User:Ophois/season4

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2011/03/supernaturals-jared-padalecki-and-genevieve-cortese-on-their-on-screen-reunion.html
Ruby reception, use in character article, season 4 article, and season 5 article

http://tv.ign.com/articles/909/909490p1.html
"But one of the things I loved that's gonna happen this season, is we're going to go back and we're going to see Dean in hell and see what happened in those four months. We're going to go back and see Sam on Earth and him burying his brother and trying and trying [to save him], with everything – making deals with demons -- Doing everything he possibly can to save his brother and none of it works." Padalecki

Stuff about darker side of Sam

"So there's a really interesting way that Dean gets out of hell that we don't know about just yet. We're only six episodes in, so we'll find out I think right in the meat of the episodes, between episodes nine and fifteen probably – right in the middle. I'm really excited about going back and the characters are different now. Obviously, Dean's been in hell and Sam's been without Dean, so I had to become a badass on my own. There's a scene in the first episode where Sam's like, "Dean, I think we should do it this way," and Dean's like, "Well, the older brother's back. The smarter brother. So we're going to do it my way." And Sam kind of takes offense. He's like, "Dude, I've been here on my own, for four months and I've been doing well." They're both more individual now and they're both holding secrets from each other, so I think it's going to be neat to see that play out." Padalecki

http://www.tvguide.com/news/supernatural-eric-kripke-36015.aspx
TVGuide.com: Let's get to the heart and soul of the show. How will Dean's hellish sojourn affect the relationship between the brothers?

Kripke: It will affect it massively. We'll slowly unfold Dean remembering what happened in hell, and that will drastically affect their relationship. Dean is basically a POW coming home from the worst hellhole — literally — ever. How do you reconnect with your life when you've been through something that horrific? That becomes one of his issues. But don't worry, he's still the same smart ass he always was.

Kripke: Ruby will be back, and we're introducing a new supernatural species. We intend to bring back Steve Williams, the old embittered hermit hunter Rufus.

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/supernatural/supernatural-preview-season-4-22759.aspx
"When the CW sent out advance screeners of Supernatural's fourth season premiere, "Lazarus Rising," they specified three things that critics aren't allowed to reveal before the episode airs."

Nothing really usable
http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/s6/supernatural/tubetalk/a102345/supernatural-writer-talks-season-four.html====

http://tv.ign.com/articles/910/910634p1.html

http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080728/news_1c28karla.html
“It's very, very exciting as an actor to explore a new side of Sam that I always wanted to explore,” said Padalecki, remembering the happy days of Season 2's “Born Under a Bad Sign” episode, when the Stanford-educated Sam was possessed by a demon and got to slit a guy's throat. “You kind of saw Sam go bad, and I was like, 'Oooh, that's kind of fun. I like that. Let's get back to it.'”

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/supernatural/exclusive-interview-with-super-25355.aspx
"The threat of Lucifer, we don’t really see it as religious per se. Although we do use the Bible as a source, we just see it as the flip-side of the Supernatural coin because we’ve been writing about demons for four seasons now, so it was time to pull the curtain back and look and see what else was there." Gamble

How do you go about creating your own Supernatural show mythology versus using all of that actual religious stuff that exists? "We give ourselves a lot of license to draw from mythology around the world, first of all. And when it comes to the question of God, we leave ourselves a lot of room. There are characters on the show that either don’t believe in God or are very deeply agnostic. And the angels we meet on the show, they don’t have the direct Bat Phone to God. They are very low to the ground, they are soldiers working on Earth. So we’ve constructed a mythology that’s really not about God, it’s about a war that’s happening here on planet Earth between a few angels and some demons and then our characters, the Hunters, who are sort of caught in the middle." Gamble

"Yeah, I pretty much exhausted Amazon by now. I’m very excited when a new book about demons comes out. And we Google all the time. We have assistants on our staff who spend a lot of time researching. The Book of Revelations has been important to us this season, obviously because it talks about what might happen should the apocalypse occur. But there are demons and demonic creatures in about every civilization in the world, so there’s a big pile of stuff for us to draw from. There’s a lot." Gamble

The premise now is that Lilith trying to break the 66th seals, and do the writers know how many seals have been broken or what the count is at throughout the season? "We have sort of a tally, a rough tally going up on the board. So we know where we’re at at different points of the season. Yeah, the sort of "How F’ed are the Boys" tally. Yeah, we keep track."

It’s more than just the seals that we see on the episode, it’s not going to be 66 episodes, each one a seal. "Yeah, the promise we made to our audience was that you weren’t going to have to sit through 66 episodes wondering if each seal was going to be broken. We did an episode where you met a character called Anna who was hearing the voices of angels, and one of the things that she revealed was that there were more than 66 possible seals. So it’s a question of which seals can the demons get to and which seals can the demons break. And there’s an important point in the season, where it’s revealed that a halfway point is being reached where half of the seals are going to be broken or have been broken. And we kind of keep track of it that way. It’s sort of the ticking clock of the season, so it’s important in that sense."

"OK, well then I’ll put it that way. That’s a big marker. That’s a big way for them to keep track. If half the seals go, that’s a big deal. But no, we’re not going like "Here’s the 23rd seal and here’s the 24th seal." That would be a bit ponderous I think. This season is constructed so by the end of the season, the endgame of the season is "Are they going to be able to save us from having these seals broken or not?" Kind of like how in previous seasons it’s like "Is Dean going to get saved from Hell or is he going to Hell?" So it’s "Are we going to be able to avert the apocalypse?"" Gamble

"We had a plan in place to end this season when we thought we weren’t going to get renewed for another season. But it became clear, pretty early on, that a lot more people were tuning in to see the show this year so that we should move forward with the five-year plan." Gamble

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/supernatural/exclusive-interview-with-super-25696.aspx
If I seem a little bit out of it, I mean even stringing a complete sentence together is a little bit challenging for me at this point in the day, because I've spent the past couple of weeks, at least a week and a half, working with one of the other writers on their episode in which Sam and Dean discover a book series entitled Supernatural about the adventures of two demon hunters called Sam and Dean.

Is this going to be another "Hollywood Babylon," ultra-meta episode? Listen, "Hollywood Babylon" does not begin to be meta compared to what I did. We might actually win the award for the most meta episode in the history of television. It is at once the most self-referential thing I've ever had to think about and then actually it's also a really relevant episode to the season. We weren't going to do it unless we could seriously justify it in terms of what was going on with the rest of the season. I think that we've had some really successful comedic episodes, Ben Edlund for example, I think is a brilliant creative mind in that way. And we also have this very quickly moving train in terms of our mythology at this point in the season, so whatever we do has to serve both things at this point.

