Supernatural actors Rob Benedict, who performed author Chuck Shurley who penned a fictionalized bio of demon hunters Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) and was later revealed as God, and Richard Speight, Jr. (Archangel Gabriel, generally disguised because the trickster demigod Loki) have been doing the conventions collectively for some time now; they’ve even hosted the present’s San Diego Comedian-Con panel.
And so, it ought to be no shock that they selected to talk to us collectively for TV Information Journal’s Supernatural Afterlife: twentieth Anniversary Particular problem, for the present’s twentieth anniversary, at a fan conference in New Jersey this spring.
Why do that interview collectively?
Rob Benedict: We come as a package deal.
Since we’re doing this interview at a Supernatural conference, what do you want most about doing these cons? What do they imply to you?
Richard Speight Jr: It’s the camaraderie. The issues that’s essentially the most enjoyable is we’ve taken the chance to advertise a present and turned it right into a dwell theatrical expertise. Rob and I really met doing conventions, not on the present. I solely was on set with him since I directed him within the later years. I didn’t work with the vast majority of individuals on digicam till these years. We largely met at conventions, which had been stagnant and separate on the time and most of us barely crossed path. Through the years, we reformed them. I might give a whole lot of credit score to Matt Cohen and Rob and myself for reshaping what conventions are. We added Rob’s band Louden Swain, and Rob and I took over the internet hosting duties. And it has turn into an train in improv and being inventive in how we entertain individuals. Rob and I rise up on stage each morning, and we have now a singular objective: to make one another snicker. However in so doing, we additionally make the viewers snicker and convey them in on the expertise.
Jack Rowand / © THE CW / courtesy everett assortment
Benedict: The actual connection I all the time really feel at a conference is singing on stage your individual songs and your individual lyrics. It’s a really weak factor to do. Conventions have the very best audiences. It doesn’t really feel like work. It’s actually enjoyable for us. And we actually do really feel like a touring circus generally rolling into city.
Speight: On the finish of the day, Rob and I are entertainers. That’s what we received into the leisure area to do. If we’re going to signal autographs, if we’re going to do pictures, we’re going to encompass these alternatives and experiences with leisure. It wasn’t essentially what we had been employed to do,. however we simply discovered methods to do it as a result of I felt bizarre taking individuals’s cash simply to face there. If I’m going to be right here and also you’re going to pay, then I’m going to make this superior for me after which hopefully additionally for you. Rob has the identical thoughts set. We simply began being goofy, and that became taking up the format of the entire thing.
Discuss your Saturday evening concert events.
Speight: It’s all the time a extremely particular second. I get to play with the band, after which individuals from the present come up and be a part of us. We’ve a lot expertise amongst these actors.
Who’re a few of the SPN actors who take part?
Speight: Jensen, Richard, Kim Rhodes, Briana Buckmaster, Gil McKinney, Julie McNiven. Ruth Connell used to sing with us.
Benedict: Didn’t Osric Chau used to sing with us again within the day?
Speight: Wow, yeah. There’s a dwell CD, Saturday Night time Particular, that has lots of people on it. All people actually steps up on Saturday evening do that present.
What are some memorable con recollections?
RS: I’ll let you know the primary time I walked right into a resort at a Chicago conference, the truth that all people there knew who I used to be was weird. I dwell my life as a not well-known man however once I come to a conventions resort, I’m a celebrity. It’s such an fascinating expertise that Rob and I turned it right into a 10-episode sitcom, Kings of Con, on Prime. We use a whole lot of the present’s actors, together with Jensen and Misha. It’s the story of the escapades occurring behind the scenes. We’ve realized the loopy individuals aren’t the followers, they’re nice and regular. The loopy persons are the actors employed to be there.
Benedict: The actual drama occurs behind the scenes.
Speight: We had been impressed by our relationship with the followers. That’s who we did it for.
Should you had been to put in writing a letter to the followers, what would you say?
Speight: It could be brief: “Thanks.” As a result of no followers means no TV present. It doesn’t simply begin at a conference. In the event that they don’t watch the present, they don’t latch onto the character. Should you don’t present that affection in particular person by displaying as much as the occasions, then we’re not in these chairs doing interviews. It’s not only a numeric objective you’re going for with an viewers. On this case, in conference land, it’s the human interplay. It’s totally different than doing one thing in a vacuum. We get to work together with individuals who love the present, which is why we work exhausting to point out we love them again by giving them a whole lot of bang for his or her buck.
Benedict: [Mine] can be an analogous letter.
Speight: We’d simply signal it, Wealthy ‘n’ Rob.
