Trivia / Supernatural

♫ Carry on, you will always remember... ♫

— Kansas, "Carry On Wayward Son"

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• Acting for Two: Pretty common to the point it has its own page, given the amount of possession, shapeshifting and alternate realities going on in this show, not to mention that the show likes reusing actors.
• Actor-Inspired Heroism: Castiel was supposed to remain a morally ambiguous angel guide for only a few episodes and then killed off in favor of a more sympathetic angel. However, a positive fan response to Misha Collins' performance led to Castiel having a gradual Heel–Face Turn and becoming one of the show's main heroes.
• California Doubling: Filmed in Vancouver, usually set somewhere in the United States.
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Jensen Ackles could have been cast as Sam, as that was the part he originally tried out for and he was the favorite choice, until Jared Padalecki auditioned, at which point they decided to switch him to Dean. Though he says his interpretation of the character was pretty much the same as Padalecki's.
  • Lauren Cohan (Bela) and Katie Cassidy (Ruby 1.0) originally auditioned for each other's characters before their roles got switched. A fairly common complaint by fans during Season 3 was that Cohan was a competent actress who'd been given a poorly written character with less to work with while Cassidy was regarded as a less-skilled actress who'd been given a villainous character with more intrigue and potential than she was capable of pulling off, with fans suggesting they should have been given the characters they'd originally wanted. Cohan was also given kickboxing and weapons training for the role of Bela that she never got to use onscreen, suggesting Bela was planned to be shown as a capable Dark Action Girl fighter.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Eric Kripke cited "Bugs", "Route 666" and "Red Sky at Morning" as among his least favorite episodes of his era. His Author Avatar Chuck gives some Discontinuity Nods in "The Monster at the End of This Book."
  • Jared Padalecki hasn't been shy about discussing how much he hated Sam's storyline in Season 8, believing it to be completely out of character.
  • Quite a few members of the cast and crew reamed out Robert Singer for the decision to kill off Charlie in Season 10, and his rather lame excuse that "it's where the story took us." Here's a handy summary.
    • Particularly notable was the utterly fearless statement by Kim Rhodes that if the producers ever decide to kill off Jody Mills, she will refuse to participate in it, and she doesn't care how much damage that will do to her career. Thus, if people ever tune in and see a different actress playing Jodie, they'll know it's because she's going to die.
    • This reached a head at the show's next Comic-Con panel, where Jeremy Carver was asked why it happened and literally everyone else on the panel turned their back on him and let him stammer through the old "the story demanded it" explanation while soaking in the audience's boos.
  • Misha Collins has spoken out against the show's tendency to flagrantly kill off its female characters, especially as a means to supplicate the Die for Our Ship Yaoi Fangirl portions of the audience.
  • Jensen Ackles has occasionally criticized the show:
    • He said that he had a "fundamental problem" with Dean leaving Sam behind in the vampire cave, criticizing as a grossly out of character moment for Dean.
    • He was initially hesitant about the plan for Dean's Dropped a Bridge on Him death in the series finale and had to be talked into going along with it by Eric Kripke himself, though his reception to the episode after the finale was filmed was much more positive, with him calling the barn scene one of his favorite moments of the show.
  • Mark Sheppard has mixed feelings about the show (mainly due to the nature of his departure), according to this article. He goes on to say that season seven was the worst season of the show.
• Creator Breakdown: Jared Padalecki has been struggling with depression on set which reportedly helps him to play Sam during his most emotional moments.
• Creator's Pest:
  • Castiel's popularity caught the writers by surprise, and they wisely made him a main character instead of killing him off, but they also recognized that they had made him and the other angels massively overpowered. Some writers such as Ben Edlund championed the character, but others did not and so the writing for him was always mixed. His appearances were limited in Season 6, before being villainized and killed off. There are contradictory accounts over whether this was always intended to be permanent, but fan backlash/low ratings certainly helped bring him back. For the rest of the show, the writers had to figure out ways of powering and depowering him as the plot demanded. On top of that, his continued presence encouraged Destiel shippers, setting off a long and still ongoing debate about queerbaiting.
  • Crowley was an incredibly popular villain thanks to his truth-telling and snark. However, as a villain, he had to be defeated regularly by the heroes and this led to Badass Decay. There was a flirtation with making him one of the good guys, a la Spike on later seasons of Buffy, but it never fully happened and it was clear that the writers just didn't know how to resolve the menacing, villainous side of the character with the snarky, innuendo-laden comic relief side of the character. Eventually, he was given a rather unsatisfying exit that Mark Sheppard was not happy with.
• The Danza: One-off character Don Harding from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester" is played by Don McManus.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Averted with both leads, who were only a year older than their respective characters, as well as both Colin Ford and Ridge Canipe, who were both plausibly young enough to play the child versions of the brothers.
  • Played straight with Brock Kelly in Season 4 "After School Special", who was playing 18 year old Dean and was 24 years old.
  • Dylan Everett (Season 9-11) averts it in "Bad Boys" but becomes this in "About A Boy" (he was 18 playing 14 year old Dean) and in the flashback in "Just My Imagination" (19 playing 12 year old Dean).
  • A variation overlapping with Older Than They Look occurs with Mary Winchester upon being resurrected at the end of Season 11. She died at 29 and stayed dead for around 34 years. Her actress, Samantha Smith was 47 at the time that her character was resurrected, but Mary is In-Universe meant to be the same age at which she died, as Lorraine Fox (whose actress is seven years older than Mary's) points out that if Mary is the same Mary her son met thirty years ago, they should be around the same age.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester) directed the sixth season episode "Weekend at Bobby's", the seventh season episode "The Girl Next Door", the eighth season episode "Heartache", the tenth season episode "Soul Survivor", the eleventh season episode "The Bad Seed", and the season fifteen episode "Atomic Monsters".