Comic-Con News Special!, by Tara Bennett
"We're taking the mythology into a new piece of real estate that's pretty exciting. Even just picking up the series four months later and letting the boys surprise each other again because they've been separated for awhile - we haven't been able to do that since the first season. They're always on top of each other, they always know what each other is thinking, but this allows them to keep secrets from one another again and have reveal about who they [really] are and about those four months they were apart." - Kripke, p. 7

"For us, season four is about a slowly revealing mystery. There's no secret that Dean gets out of Hell, and we realized that from day one in the writers' room and didn't want to be coy about that, because everyone already knows. Let's get him out, but some of the big questions of the season are how did he get out and who got him out and why? We quickly get past what everyone knows and get to things they don't know." - Kripke, p. 7

"We love to shake up the formula whenever we can. There is an episode in black and white, a throwback to the Universal [Studios] monster movies of the 30s. The third episode is a time travel episode where Dean goes back in time and meets his parents when they were younger. We just came up with an episode that Ben Edlund is writing that, even for us is insane. A town has a wishing well and everyone's wishes are coming true." Kripke, p. 7

Tales from the Kripke, by Nicholas Knight
"Here's my back-pocket plan. I'm hoping we'll have a sense of whether we're coming back by the middle of the season. If it's looking good, then we'll keep on course. If it's looking like we won't, I might initiate the doomsday sequence and go for it and just finish the story. We'll see. We'll take that as it comes." Kripke, p. 23

"We found ourselves heading into season four with an even bigger budget problem than we had last year. The network gives you a license fee with which you can make the show, and usually there's an increase from year o year to cover everyone's raises. This year they said, 'We'll give you the same amount of money to make the show and that will be our best offer.' So we had to take it. Then the American dollar was so bad against the Canadian dollar. So we had a big problem. And we've made all sorts of adjustments in season four. Like, I don't know if anyone will ever notice, but we're shooting the show in high definition video now,we're not shooting in film anymore. We used to havve second unit days, where a second production unit would go out and film things that the first production unit didn't have time for. That's gone. Our music budget for classic rock has been slashed in half." Kripke, p. 24

Inside the Writers' Room, by Nicholas Knight
"I think stuff that, in the past, we might have been shy of doing, we're now comfortable enough to push the envelope with, because once you get through three seasons, you really start to fell out what you can do and what you're comfortable with. We're breaking new boundaries and doing new things that we wouldn't have done a few seasons ago." Cathryn Humphris, p. 31

"Even the standalone [episodes] we're pushing in new directions so that they're much more about the psychology of our monsters and the psychology of our boys... The first episode I wrote this year was all about what it means to be a monster. What is that dividing line between good and evil?" Humphris, p. 31

Brothers separated for long time... "You want every episode to be cool and have a cool mystery, but as long as you have the background drama on simmer, you can always go back to it, you can raise it up, you can lower it down, and it becomes a real resource you can use to tell the stories you want to tell." Dabb, p. 31

"The philosophy this season seems to be 'smoke them if you've got them'." Carver, p. 31

Brotherly Love, by Tara Bennett
"We're making Dean an integral part of the mythology of the show, which means a lot more work for me... It's not just Dean trying to save his brother from his own destiny. He's now a part of this as well, and he' not only trying to figure out what's in store for Sam, but whats in store for himself too." Ackles, p.6

"Its been exciting and energizing to do something that isn't season one Sam, that guy that didn't really want to be there. Or season two Sam, who was messed up about their dad, or season three Sam [who] wanted to get Dean out of his deal. Now we see Sam and Dean thinking about themselves. We see them more individually." Padalecki, p.7

Masters of the Universe
TV series Over There, Kim Manners directed episode focused on her character, it was the relationship they built on that set that led the future Supernatural executive producer and director to personally select Aycox for the role of the demon-possessed Meg Masters. p20

"I knew that I was going to be [on] for more than one episode, but we really just felt our way through... We just knew it was gonna go until we felt the storyline had come to an end." Aycox, p.20

"It was very trial and error. I took it one episode at a time. FOr that first episode, I just came up with an idea of how to control the evil side and keep it hidden so the audience didn't see it right away, since, obviously, yo don't know that she's going to be a demon in the beginning. My focus at that point was [portraying her] as if she's a truly innocent girl who's lost and on her way to somewhere else, so that when, in the end, you see me slashing the [man's] throat, it really was a surprise!" Aycox, p.21

"THen, as we got into it further and I'd been on set with the guys more, I saw how playful they are and how they're up for anything. THey have really great senses of humor, so that gave me the confidence to bring [Meg's] sexuality into it with them." "It would be nice to play the sexuality with them against each other..." Aycox, p. 21

"I loved that she was playful. But there was a sense of evil in her. THat was great, but I wanted there to be layers-I wanted the playful side to come out, and I wanted the sexuality to come out, but I wanted that to be tempered with an evil side underneath." p.21 Wanted to give human qualities to represent Meg host.

Padalecki, watched her performances to prepare, she felt he picked up on her "own personal mannerisms...like little tics and looks and things like that". Aycox, p.23

Habeas Supernatural, by Nicholas Knight
"We're doing a lot of new things with the show. All the way across the board - [the] producers, writers, directors, actors, and crew - everybody is saying it's a whole new show... and yet it's the same show." Phil Sgriccia, p. 44

"What we try to do every year is to give the boys different obstacles, different challenges, change the nature of their relationship fairly signicantly, even though they stay true to the characters that they are, but in season three the dynamic of [their] relationship changed drastically. There's a fatal flaw among [the] Winchesters, which is sacrificing [one] for the other. THat's where they were in season three, and that really set up what's happening in season four in terms of a totally different dynamic for them. What Sam's been doing [with his powers] and Dean's [relationship with the angel, Castiel] send them on a collision course that will ultimately resolve itself, but it's the biggest conflict we've played to date for sure." Robert Singer, p. 48

"In 'Sin City' I wrote this whole idea that Lucifer is a deity, and that demons believe in him the same as humans do God. That's their core belief, and Lilith is certainly a true believer." Singer, p. 49

"The network wanted us to brighten the show, and although it may have please them, it didn't please us. So Eric and Bob this year decided that we're going to go back and do the show the way we want to do it." Manners, p. 49

