Sterling K. Brown still remembers his favorite onscreen death.
“As a Black actor, you die a lot on screen. Real talk,” the Oscar nominee, 47, said on The Drew Barrymore Show on Monday, February 26. Though he has had memorable deaths on the big screen in Black Panther and The Rhythm Section, it is actually a TV show that holds a special place in his heart.
“My most favorite one was on Supernatural, where I became a vampire hunter,” Brown explained. “But then I got bit by a vampire and so I had to die by being beheaded. That was a good time. That was fun.”
Supernatural ran for 15 seasons on The CW between 2005-2020 and starred Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as monster-hunting brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, respectively. Brown made his first appearance on Supernatural in season 2 as the vampire hunter Gordon Walker, who ran into Sam and Dean as they hunted for a nest of vampires.
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At this point in the series, Sam (Padalecki) is suffering from psychic visions and when Gordon finds this out, he begins to target the younger Winchester, believing that he is not fully human. They went their separate ways, but upon Gordon’s return in season 3, he had been turned into a vampire himself. Ultimately, this led to Sam beheading him with a razor wire.
Brown has garnered many accolades in the years since his stint on The CW’s longest-running sci-fi series. In 2017, he won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (as well as a Golden Globe and four Screen Actors Guild awards) for his role as Randall Pearson in NBC’s This Is Us, which concluded in 2022 after six seasons.
Brown also received Emmy nods for his roles in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, for which he won in 2018.
Earlier this year, Brown received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role as Clifford in American Fiction. “Thank you to the Academy,” Brown said of his nomination during an Instagram Live on January 23. “As somebody who has been watching the Oscars my whole life, I’ve never been. I’ve had a few things that have been in contention or whatnot but this will be my first time actually going to the party. And It’s an honor to get the invite.”
Joining Sterling in the Best Supporting Actor category are Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things, Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer, Ryan Gosling for Barbie and Robert De Niro for Killers of the Flower Moon.
American Fiction follows a novelist frustrated with the establishment’s treatment of Black artists. The film has garnered a total of five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Actor (for Jeffrey Wright).
