Everything Jensen Ackles and Jessica Alba Have Said About ‘Dark Angel’: It Was ‘Horrible’

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Everything Jensen Ackles and Jessica Alba Have Said About 'Dark Angel': It Was 'Horrible'

Looking back. Dark Angel gave Jensen Ackles and Jessica Alba their first tastes of fame, but working on the sci-fi series came with plenty of ups and downs. Created by James Cameron, Dark Angel debuted in 2000 and starred Alba as Max Guevara, a genetically-engineered super solider on the run from government agents in a post-apocalyptic version of Seattle. During the second season, which aired in 2001, Ackles joined as fellow super soldier and potential love interest Alec McDowell. The costars did plenty of sparring while filming Dark Angel's many action scenes, but according to Ackles, there was even more tension between them off screen. In January 2022, the Supernatural alum opened up about the "horrible" experience he had working on Dark Angel, noting that Alba "didn't make it easy" for him on set. "I was the new kid on the block, and I was picked on by the lead,” he said during an episode of the "Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum" podcast. "It wasn’t that she didn’t like me. She just was like, ‘Oh, here’s the pretty boy that the network brought in for some more window dressing because that’s what we all need,'" Ackles added at the time, describing their conflicts as the "worst kind of bickering." [jwplayer 77S04mEf-zhNYySv2] The Boys star remembered deciding to "fight fire with fire" and fight back against Alba's jabs, which eventually helped them reach a place of "mutual respect" as coworkers. "But we bickered. We bickered like brother and sister," Ackles explained. However, the Days of Our Lives alum was eventually able to understand why Alba may have behaved the way she did on the Fox series, concluding, "She was under an immense amount of pressure on that show. She was young, she was in a relationship and that was … causing some undue stress, I believe." Though Alba hasn't publicly spoken about her difficult relationship with Ackles, the L.A.'s Finest star has touched on the pressures of leading a high-budget TV show at such a young age. "[It's] a lot tougher than I anticipated," she said during an interview that was conducted during the first season of Dark Angel and resurfaced following Ackles' podcast interview. "We’re really shooting a mini-movie in eight days ... Three days a week I do action and acting, and the rest I do ridiculously long scenes of dialogue." In the 20 years since Dark Angel ended, the pair have frequently opened up about the show and their experiences on set, both positive and negative. Keep scrolling to see how Ackles and Alba feel about their breakthrough show now. [podcast_block]

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Under Pressure

Alba landed the leading role on Dark Angel at just 17 years old and was immediately tasked with balancing all of the requirements of stardom, from long shooting days to constant press junkets. "Not only do I have to do the action and look like I know what I’m doing, I can’t fudge anything," the Never Been Kissed star said in 2000. "Then you have to do a lot of press and stuff. It’s just being able to be the best you can be for everyone all the time. Sometimes it takes a toll on you."

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Skin Deep

The show was primarily targeted at a male audience when it debuted in 2000, leading Alba to feel pressured to show lots of skin on screen and on the red carpet. "Right away, everyone formed a strong opinion about me because of the way I was marketed That’s what people expected," she told Marie Claire in May 2012. "I felt like I was being objectified, and it made me uncomfortable. I wanted to be chic and elegant." 

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Rocky Road

After meeting on the Dark Angel set, Alba began dating costar Michael Weatherly in 2000. The pair got engaged in April 2001 on the actress' 20th birthday. "I was so young ... when I started dating him," the Golden Globe nominee recalled in an October 2005 interview with Cosmopolitan. The relationship was "really, really, really difficult" which caused tension during filming and resulted in Alba and Weatherly ending their engagement in 2003.

"Actors are pulled in so many different directions that unless you both are absolutely into it through thick and thin and completely sure about each other, it's just hard," she explained, adding, "I've decided I'll never date an actor again."

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R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Despite being Dark Angel's leading lady, Alba has said that she struggled to be treated with respect in the early years of her career. "I always wanted to be treated the way that I saw men being treated," she told People in September 2021 about the sexism she faced while working her way up in Hollywood. "Men were told, 'Oh, you're really smart' if you have ideas about the character or the story, where for the women it was like, 'What? You have an opinion?' It was like you came off as aggressive, where a man just looked really assertive and powerful."

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Gone Too Soon

As "horrible" as it may have been for Ackles to work on Dark Angel, the Texas native [confessed that he would have liked to shoot a few more seasons of the sci-fi series beyond its 2002 finale. "It was unfortunate the way it ended," Ackles said during a panel at Supernatural Seattle in 2018. "It had a lot of good stuff and [good] qualities [and] I would have liked to see it go on a lot longer."

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Sucker Punch

In addition to sparring with the Sin City star off-screen, Ackles also took a few blows while filming some of Dark Angel's fight scenes. "One [scene] that stands out ... I was in a boxing ring and Jessica gets in to fight my character," the Rust actor recalled at a Supernatural convention in 2019. Alba described the stunt as a "straight right punch to the face," but Ackles wasn't prepared for her to throw all of her weight behind it. "She caught me square in the nose. ... I was still young enough to not be like, 'Stop.' I can't say, 'Cut! That hurt!'"

Still, Ackles didn't learn the importance of stunt coordination until he filmed another scene opposite Meghan Ory in which his character gets slapped. "She couldn't get the timing right ... I was frustrated, so I said 'Just hit me,'" he recounted. "I've learned not to let [my scene partners] do that now."

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A Possible Return

Like her former costar, Alba has also expressed regret over Dark Angel's cancellation and has even teased that she'd be interested in reprising her role one day. "I think it would be fun to do a movie," she told U.K. outlet On Demand Entertainment in June 2019. "It was sort of ahead of its time and I feel like there are more realities out there now than ever before."

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A Bitter Rivalry

Though rumors that Alba and Ackles didn't get along have been floating around the internet for years, the former CW actor confirmed in January 2022 that the pair fought constantly on set. "It was horrible," he told podcast host Michael Rosenbaum of his working relationship with the Into the Blue star. "If she walked in, we’d be all hugs, but she didn’t make it easy on me."

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Burying the Hatchet

After everything they went through together, Ackles told Rosenbaum that he has nothing but respect for Alba now. "I love Jess, which I know kind of contradicts what I just said," he said in January 2022, adding that he has since spoken to his former costar about her behavior and received an apology. The actor also has fond memories of Alba too: “My grandfather died while I was shooting it and she literally just walked into my trailer and held me for a half an hour."