Soul Music, by Nicholas Knight
"It's a fully black and white episode that is basically a take-off of the Frankenstein and Dracula movies of 50 and 60 years go. The directive musically was to very much be in that style, so it's a complete departure from anything I've done on Supernatural before." Gruska, p. 61

Lennertz and Gruska work separate episodes. pp.56-58

Issue 9
Dean got them to rewrite line for Mary, p.13

Knockin' On Heaven's Door, by Nicholas Knight
Dream a Little Dream... "That was a very hard scene for me. The scene was difficult because they brought in my stunt double [Todd Scott to read the other Dean's lines to me - so if I was on camera as Good Dean, then he'd be opposite me as Bad Dean reading lines. I read the lines with him in my trailer and said, 'This is what I'm thinking,' bt for an actor to completely mimic another actor in about 10 minutes time is not going to happen... so he was basically just running lines with me. When he was reciting the lines, I would have to think, 'Okay, I'm going to o that line this way, so this is how I'm going to react to me saying a line. I had to double and triple think before I responded; before I said any line, I then had to turn around and do it all over again. The mind shuffle that I had to [pull off] in order to get that scene done was really taxing. Then, at the end, I actually took my stunt double and threw him up against the thing and shoved a gun to his neck. Good thing Todd and I go way back, as he's been my stunt double since Dark Angel, so I had no problem throwing him around! But to act a scene opposite Todd, I'd never done that before. He's just sitting there, but I'm yelling at him as though he's me, and it was tricky." Ackles, pp.12-13

Heavenly Creature, by Jayne Nelson
"...my philosophy is that humans have some universal qualities, so that when you play a character you're finding that character in yourself, and you harness on of many facets of humanity. When I got the role of an angel, and since he's not actually human, it kind of threw me for a loop! It's not a universal, human quality. But Eric gave me some direction, which was really helpful." Collins, p.18

"He seems incredibly old, and has a depth of experience and knowledge that's much greater than humans have." Collins, p.18

"It's a totally different aspect to the character with Uriel being there. It's nice, because it shows that Castiel's got a softer side." Collins, p.20

Director's Cut: Robert Singer
"Some of them I found really helpful, and others were just kind of crappy... I tried to certainly pay homage to the best of them. I think James Whale the director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein) was probably the best. The original Dracula had some cool things in it, too. I tried to recreate lenses and the way they were shot and the moves they made and all that, but at the same time I tried to keep it modern. I like to think of 'Monster Movie' as an homage, rather than just a shot-by-shot thing." Singer, p.38

Did you have to change your directing style to suit this episode? "Somewhat. We shot it with more traditional wider angle lenses, and the moves were a little more studied, the way they used to film them. Like when the Wolfman attacks the people in the car, I really wanted to make that feel like an old Wolfman movie. I made a conscious effort to shoot that on our soundstage rather than go out to a practical location. You got that backdrop with the moon and the ground fog and all that, which has a certain unreal quality to it, but I thought it was appropriate or that particular scene." Singer, p.38

"Serge Ladouceur [Supernatural's Director of Photography] and I talked about this quite a bit. It was a harder light; there wasn't as much soft light as we normally use. The shadows were deeper and we weren't afraid of letting the blacks go really black and putting a harder front light on some of the scenes. Serge likes those movies as well, so it was an easy transition for him." Singer, p.38

Is it true that this episode, which aired fifth, was originally written and shot to be the third episode of the season? "Yes. That was a network decision, but we didn't argue [about] it. They thought it was a little early for that big a change of pace. I think we had to change one line of dialogue that referred to something, but it was no great hardship for us." Singer, p.38

Were you concerned about having too many of the myth arc-heavy episodes in a row at the beginning of the season? "That was a discussion we had. We brought up with them that we normally like to spread these things out a little bit, but they felt pretty strongly that it would help launch the season. They weren't afraid of having that much mythology, which seemed to have worked out well for us." Singer, p.38

Was the countdown to the Apocalypse always part of the endgame? "Yes, always." Singer, p.31

Bear costume and stuff, p. 30

"Traditionally, angels are warriors of the Lord... There's lots of smiting and things that go on in the Bible by angels, and that's the angel model we're going after [in the show]." Singer, p.31

From Hell, by Bryan Cairns
"There's so much depth to Ruby. Not only has she been through hell, but there's so much more to [her story than that]. It's nice to be able to sink my teeth into something and bring a little more color." Cortese, p.42

"As for Ruby, I didn't even know I was going to play her until I pretty much got to Canada." Cortese, p.42

"It wasn't a huge process. They were really familiar with my work on Wildfire, which I think propelled me on [to] the show." Cortese, p.42

"I thought I was going to be Kristy the waitress." Cortese, p.42

"If you watch the third season when Ruby is first introduced, the way Katie [Cassidy] did it was very tough, and she's hard to get close to. If you watch the two of them together, Ruby's very similar to Dean. They're very protective, and I think the whole point of that is to see if Sam can step up to the plate. It's also protect herself. Is Ruby ready to get involved in this and see if Sam can accomplish the task she knows he is capable of? This season it's been very important to bring more of a humanity to it, and I'm sure the fans are going to be upset when they hear that, but she was human and has said that in the last two seasons." Cortese, p.43

"Also, I think Ruby sees a lot of potential in sam. He has something she can nurture. It's almost like a mother bear and her cub [in terms of] how protective she is. In ["I Know What You Did Last Summer"] I'm teaching him how to exorcise a demon and the demon is laughing at Sam. I immediately go up to the demon, whack him, take the knife, and stab him right in the throat. Sam's all I have, so it's almost like giving birth, in a weird, messed-up way." Cortese, p.43

"For me, the most important thing we've discussed this season is for Ruby to have a calmness and be more fear-driven, as opposed to [being], 'I'm gonna kick the crap out of everyone!'-driven." Cortese, p.43

"Heaven and Hell" torture scene, p. 42

If Looks Could Kill, by Nicholas Knight
"In our first season, somebody was trying to get us an overall deal with [the motel chain] Motel 6, so every episode would've had a Motel 6. I said, 'Guys, you're taking the heart out of this. You can't do that. I don't care what you're going to save [financially], it's not going to be worth it, because here's a real opportunity to give you that Americana kitsch that you can't get on any other show, and it could be a real trademark.' These boys end up in a motel every episode, sometimes two, so it's a real opportunity for us to give it a sense of place. It's a lot of fun!" Jerry Wanek, pp.49-50

