally goes to heaven.
Misha Collins — who portrayed angel Castiel on the series — told Us Weekly in November 2019 that the cast was sad to see the show end.
“We’re definitely aware of the fact that this is a big chapter in our lives,” the actor, 46, said at the time. “We’ve been working on this show for much of our adult lives, and we will never work on anything for as long as we’ve worked on this show. We’ll never be as tight with another cast or crew as we have been with each other. We’re all going to miss it, but we’re also excited for whatever the next chapter might be.”
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