Details of Jensen’s and Jared’s Supernatural StageIt Panel!

Creation Entertainment hosted a StageIt virtual panel with Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki this past weekend. Like most StageIts events, it was “pay what you can” so fans from across the world were able to participant via the live, virtual panel.

Jensen and Jared are currently holed up in their Vancouver apartments, with their dogs Icarus and Dakota “Koda”, on a 14 day quarantine waiting to get back into filming the final episodes of Season 15 (which were halted due to COVID-19). They shared quarantine stories and answered questions from fans in what was a first virtual con panel for the boys. They expressed how different it was to not see fans’ faces in a crowd, and not feel the same energy as an in-person convention.

Quarantined in their apartments, the boys expressed how hard it was being lonely. They have been spending their days going through the accumulation of years of things stored away, cleaning up, and trying not to slowly go ‘more insane’. 

They took questions from fans across the world – the USA, Syria, India, Europe, and UK-  with led to wide ranging discussions about Supernatural, cast, and crew.

When asked what cast member they would like to work with again, they both replied that there have been so many over the years that this was a hard choice.  Jared mentioned Mitch Pileggi (X-files, Stargirl, Stargate Atlantis), who has been cast as Bonham Walker in the new Walker series with Jared, as well as Sterling K. Brown (This is Us, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). Jensen also found it hard and listed a few who have gone on to do great things – Catherine Newton, Jeffery Dean Morgan, Sterling K Brown for example – and two others: Christopher Heyerdahl, who played Alaistair, and Frederic Lehne as Azazel. They were also asked which guest star surprised them the most or made the most memorable first impression. Jared answered Gen, his wife, and meeting her in season 4. Jensen replied with Paris Hilton (who played herself in Season 5 ‘Fallen Idols’), and they both added that Nicole ‘Snookie’ Polizzi (as the crossroads demon in Season 9 ‘Blade Runners’) were very different from their public images.

 
Other questions ranged from what they would tell their younger selves about acting, to the hardest skills they had to learn for the show (“fighting”), to whether they ever imagined they would be doing this for fifteen seasons (“no”).

Many questions focused on their characters. What would they change about their character? Jensen on Dean: ‘His diet!’ Who was most like their character in school? Jared confessed that he was more like Sam because they both liked school.  What would their characters be doing during quarantine? Dean ‘On his way to full-blown diabetes!’ while Sam would be ‘reading and eating salad’. 

When asked about props they would take from the set, Jensen said ‘The Colt’ while Jared wants ‘The Demon Blade’. Both of these props were made especially for the show and have such stories behind the creation and use of them in filming (Jensen cut his hand on the Colt and Jared killed Gen with the demon blade). One question was about haunted locations that The Winchester’s haven’t been to that the Js would want to go to if they could choose. No surprises here: The Amityville House and The Winchester Mystery House! Jared even mentioned a spin-off, feature episode or film. Hmmm….perhaps! 

Fans all have an iconic favorite line, or lines, from the show they love and one question asked Jensen and Jared to pick one. “There are so many!” they said.  ‘I lost  my shoe’  was one of Jared’s as it makes him laugh, along with ‘What kind of house doesn’t have salt? Low sodium freaks.’ ‘Family don’t end with blood’, ‘Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole’ were two of Jensen’s. Jensen also mentioned Dean’s death scene (Season 9.23 ‘Do You Believer in Miracles’) when Dean says to Sam before he dies, ‘I’m proud of us’. Both agreed that this line could be the quote of the show and used every season, capturing the journey Sam and Dean have taken over the years to become who they are.

For the last question, Jensen and Jared were asked what was their most memorable moment from Supernatural.  Both agreed there are too many and it was too hard to pick just one. Jared recalled the last scene in the pilot where they shut the trunk of Baby ‘We have work to do’, listening to the performance of ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’ during the 200th episode (‘Fan Fiction’), meeting Gen, when they filmed the announcement that the show was coming to an end after 15 seasons, and Dean’s death scene ‘I’m proud of us’ moment.  Jensen picked being at SDCC for the last time in 2019, seeing the crowd, feeling the finality of the show coming to an end, and thinking ‘look what we created’. 

In closing, Jensen and Jared expressed their love of the fans, and just how grateful they were to all of the fans who joined in from across the world, and sticking around for the ride. An answer to another question summed up the whole feeling of the panel and how thankful the SPNFamlily are for being along with them on ‘Quite a ride. A long and beautiful journey.’

Jared and Jensen are always so expressive and energized when talking with fans! Here are a few more screencaps of the fun:

(taken specifically to capture Jensen’s wrist tattoo)

Several fans uploaded unofficial recordings of the entire panel onto YouTube if you wish to watch the full StageIt virtual panel.

Were you able to participate in the panel? What did you think of seeing the boys again after they had been sequestered at home for so long? Share your comments below!

Screencaps by Nightsky.