"The disco motel [in 'Provenance'] was a lot of fun, too, because Phil Sgriccia was directing that, and it was so over the top. When the boys come in, they just stop. Normally they just kind of go about their business, but this one was so far over the top that Phil had them pause. They looked around, taking it all in, then they just shrugged and went about their business." Wanek, p.50

Occasionally there are some motel rooms that don't have any noticeable themes, like in "Fresh Blood". "That motel room was essentially a killing floor for the boys. I thought it looked great. The motel was way off the beaten path, they might have been the only occupants that night, and it was kind of a cold interrogation scene, so we tried to keep it not so friendly. When you walked through it, it definitely felt like a place [where] a murder had been committed. It wouldn't have been the first time a murder had been committed in that room, either. It was the type of place where bad things happen." Production Designer John Marcynuk pp.50-52

Other set design stuff applicable to series, pp.50-54

"'Monster Movie' was fun to do. I tend to think of my education in the industry as more of an old school art director - creating things traditionally without digital assistance. This episode permitted us to look at films from the 30s and 40s. Back then they built some fantastic sets and made some bold environments. Our dungeon at the end was an homage to many of the Frankestein films of that time. Even the credits were thought of in terms of a period look by graphic designer Mary Anne Liu." Marcynuk, p.52

Family Remains... "We ended up building a great deal of the house. There wree a lot of [what we call] small 'process' sets: dumbwaiters, basements, crawlspaces, closets, bedrooms, tunnels, and between-the-wall sets. It was intended to be a claustrophobic environment. Essentially, it was to all be in the same house, but we couldn't find a location would work. We built the bulk of that house over three stages and shot it on a very difficult schedule. There were a few head-banging instances in the sets, as they were only around 4-5 feet high. Full of dirt, dust, and dead things." Marcynuk

"Monster Movie", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POeLSP3o8j0

Issue 10
Saturn Awards

Character inspirations, use for character page

The Thrill of the Fight, by Nicholas Knight
"Padalecki took advantage of the time off, but he didn't go home to Los Angeles. 'Jared had a week in Hawaii,' Ackles pointed out." p.16

"In fact, as Padalecki reveals, they brought in 'real' magicians as tech advisors for the episode." p.17

Uncle Bobby, by Nicholas Knight
"I don't think Bobby's changed so much as he's been further revealed [to the audience]. I don't see anything in his current status that seems different or contradictory to the Bobby we first saw in 'Devil's Trap'." Beaver, p.20

Has your approach to portraying the character changed at all? "Not a bit. My approach has always been to say the lines the best I can. I felt from the beginning, even before much of the character had been revealed, that there was an affection for Sam and Dean on Bobby's part. That's come out more in the writing, and thus in my playing, but there's no shift in my approach." p.20

"I had not developed my own back-story for Bobby. I do that sometimes for characters, especially character that have big unanswered questions about them. But Bobby was, initially, just a guest-starring role for me - no future, no past outside of what was on the page in that episode. Every episode since then has provided a little more depth, but I've never come up with my own ideas. My feeling is that with the way the writers slowly dole out bits of Bobby's past, anything I made up for myself might end up contradicting something they want to do, so I rely on them." p. 20

Failed to save the young girls "It's what [actors] look for when we're playing a character-the strengths, the weaknesses, the mistakes, the successes-it's all what makes a rounded character. Who would want to watch Bobby if he never failed, if he had nothing whatsoever wrong with him or any weaknesses? It's those things that make hum human. If anything, I thought it was about time!" p.21

"Everything in season four has been challenging, since the reduced budget and shooting schedule has driven everyone past the point of exhaustion... But by the end of the second episode of season four, I saw the same kind of exhaustion and low morale that usually kicks in on most shows around episode 20. There's been a real challenge this season for the cast and crew to do as well or better with fewer resources." p.24

Fall From Grace, by Jayne Nelson
When you auditioned, did you know you were auditioning for an angel? "Not when I did the first audition, but when I went back they had me read a couple of scenes from the next episode, episode 10. All of a sudden I was like, 'Angel Anna? Oooh!'" Julie McNiven, p.26

Did that affect the way you played Anna in the first episode, knowing she was an angel? "No, I don't think so. I think in the first episode she really has no idea; she's not lying or trying to be sneaky. She truly is innocent. They gave me this Girl, Interrupted critique, which was helpful." p.26

"I think it's not that they don't have emotions - this is my take on it - but I think that their world up in Heaven seems very militant; what I imagine being in the military would feel like. There's not much time to sit around and feel; to think about feelings and have emotions. You have a job, you're given an order, and you follow it." p.28

Young Love, by Tara Bennett
was Amy Gumenick's "first professional acting job" p.33

"both actors admit they were clued in early to he importance of who they might be playing. 'I was pretty excited for a couple of reasons. One it was a period piece and I got to play in the 70s. Two, I got to play a younger Jeffrey Dean Morgan [who of course played the adult John], which is an honor all in itself. I came in for the role and, luckily, I had a classic enough look to be a young Jeffrey.'" Cohen

"I was sent actress Samantha Smith's information and looked through that, so that research got me through the basic storyline. I knew that it was a revealing episode, but I didn't quite understand how important and how much was left unsaid." Gumenick, p.33

"It's more daunting to go into anything and play somebody else. You're not creating your own character, so you don't have that freedom to make whatever choices you want. I researched John as much as possible. I was familar with him from the beginning, but I wanted to see how he really looked on the show. I hadn't seen any of his episodes, so I went back and watched about 10 or 15 episodes to see the relationship between Jared and Jensen and Jeffrey. He had a quiet, loving-yet-stern demeanor, and I tried to bring that to the table." Cohen, p.33

"I watched clips of past episodes with Samantha for characteristics and mannerisms I could embody, but one of my concerns was whether I was playing the younger version of the character she established, or if I was making it my own different character, but still respecting the choices she had made. Director Steve Boyum said because so much has happened that you don't know about Mary, he really wanted to establish that she's a completely different Mary. He said right off the bat to not worry about playing Samantha's Mary, to make it my own, and that I ws cast because I naturally had some of her characteristics." Gumenick, pp.33-34

"I talked with Jensen a lot. He was great to work with, because he gave me every bit of information that could help me. It made it easier because [I was] scared to play a character that Jeffrey had played, because you want to do well and not embarrass him. Jensen told me that Jeffrey had a lot of love in his eyes. He was quiet and stern, but he was very, very human. You watch [Jeffrey] and you can't help but fall in love with his character. It helped me because when you think of the human nature of people, that's what you need to bring to a character more than anything. So many actors forget that they're human after all; you're not just playing a character. Trying to get the human, full-hearted side of him kept me grounded and kept it real." p.34