Benedict: I’ve been on different exhibits which have “fandoms.” There’s nothing fairly like this “fandom,” which I’ll name household, as a result of it feels extra like that. This fan group saved the present on the air for 15 seasons..
Speight: And would have saved it on longer.
Benedict: And has now saved these conventions alive 5 years after the present ended. Everybody thought it might be over after the present was over. It’s nonetheless going. We nonetheless do one or two of those a month. So, “Thanks for assist conserving it alive, and you understand that you’re extra than simply followers to us.”
Colin Bentley/The CW
Do you assume there’ll ever be some form of Supernatural revival, whether or not a restricted collection or a one-time TV reunion?
Benedict: I’ll preface by saying we all know nothing and nobody stated something. However I can see a world the place they do some form of present.
Speight: It’s not even difficult to consider. If Jared and Jensen stated sure, it might be in manufacturing 5 minutes in the past. It’s probably not exhausting to fathom.
Benedict: The query is, would Wealthy and I be in it? [Laughs]
Speight: Or would we be allowed to go to the set? However no, reimagining the present when it comes to a two-hour film or a restricted collection, I’m positive it’s no matter these two would love it to be. As a result of the viewers is there and from only a enterprise standpoint, networks, Warner Bros. know that they’d inexperienced gentle it in a heartbeat.
Benedict: They’d be foolish to not do it.
Virtually each day in one in every of my leisure feeds is a few form of story about Supernatural. Is there a secret that you could share about being on Supernatural?
Speight: I began directing on the present in Season 11. I had been directing commercials at that time, however not community tv. … Jared and Jensen weren’t shy about giving me heaps of grief about now being the captain of the ship. I used to be wanting to make sure I did it proper. I may need overshot, let’s say. They began calling me Speighteen takes. That was my nickname for some time.
Benedict: I’ve a joke. One time once I was up there taking pictures Season 15, it was round Halloween and somebody from the crew had a Halloween celebration and Jensen was like, “Let’s go. I received an amazing concept. We’re going to go as Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood.” They went to the costume division, received us an actual reproduction of what they wore within the film. We put them on, and Jensen appears precisely like Brad Pitt and I look nothing like Leo DiCaprio, so all people knew precisely who he was and I received, “Who’re you?”
In case your characters are ever onscreen once more, what do you assume they’d be to this point?
Benedict: There are two variations of Chuck. There’s a model that individuals in all probability need it to be, which is Chuck by himself, dwelling in a broken-down fuel station, sleeping on a cot, and perhaps beginning to write once more. I wish to be optimistic. [Laughs] Or there’s a world the place he’s written every part [including The Bible] and written himself not being God anymore and given [the job] to Jack [Alexander Calvert]. However there might be one other guide to shut within the post-final, a model the place he’s form of cool and he’s nonetheless in cost.
Speight: Like Chuck, Archangel Gabriel might have a number of futures. If Gabriel had continued down the rabbit gap, he’d be working a strip joint like The Sopranos ,known as Suckerz with an image of a seductive lollipop on the entrance.. That’s the not-so-great facet of what occurred to him. On the optimistic facet, what I want to see occur is a household reunion. You get Gabriel again with Lucifer and Balthazar, all people who’s a high-ranking angel and pa, they usually take a highway journey to Disney World.
Discuss your characters’ deaths by way of the seasons and if you came upon you’d be a goner — not less than for some time.
Speight: I died so many instances. When did I discover out I’d dwell? I died in [my] first episode. It turned I wasn’t useless, however I did die. I died not less than 3 times.
Benedict: I by no means really died. Chuck will get defeated, however I by no means died.
Speight: We’d discover out if you received the script. You’d go, “Oh, I’m useless!” [Laughs] They weren’t good at giving superior warning.
Wealthy, do you know the primary time you died that you’d come again?
Speight: No. The primary time, I simply was doing a one-off as a janitor-turned-Trickster. I didn’t know that there was any longevity to the character. Rob and I host the one current Supernatural PR property proper now, the official Supernatural podcast, Supernatural Then and Now. And in that rewatch podcast, which is a companion piece to the present, we watch episodes and interview the individuals behind it. And in interviewing [Supernatural’s first showrunner] Eric Kripke, we came upon that a whole lot of instances, together with within the state of affairs you’re speaking about, they didn’t know that I, for instance, was going come again. They’d construct these character arcs and assume they’re one-offs. But when it labored and it made sense to make the most of that character in a special capability they usually cherished how the actor performed it, they’d get them again. In my first episode, you see that the Trickster isn’t useless, he reveals himself to nonetheless be standing there as soon as the physique goes away. So we all know he’s not useless useless, however there’s nothing indicating he’ll return as a result of so many characters dwell on and don’t return. I received fortunate that they discovered a strategy to make my character a part of the larger mythology of the present. I did the primary one, didn’t know I’d ever come again, then I received known as once more a yr later! However I by no means really knew.
