Supernatural cast: Here’s where Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and their co-stars are now

The actors have stayed busy since they stepped away from saving people and hunting things — you know, the family business.

By Sara Netzley

Credit: Jack Rowand / Â©The CW Network / courtesy Everett
Saving people. Hunting things. Eating pie. Dying over and over and over again. Oh yeah, and saving the world a lot.

“Two brothers cruising the dusty back roads in their trusty 64 Mustang battling the things that go bump in the night.” That was Eric Kripke’s 2004 pitch that gave Supernatural life. By the time the show ended in 2020 after 15 seasons (and an equal number of EW covers), the CW juggernaut was the longest-running genre show to air on American broadcast television thanks to its scary, silly, serious take on The X-Files meets “Route 66,” with a little Star Wars and Kolchak: The Night Stalker thrown in for good measure.

Since then, we’ve been treated to spinoffs, new franchises, and a real-life engagement between on-screen vampire Benny and on-screen werewolf Garth. (Congrats to Ty Olsson and DJ Qualls!) Yep, the Supernatural cast has continued to carry on since they hung up their angel blades and silver bullets.

Climb into our 1967 Impala and catch up with the actors who brought the Winchesters, their friends, and their foes to life. Just don’t forget the No. 1 rule: driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Supernatural.

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Jared

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Supernatural cast: Here’s where Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and their co-stars are now
The actors have stayed busy since they stepped away from saving people and hunting things — you know, the family business.

By Sara Netzley Published on May 26, 2024 10:00AM EDT
Alexander Calvert, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles in “Supernatural.”
Credit: Jack Rowand / Â©The CW Network / courtesy Everett
Saving people. Hunting things. Eating pie. Dying over and over and over again. Oh yeah, and saving the world a lot.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Supernatural.

01
of 15
Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester)
Supernatural Cast; Jared Padalecki
Jack Rowand/The CW Network/courtesy Everett; Kevin Mazur/Getty
Jared Padalecki was best known as Rory Gilmore’s floppy-haired high-school boyfriend Dean when he stepped into the role of floppy-haired hunter turned law student turned hunter again, Sam Winchester. For 15 seasons, audiences watched Sam deal with loss, possession, and a demon blood addiction before his joyful reunion with Dean (Jensen Ackles) in the afterlife at the show’s end.

“The series finale is my favorite episode of all-time,” Padalecki told EW. “[I] couldn’t be more pleased with the way it turned out.” (We won’t talk about the wig.) Off-screen, Supernatural handed Padalecki his own happy ending when his future wife, Genevieve Cortese, was cast as the demon Ruby in 2008, taking over the role from Katie Cassidy. The couple married in 2010 and have three children.

When Supernatural ended, Padalecki swapped hunting demons for chasing law-breakers in Walker, the reimagining of Walker, Texas Ranger that ran for four seasons on the CW before being canceled in May 2024. The show, which Padalecki executive produced and starred in, reunited him professionally with Cortese, who played his late wife, as well as his Supernatural grandfather, Mitch Pileggi.

While Padalecki hasn’t announced his next project, former Supernatural showrunner Eric Kripke has already expressed interest in finding a place for the younger Winchester brother in his current show, the giddily violent Amazon Prime Video hit The Boys.

Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester)

Entertainment Weekly

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Supernatural.

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Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester)
Supernatural Cast; Jensen Ackles
Bettina Strauss/CW/courtesy Everett; Kevin Mazur/Getty
Before he died in the series finale while taking out a nest of vampires, Dean Winchester loved rock music, aliases inspired by rock musicians, and erotic print publications. In less capable hands, he would’ve been a buffoonish caricature, but not on Jensen Ackles’ watch.

The actor arrived on the Supernatural set with hundreds of Days of Our Lives episodes under his belt, having played Eric Brady, Sami’s twin brother, from 1997 to 2000. He also had recurring roles on shows like Dark Angel, Dawson’s Creek, and Smallville. But once he slid behind the wheel of Baby, he stayed for a decade and a half.

“There was a reason why I think we all stuck around though, because we just truly enjoyed it,” Ackles said on Late Night With Seth Meyers in 2022. “It was a family.” The family connection was literally true for Ackles, whose wife, Danneel, made her Supernatural debut in season 13 as faith healer Sister Jo, the human vessel of the angel Anael. The pair married in 2010 and have three children.

Since the end of Supernatural, he has carried a (legitimate) badge as Sheriff Beau Arlen in Big Sky (2022–2023); reprised his role as Dean for The Winchesters (2022–2023), the single-season Supernatural spinoff that the Ackles executive produced; and fondly patted a classic Impala in season 1 of Tracker.

He also notably stepped into some familiar shoes as Soldier Boy in The Boys (2022) and its spinoff, Gen V (2023). “I somehow managed to end with the same kind of boots for Soldier Boy that I wore as Dean Winchester,” Ackles told EW in 2020. “Different color but same boot.”

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Misha Collins (Castiel)

Entertainment Weekly

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Supernatural.

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Misha Collins (Castiel)
Supernatural Cast; Misha Collins
Sergei Bachlakov/THE CW/courtesy everett; Kevin Mazur/Getty
After Ackles and Padalecki, Misha Collins clocked the most minutes in Supernatural as the angel Castiel, beginning in season 4 when he received one of the show’s most memorable character introductions.

“When you’re coming onto a show as a guest star, it can be a little bit nerve-racking,” Collins told EW in the run-up to the show’s final episodes. “Coming to this set, it was an immediately different vibe. Thinking about working on other shows in the future, that’s something that I aspire to bring with me.”

As Cas slowly became the Winchesters’ biggest advocate, ally, accomplice, and source of fish-out-of-water humor, his relationship with Dean often set the internet ablaze. “For years, fans would ask, ‘How do you see Cas ending on the show?’ And I’ve always said in some heroic sacrifice,” Collins told EW in 2020. “If he can sacrifice himself for the greater good and for his little cabal of humans who have become his family, I think that Cas will have served his purpose as far as he’s concerned.” And that’s just what he did, with a first (and final) “I love you” to Dean.

Collins, who racked up guest-starring spots all over network TV before his Supernatural debut, has since taken on the role of Harvey Dent in the CW’s Gotham Knights (2023) and lent his vocal talents to the spooky podcast Bridgewater. He also launched the nonprofit Random Acts.

He was married to producer and writer Victoria Vantoch from 2001 to 2022. They share two children.
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