"I'm lucky [because] I have a supportive family, but I see all the time the struggle between people finding their own identities and breaking out of the restrictions and expectations that their family and society have placed on them. On a greater level, there is a lot of that for Mary. She feels like she doesn't really have a choice. In a way, that makes her a tragic character - she's born with this gift, and into this 'profession,' and doesn't know how to get out. She craves something different." Those issues reveal an unexpected layer of desperation in Mary, which Gumenick says provided an interesting subtext to her romance [with John]. "We talked about that, and it was very clear, even from the sides [the sample script pages used for casting] in the audition, that John offers her a ticket out. I think she does love him and wants to have a life with him, but it's more than that She craves freedom. There's an innocence that John embodies that she wishes she had, and she sees that he could give her the life that she [always] wanted." Gumenick, p.35

MORE STUFF FOR IN THE BEGINNING

Appetite for Destruction, by Bryan Cairns
"Uriel is definitely an avenging angel". Robert Wisdom, p.52

"Actually, there wasn't an audition process. There was an offer made, so somehow they envisioned me fitting this character. In a sense, it's been like some of the other great projects I've been on where you have no idea what's going to happen with the characters. I just heard 'angel,' and we all assume that's someone with wings, dressed in white, and wearing a gown. Then [the character comes in and [he's] this heavy-duty guy who wants to smite everybody. It really kind of flipped my pages, so I had to do some rethinking. The story is there and the character is totally fleshed out, so I appreciate them seeing me as someone who could fill this role. It's a real honor." Wisdom, pp.52-53

"Yes, I actually read the Book of Enoch, and then I just went through a lot of different angel lore. Uriel is actually one of the top angels, so I looked at the quality this angel had biblically. It lists him as everything from an avenging angel to an angel of compassion, so I figured I could work with that. However, the Book of Enoch, is pretty scary. There's some pretty powerful, visionary stuff, and you see a lot of angels we really don't associate with angelic life." Wisdom, p.53

"I just had trust. No actor wants to have his back to [the main characters] during a scene, but with every passing line, Uriel's gravity just grew. Finally, when he turns, it's game on! I thought that was theatrically very powerful, because from that moment of meeting the two boys, it's very clear what our relationship is going to be and what my mission is. It was a very sharp way to set the character up." Wisdom, p.53

"Castiel is a man of reason, and he's very controlled in an entirely different way. Uriel simply wants to take everything out. I know what my power is, I'm ready to use it and get on with it. I don't suffer fools." Wisdom, p.53

"The end justifies the means in the angelic world, and humans are just specks on the planet. Smiting a whole town to take out an evil is an incidental thing to do. We can't get our heads around the magnitude of it, so we call it evil. It mirrors some of things we see like hurricanes, tsunamis, and natural disasters where we wonder, 'How can there be a God?'" Wisdom, p.55

"You never want to get into a one-note thing, so I'd like to see the compassionate side of Uriel, the angel who takes care of children. I see that as the heavy-duty face I put on, and [think it] would add something interesting." Wisdom, p.57

Hell Breaks Loose, by Bryan Cairns
"I had read for the show a few times before, so maybe they were just saving me for this particular role because he was so wicked! We got into the room and I had this spark about this guy who assumes other characters. I'm dressed like I'm a psychiatrist or an accountant, yet I'm this mean, badass demon. What really came to me was this voice. It's particular, odd, and can be wicked, but at the same time, very believable. That's what I developed the character around." Mark Rolston, p.59

"On paper, he was described as a badass demon who was dressed like a psychiatrist. He was a normal-looking guy who was evil, and hence we came up with his little weird hair thing. The hairdresser was great, so we pulled it into a weird style that looked normal and bookish." Rolston, p.60

He almost comes across as the Godfather of demons. "Yeah, the John Gotti of demons. It was such a joy, and the director J. Miller Tobin, was fantastic. He gave me free rein and reeled me back on occasion." Rolston, p.60

"Automatically, I felt I was really part of the series. It wasn't like I was just dropping in to the world of Supernatural and nobody knew who I was, so there was that element of surprise and fear in them. Ruby keeps coming in going 'Somebody really bad is going to show up!' Then when it's me, the brothers are kind of stammering and know they have a real fight on their hands. That was great for me, because I felt like part of Supernatural's history, and it helped create a lot of dramatic tension." Rolston, p.60

"In my mind, it was more like I was a mentor." Rolston, p.60

"I just imagined that when I was in Hell, I really took Dean under my wing. I wanted him to be something great. When he split, you feel kind of spurned or left out of the loop. Even though I exact a beating on him in my first episode because he did me wrong, in the second one, I'm hoping he might come back into the fold. I think there is a whole lot of mileage to get out of Alastair and Dean." Rolston, p.63

"I've boxed in my career and done martial arts..." "When they put the breakdown out for the character, it said, 'Must be able to fight.'" Rolston, p.61

Second Sight, by Bryan Cairns
How was Pamela described to you on the page? "I think it was as a badass psychic in a hot Gina Gershon kind of way. They mentioned she was a Ramones-loving rocker chick. I thought that was great because I got to be bold and unapologetic, which was an immediate attraction. After the premiere of the season, I spoke with Eric Kripke, and he mentioned Pamela Barnes was created from the essence of Supernatural fandom. He mentioned she was like a kickass fan; she's loyal and wickedly open about her opinions and playfulness. Although she loves a good laugh, she also locks it down when business needs tending to. Pamela is serious, cheeky, and Eric wrote her with that in mind, so I thought that was a neat way to bring a character to life." Traci Dinwiddie, p.74

Did you visit a psychic or any special research for this part? "I have visited psychics. I've had my palms and tarot cards read. I have a friend who's much like Pamela in [terms of] psychometry, which is when you can gather a lot of information from touching an object or person." Dinwiddie, p.74

Reaction by fans usually bad for women "Yeah, I was really pleased and so surprised by the sweet messages from the fans. From the get-go, right after I shot my very first scene, I received tons of messages via my website and MySpace. One of the fandom girls immediately wrote an article about me." "Oh yes, I was forewarned. I have dared to take a peek into the lair of Supernatural fandom, and I've seen some amazing comments. Eric did such a brilliant job creating this character." Dinwiddie, p.76