Rob, do you know Sam and Dean’s fictionalized biographer Chuck can be God?
Benedict: No, I didn’t know. It was nice having Eric Kripke on our podcast as a result of we received to ask him a few of these questions. After my first episode, I used to be like, “It says to be continued on my script,” and Misha Collins stated, “All of them say that. “
Speight: God, that does mess along with your head if you’re a employed gun. You get all excited solely to search out out, oh, [you might not be back].
Do you could have a favourite episode?
Benedict: “The French Mistake” is fairly incredible.
Speight: What impresses me is how nice the early episodes had been. They had been shot on movie and regarded fairly darkish cinematically. They might be fairly ugly again then. The way in which they killed Sterling Ok. Brown‘s character, Gordon — he received decapitated by razor blades!
Benedict: The truth that Sterling Ok. Brown is within the present!
Speight: “Coronary heart” was one in every of my favorited. It was the one the place Dean and Sam tried to avoid wasting a woman who turned out to be a werewolf and ultimately we hear Sam shoot her. It’s brutal, and the appearing is unreal. The present has unbelievable storylines, tremendous inventive monsters, distinctive storytelling, however its core is Jared and Jensen being nice actors. These two dudes can ship to a excessive stage, they are often humorous, however when they should land the aircraft, man, they are often dramatic. Earlier than I used to be on the present, I watched these two younger actors of their early 20s simply doing cinema-level work week in, week out.
Supernatural has one of many greatest TV present fan cultures, together with the Star Trek franchise. What’s it about this little horror present that spans generations in viewership and in addition brings followers to conventions yr after yr to purchase merch, watch panels, and meet solid members?
Speight: It’s all the time been about fathers and sons. It’s all the time been about individuals. The backdrop is monsters, however the core of the present –
Benedict: — is household.
Speight: Sure. On the finish of the day, it’s about two little boys who had been raised by a damaged man searching for revenge for the dying of his spouse. You place that in a badass automotive and ship it throughout the US encountering numerous demons, each private and bodily, and it’s intoxicating to look at. Additionally from a manufacturing standpoint, they did themselves a large favor by setting it in primarily a timeless center America, so, at no level does the present really feel dated. Sometimes, an outdated mobile phone comes up, sometimes, an outdated laptop terminal, however the scene in, scene out is at a motel, a diner, a dive bar on the highway. These are timeless photographs, denim, flannel jackets. It’s very exhausting to pinpoint the time in the identical method it’s exhausting to pinpoint it in Star Trek. In a really, very inventive method, it’s a interval piece — solely the interval isn’t particularly named.
Benedict: I additionally assume that there’s a component that you just virtually can’t clarify. It’s a phenomenon. It’s an amazing present, the writing is terrific, the appearing’s nice, they usually get high-level visitor stars. There’s.a component, it’s very Americana, however the present’s cherished all around the world.
There are worldwide conventions. Are the followers overseas totally different from these within the States?
Benedict: Wherever we go world wide — Australia, Germany France, England, Brazil — they’re the identical form of followers, simply with the flavour of no matter nation you’re in. Once we go to Rome, one of many issues we like is there’s like 23 nations represented at that conference. Folks come from Japan, from Croatia, from locations we don’t count on.
It’s fascinating that Supernatural is well-liked in each Crimson and Blue states.
Benedict: On Twitter, round Season 14, there was a survey of the High 10 Democrat-watched exhibits, and the High 10 Republican-watched exhibits. We had been on each these lists.
Speight: I’ll say that Supernatural doesn’t take a facet. Humanity doesn’t take a facet, coronary heart doesn’t take a facet, household doesn’t take a facet. Folks relate to this as a result of they see in themselves human battle mirrored on the present. Not perfection. There are two handsome dudes, however aside from that, they’re very flawed human beings from a damaged household state of affairs, simply struggling to search out what’s proper on the earth. And I feel all people can relate to that. It helps that Jared and Jensen are each good and scorching.
Supernatural, Full Collection, Streaming Now, Netflix
For a deep-dive into 20 years of Supernatural, from behind-the-scenes scoop to unique solid interviews, pictures, and fan tales, decide up a replica of TV Information Journal’s Supernatural Afterlife: twentieth Anniversary Particular problem, accessible on newsstands and for order on-line at Supernatural.TVGM2025.com.