  • Misha Collins (Castiel) directed the ninth season episode "Mother's Little Helper".
  • Richard Speight Jr.. (The Trickster/Gabriel) started directing in season 11 with "Just My Imagination" and continued with ten further episodes over the next seasons, though he acted only in one of them ("Unfinished Business").
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • In the pilot, Jared Padalecki was asked to take Jensen Ackles by surprise when pulling him into the motel room.
  • During Castiel and Dean's first meeting, Misha Collins has stated he got much closer into Jensen's personal space and stared at him much more blatantly than in rehearsals, just to enforce how Castiel is unused to human interaction. Jensen's squirming and uncomfortable reaction is real.
  • Later on in Season 4 when Azazel is possessing Samuel Campbell, Mitch Pileggi apparently decided to sniff Jensen's neck just to get the squicked-out reaction seen on camera.
• Fake American:
  • Israeli Alona Tal as Midwest-raised Hunter Jo and her mother Ellen, played by the Canadian Samantha Ferris. Emily Perkins, who plays Becky Rosen, is also Canadian.
  • Kevin McNally, who plays Frank Deveraux, is British.
• Fake Nationality: In "Taxi Driver", Assaf Cohen plays Ajay with an Indian name and accent. Cohen is an American actor of Yemenite, Russian, and Israeli descent.
• Friendship on the Set: While playing brothers Sam and Dean Winchester throughout the long-running series, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki became so close that they've both stated they regard themselves as brothers.
• Long-Runners: The series lasted for 15 seasons from 2005 to 2020, airing 327 episodes in total. It's also the longest-running live-action science fiction/fantasy series on American television and one of the last shows that the CW inherited from The WB and UPN, so in a way it's conclusion meant the End of an Age for the network.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Jensen Ackles only dubs Dean in the final two episodes of the anime series (Jared Padalecki is Sam throughout). The change is barely noticeable, though.
  • Claire Novak is played by Sydney Imbeau in season 4 and by Kathryn Newton in seasons 10 and 11.
  • Amelia Novak is played by Wynn Everett in season 4 and by Leisha Hailey in season 10.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Alona Tal is said to have been a fan of the show before she auditioned for (and won) the recurring role of Jo Harvelle.
  • Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi was glad when she got a shout-out in season 6 and appears as herself in a season 9 episode.
  • The band Neoni covered the song "Carry On My Wayward Son" as a tribute for the show. Their version was finally used in the finale.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Genevieve Padalecki, Jared's wife, as the recurring demon Ruby.
  • Danneel Ackles, Jensen’s wife, plays the recurring angel Anael.
• Role Reprise: The current voice actors for Scooby-Doo and Mystery Inc reprise their roles for the characters' appearance.
• Romance on the Set: Thanks to Season 4 of Supernatural giving the couple the opportunity to meet, Genevieve Cortese (who plays Ruby) is now Genevieve Padalecki. Which makes the sex scene with her husband (who plays Sam) in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" weirder to watch.
• Trolling Creator: Eric Kripke released spoilers that Sam would have a new waitress Love Interest named Kristy in Season 4. He was kinda telling the truth (Sam had sex with a "Kristy" in the fourth season premiere, but she's actually the demon Ruby lying about her identity to cover up their involvement from Dean and Bobby), but he admitted that he was just saying it to rile up the fans. It worked.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
• Word of Gay: While he was a bit wishy-washy at first on social media about the infamous Destiel scene in "Despair", Misha Collins has now confirmed multiple times both that Castiel's confession is a "homosexual declaration of love", and that Cas, for all intents and purposes, is gay.
• Word of Saint Paul: Both lead actors have speculated on the Time Skip in the series finale, with Padalecki allegedly saying in a Q&A that the period of time between episodes was five years. At a convention in November 2021, Ackles said he envisioned it as several years passing.
  Ackles: They mentioned that [Jared] talked about this, too. About how much time did it last between the God showdown and the barn scene. And I think, I always assumed it was several years had gone by, and so [Sam and Dean] had been living in, basically, their ideal setting for several years. They beat the Big Bad, they saved the world, they saved themselves, they were doing what they love, they were in a routine, it made sense, everything was- they found their sweet spot. And I think that played into Dean's acceptance, that he'd made it, he was okay, because he got where he needed to go. It was there, and he'd been living there for a while, that was-that was what he needed. And it was like, he kinda found it, so it easier for him to say the few things that he needed to say to his brother.
  Padalecki: I guess I have a dark sensibility because I was like "It was quick. They drove home from God and got killed."
  Ackles: They said you said it was like five years! [...] Between the God showdown and the barn scene, that we had been living in that routine for like five years, going on hunts-
  Padalecki: That's not enough years.
• Write What You Know: Part of the reason so many episodes take place in Ohio is because Eric Kripke is from Toledo. In particular, the Season 5 episode "The Real Ghostbusters" is based off of some fairly obscure Ohio folklore relating to Gore Orphange Road and the supposed hauntings that take place there.
• Written-In Infirmity:
  • Actor Jared Padalecki injured his wrist in a stunt in the fourth episode of Season 2; because later scenes for the episode had already been filmed, they couldn't put him in a cast until after filming was over. The line "I think she broke my wrist" was added in after they discovered his wrist was in fact broken, not sprained, and explains the cast he wears in the next several episodes.
  • Jared Padalecki got his shoulder dislocated wrestling with Osric Chau (Kevin Tran) at a con, and Sam is wearing a sling in the first few episodes of Season 10. The incident is never fully explained, but Castiel feels really bad about his role in it.
  • Meg's actress, Rachel Miner, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2010, which severely limited her mobility and contributed to her departure from the series in 2013. When Miner returned in 2020, playing a new role, she is always seen sitting on a chair of some sort.

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