More left

Fights! Camera! Action!, by Nicholas Knight
"'No kung-fu bullshit.' That was Eric Kripke's line to me when I was hired for the show. So no one running around on the tops of daisies or running vertically up walls and on ceilings, that kind of stuff. He didn't want any of that. It had to be realistic, nasty, street-fighting kind of stuff. That's what we try to incorporate." Other stunt-related stuff

Walking on the Dark Side, Nicholas Knight
FIlming Lucifer rising "That was such a hard day for me. I felt like I had a hangover for days from going where I had to go emotionally when I found out I'd started the end of the world and brough on the APocalpyse. It's not like you read the script and go, 'Oh, cool! Well, let's chase butterflies! Everything is all happy and good...' You really have to commit, and you have to go deep." Padalecki, p.14

"I never wanted it to be a montage of me exorcising demons and doing push-ups and standing on my hands and stuff like that, because that would've been a bit cheesy. It was nice that it was something a little more resque, a little bit more sexual and dark and dirty and seedy. There's a whole mythology that goes into drinking blood, and what happens when you drink somebody's blood !! is that you take on that person's attributes. I think it was a nice touch." Padalecki, pp.16-17

Deja View, by Bryan Cairns
Given how Ronald went out, did it make sense that they wanted you back? Chris Gauthier: "I think so. These were people that came back to haunt Sam and Dean because they had been let down. It was almost as though they brought me into their world only to be permanently taken out. That was most people's problem with them." p. 9

Hot Properties, by Lynn Zubernis and Kathy Larsen
"Chris began by reading up on the real Samuel Colt. The gun used on the show is a modified version of Colt's very first design, but the original could only fire a single shot before reloading. Using this gun would have been historically accurate, but dramatically impractical, so they turned it into the six-shooter we saw used to dispatch... when Dean shoots the Yellow-Eyed Demon, Jensen really did fire the Colt (using blanks, of course)." p. 28

Family Remains filming... "Director of Photography, Serge Ladouceur, was faced with a problem. The script called for no natural light (after all, it's a basement) and no artificial sources of light - no flashlight, no candles. Nothing. But cameras need light so what to do? Serge decided to use infrared lighting, which would allow him to film in total darkness. Lighting problem solved! However, as they soon found out, another props problem was created. The scene called for the girl 'haunting' the house to catch, kill and eat a rat. Carmelita had placed blood pellets inside the fake rat they'd constructed, and when actress Mandy Playdon bit into the rat, the blood was supposed to gush out. They shot the scene once and then stopped." can't see blood on camera. "I'm staring at [Mandy] and she's just covered in blood, it's running down her chin, so I'm like 'What? She's covered in it!' It turns out red doesn't show up under infrared light. Once the team realized the problem, they had to fix it - fast... Chris and the team swung into action, trying to find a different color that would show up under the lights. Chris grabbed a jug of brow food coloring that they use to simulate beer, took a swig to make sure it tasted okay (since Mandy was going to have to bite into it) and they were soon back in business." (p. 30) Chris is propmaster, prop department

High School Confidential, by Kate Lloyd
Brock Kelly: Kelly admits that imitating another actor on screen was one of the toughest acting challenges he's faced. "I've never really mimicked anyone on film... I didn't really know how to approach it." "He gave me real insight." (p.58)

Shout at the Devil, by Nicholas Knight
"Personally, I think [Lucifer is] misunderstood... Part of our job in the Writers' Room is to make everybody's motivations as logical as possible. No one sets out to be evil; everyone sets out thinking they're doing the right thing. In the season four finale, there's a private moment with Lilith when she says to her minion, 'Don't be afraid... we're going to save the world,' and I think she honestly believes that." Kripke, p.6 Season 5 stuff

Look up Constellation awards for Season 4, and British Fantasy Awards

"Lazarus Rising"... "For the scene at the filling station with all the glass getting blown out, Kim Manners thought it'd be a good idea to use real glass for a couple of the shots because candy glass doesn't shatter like tempered glass. So we used real glass in a couple of the shots. A couple of the real big explosions were done by my stunt double, Todd Scott, who came out of there just completely bloody, but then I had to tall into one shot and there was glass all over the ground. I had all this blood coming out of my arm and I thought, 'Is this normal?'" Ackles, p. 16

Padalecki vacation during In the Beginning filming

Hunger Pangs, by Bryan Cairns
When you received the script, what interested you most about the character of Jack Montgomery? Dameon Clarke: "It had this Wolf Man element written all over it. It reminded me of back when Lon Cheney was doing the Wolf Man [movies]. It was the humanity in Jack that made us feel for him. It wasn't just 'guy turns into beast, guy eats people, and boys kill beast.' The writers wrote Jack so beautifully, and it was a meaty character, no pun intended!" p.24

Being a nice guy with a wife definitely helped to make Jack a sympathetic character. "It wasn't so much that it was written that way, because we could have played it differently. That's what struck me as soon as I read it. Director Kim Manners actually gave me a call when I booked it and we talked about the character, how Jack was this regular, loving family man, who was in an unfortunate situation which he had no control over. To make him a bad guy, it was really just the circumstances. We wanted people to feel for him so that by the end viewers would feel it was a shame for him to go." pp.25-26

When the Rugaru side of Jack started to emerge, what kind of direction did they give you on how to contort or move? "There really wasn't much discussion on that. The thing about Supernatural is that it shoots very quickly, so basically I just did my thing and thought if it didn't work for somebody they'd let me know... In terms of movement of the character, they just let me run with that." p.26

Wore contact lenses for eyes

"We filmed stuff that didn't make it [into the transmitted episode], which was just nuts. We were downtown and they had me strapped to a cable. We shot three stories above the ground along the side of this apartment complex [with me] climbing the walls. It was super rad, but it didn't make the cut. We shot a lot of cray stuff with special effects that I assume got back to the lab and they felt wasn't working. Originally, in the bar scene that dude actually punched me first, and then I came back to take him out. There was a gash from where he punched me, I went back to my car, looked in the rear view mirror, and saw my rejuvenating powers at work as the gash closed up in front of me." p.28

Were you pleased they tied Jack's predicament in with Sam's own demon problems? "That was a really nice parallel, and the fans liked it too. There was that empathy that made it a little more difficult for the viewers to say goodbye to Jack because they could say, "I get it more because it's happening to my favorite character." (p.28)

Manners' last directorial project (http://www.tvguide.com/news/supernatural-manners-dies-1002150.aspx)

The Kripkeeper, by Nicholas Knight
"I felt a really intense amount of pressure to make the episode great. Because it was the finale, I knew how large the scope and size of the episode were going to be, how epic it needed to feel. On top of that, there was the added pressure that it was the first finale that Kim Manners hadn't shot, and obviously Kim had decades of experience and knew how to handle episodes of this size, and I had directed a total of one other episode of television besides this. So I have to say I felt quite nervous and very stressed, and I felt the pressure to live up to the standards that Kim set." p.34 "I definitely felt like Kim was on my shoulder as I was going through my shot design. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I asked myself several times, 'What would Kim do here?' There's this Kim Manners characteristic close-up, which is this really tight close-up that kind of cuts off the chin and the forehead, and I found myself using that close-up a lot, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, but I think I did it because I wanted it to feel like a Kim Manners finale in some ways." p.34

"Mostly it made a difference for the worse, because when it's somebody else's script I have the advantage of being able to, as !!! head writer, rewrite it to my taste and make any changes I want to make. Then if the episode didn't turn out or wasn't very good, for whatever reason, I could always blame that other writers. [Laughs] But on this one, I really felt like I was standing ot there without any cover; I felt if this one didn't work, there's only one person to take the blame and that's me, so I ended up feeling a bit more pressured." pp.34-35

"I think it actually went very smoothly, all things considered. The hours were long and you always feel a little guilty as the director because every complicated shot you have means that the crew is going to have to stay past 12 hours and ti's sort of your fault. I think the shortest day was 13-and-a-half hours... and it only went up from there..." "The only real snag was that on the last day there was this scene that just wasn't fitting smoothly into the schedule. We knew we were going to have difficulty finishing, and we couldn't shoot another day because that day was the last day of the season..." "So we knew we couldn't shoot longer than nine days, but there was this one particular scene where Castiel rescues Dean from this cage he's trapped in, and it was fairly complicated and it just wasn't fitting in the schedule, so we decided that what we needed to do was bring up Phil Sgriccia to direct that scene on the ninth day. So I was on one stage shooting the slaughtering of the nuns and Phil was on the next stage shooting with Jensen, Misha, and Kurt Fuller, so it was a bit of a three-ringed circus. In between my set-ups, I would rush over to Phil's !!! stage to see what Phil was doing and make sure it was all the shots I wanted because Phil was working off my shot list, as well as adding his own formidable skills and ideas to the mix." pp.35-36

"In the very beginning stages of mapping out season four we knew that once Ruby was revealed as a double-agent that we were going to kill her, so that Sam would at least get some victory out of the finale. I didn't really second-guess it, because it was something we'd planned to execute for a very long time." p.37

"In the beginning of the season, we had a plan that if it really seemed like this was going to be the last season we were going to slide the events of the season finale up three or four episodes, doing a very truncated version of it in the last few episodes of the season, and then we were going to do what is pretty !!! much going to be the extent of season five. We would have really rushed through the major points of season five and been able to climax the entire storyline so that the fans could've had a complete story." pp.38-39

"I probably averaged about three, three-and-a-half hours of sleep a night. I subsisted the first week and a half on a diet of dried toast because my stomach was too nervous to process anything else." p.39

Far From Heaven, by Bryan Cairns
Kurt Fuller: "Well, that's very interesting, because he was described to me as being like the actor Morgan Freeman. When I think of Morgan, he's calm, benign, nice, but an !!! authoritative guy. As an actor, I don't play benign very well. When I try to play benign, even when I'm a good guy, people go, 'Oh, you're the bad guy. You were the jerk in that!' even when I was the nicest guy I could possibly be. I know that about myself, so I had to decide to play him as a boss. When you see Zachariah the first time, he actually takes the form of Dean's boss. I thought that was a great way into it. I play him as someone who has a plan and is just trying to get everyone to go along with his vision. Zachariah can be funny, strong, pathetic, cool, or do whatever he has to do, because he knows his plan is the right one." pp.40-41

On Zachariah's glib attitude: "I love Zachariah's sense of humor and intelligence. Really smart people love to feel they're smarter and glibber than everyone else, and so does Zachariah." p.41

"It's very easy to Google anything, and because I don't want to play an angel as a concept, or second-guess what these fantastically creative geniuses are doing, whenever I think about being an angel, it gets away from the spirit of the show. I'm just playing a person, and I don't want to second-guess what the relationships are or how it resonates biblically. I just want to play what's on the page and let what unfolds be determined by the writers. This isn't a history show, so I don't want to go there." p.42

"He sees [Sam and Dean] as smelly little !!! necessary things, just like he was when he was a human. They are cogs in a much, much, much bigger plan, and as inconvenient, slightly off-putting necessities." pp. 42-43

Zachariah's bad "That wasn't outlined for me at the beginning in any way, shape, or form! That was a bit of a surprise to me. I'm still wondering what episode I'm going to get killed in. Nobody told me anything. The writers had a plan. They knew how many episodes I was going to do. I thought that was an incredibly well-written script." p.43

"The thing I like about Zachariah is he works on people's minds. He's manipulative and dissects people's behavior to try to influence them based on where he can probe their susceptibilities. It takes a lot more creativity, too. Anybody can blast somebody out of a building. That's easy, but to talk them into jumping out of the windows is much harder." p.44

"You don't get what you want by being a complete jerk, so you use a little threat, enticement, and appeal to their best natures or the part of them that wants to do good. Just like in life, you can't dominate someone and get what you want. You will only get resentment and they will try to screw you any chance they can. That's what I was trying to avoid." p. 45

"You've probably heard this before, but no actor ever sees himself as a villain. They always see themselves as the hero of the story. Zachariah is trying to save all of eternity and maintain the proper balance between Heaven and Hell. What he's doing is absolutely necessary and the right thing to do." p.43

Expected character to die in fifth season. p.45

"I don't do a lot of episode television anymore, but this is one I'm really proud of." p.45

Directors's Cut: Phil Sgriccia, by Nicholas Knight
On Are you there god?... "We were thinking of bringing back others, but it became a budgetary thing and we could only bring back so many." p.50

"We'd already done the shot a couple times. So Jensen was lying in the car, we started up the song and Jared was supposed to come up and tap on the roof to surprise him. But Jared doesn't come up, and the music keeps going, and I'm like, 'What the hell is going on?' Jared and Jensen play jokes on each other all the time, but I didn't know he was going to do this, so I was about ready to yell 'Cut!' and then I thought, "Let's see what he does..." Sure enough, Jensen sits up and what you see at the end of the show is what we got." p.51

"If you look at the episode, there are a whole bunch of visual references to jumping the shark. The art department did a great job. Cousin Oliver's Cafe was named after the cousin that was added in year five of The Brady Bunch to help the ratings. And if you look in the background of a couple shots you'll see Fonzarelli's Water Park. I can't tell you all of the Easter eggs - you gotta look for them!" p.54

"Jake Abel was great, and he actually did come off as a little bit of a mix between Jensen and Jared - you really believe that he could be their brother." p.54

Casting Spells, by Nicholas Knight
Fifth season stuff

"It wasn't actually that hard, to be honest, because throughout the last several years I've cast a lot of kids in that age range, so I already had an idea of who to bring in. I still pre-read and investigated a lot of other kids so that we had several good choices. Jake Abel was an outstanding choice. I'd known him because when he was first starting out he'd been a major !!! contended for a Lifetime TV movie I was casting, so he was one of the first people I thought of when I was doing this particular episode." Robert Ulrich, casting director, pp. 58-59

Interview with the Vampire, by Nicholas Knight
Todd Stashwick: "It was just a straight up audition. I never shot with Jensen on that Dark ANgel episode so I didn't meet him, but I did a pilot with Jared many years ago that never got picked up. It was called Close to Home..." p. 64

Had you actually seen the 1931 film of Dracula prior to shooting the episode? "I think I watched it 20 times while getting ready for this role!" p. 64

Were you asked to purposely emulate Bela Lugosi's portray of Count Dracula? "Yes! The breakdown basically said, 'Must be able to do a Dracula/Hungarian accent, preferably actors that look like !!! Bela Lugosi.' Essentially the audition was, 'Try as much to emulate the essence and performance of Lugosi.' pp. 64-65

"What's funny is that actors kind of are shapeshifters. I think there's a lot of need in an actor to play other people. I don't think it's out of a sense of dissatisfaction with yourself, 'cause I'm happy with who I am, but I think there's a great deal of joy in disappearing into someone else's mindset. I can certainly relate with that need to become something else. It's funny because there's that whole monologue scene where I'm talking about how much I just love movies, because I found escape in movies myself as a kid growing up in the suburbs of CHicago. I sought a great deal of escape in the movies and then found a way to turn it into my profession! I think there are a lot of common things there, and that scene where I'm telling Melinda's character that I'm a monster was especially fun, because within the course of one episode I got to go from a character who's chewing up the scenery to playing someone so fragile and scared. That was an absolute joy." p.65

"[Bob Singer] trusted me and just let me do my thing, because there was an understanding that I had done my research." p.66

"Yes, it was me driving the Vespa! I kept worrying that my cape was going to 'Isadora Duncan' [the famous dancer killed in the 1920s when her long scarf got caught in the wheel of her sports car, strangling her] me and get caught underneath the back wheel. But I kept practicing in the parking lot at like three o'clock in the morning. I actually own a Vespa, but it's an automatic, and I'd never driven a manual, so I had to practice so that I wouldn't stall out and look like a jackass." p.67

Adam's Family Values, by Jayne Nelson
Audition process, "It was fairly quick and easy." p.68

"When I got the role I was sent a couple of seasons to watch, to get a feel of Sam and Dean's [dynamic], and I was hooked." p.68

"...so when I read the breakdown and saw that he was their long-lost third brother, it kind of put more pressure on the role." p.71

"I had a week to watch every episode, and I was trying to see what their interactions were like, because even though it's nature versus nurture, my character didn't grow up with them, so my mannerisms would be different. But as far as their voices or a few body tics here and there, whatever they had, I really tried to get that family thing going on, including with Jeffrey Dean Morgan." p.71

"You can't play it like, 'Okay, so I'm Adam, but really in the back of my brain I'm a ghoul!' It kind of complicates it too much. You just gotta go in and play it as Adam; Adam who lost his mother. Then when the ghoul comes out, that's really where the fun happens!" p.72

"I didn't want anyone to let out how many episodes I was doing - I wanted the fans to completely think that this was the third Winchester brother - whether they were pissed off, or happy, or they were intrigued, I only wanted them to think, 'This is the third Winchester, and I have no idea how long he's gonna be on the show.' I wanted to play that prank, for lack of a better word." p.73

Supernatural Secrets from San Diego Comic-Con, by Tara Bennett (season 5 stuff)
"It's the full on, End of Days, out of the Book of Revelation, Apocalypse. But due to budgetary reasons, much of it happens off camera. We're referring to it as the 'Wal Mart Apocalypse.' But there are Horsemen, the Devil, and God. It's the whole deal, and our heroes' goal of the season is to pull the plug on the Apocalypse. The angels want it to move on to Paradise, and the demons want it too; everyone wants to bring on the prize fight, which is what we introduced in the [fourth season] finale. It really set the stage for what we play out in season five." Kripke, p.6

"Funnily enough, with it being the Apocalyptic season, in my mind it's one of the most optimistic seasons of Supernatural we've done. We've spent so much time tearing the brothers apart we feel we owe it to the audience to bring them back together. It's going to be slow and painful. They need to come back together older, sadder, wiser, but ultimately stronger. They need to learn how to break their old patterns and forgive each other." Kripke, p.6

"For Sam's story, we used the metaphor of an ex-addict trying to reintegrate into his family. When you're in that real life situation it's brutal, because you're met with temptation daily. He's basically an ex-heroin addict surrounded by walking, talking heroin all day. He's trying to resist and he doesn't have the support !!! of his family because they're hurt and angry and don't trust him. It becomes a real bittersweet and ultimately heroic journey to stay strong no matter what and overcome that. But then Dean isn't entirely without blame. He has to learn how to break his patterns and not treat Sam like a freak, but like a little brother again. We've torn down their relationship and now we're going to rebuild it, block by block, with missteps and detours to wring as much pain out of it as possible. By the end of the season they'll be back together and stronger than ever." Kripke, pp.6-7

"The reality is that I have a five-year plan and we are going to finish this story this year. We're not going to drag it out or try to stretch it to accommodate and then dilute it and weaken it. We're going to tell this story with a bang and it's going to end. But we are leaving the possibility for a new story to begin. This chapter may be over, but there is nothing saying a new story can't begin. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Kripke, p.7

Heroes and Villains, by Nicholas Knight (season 4/5 stuff)
Sam and Dean character stuff

"I guess demon blood is a drug, and Sam is an addict. It's interesting and fun to play. Sam believes it's coming from wanting to make the world a better place; he really thinks he wants to blood to get rid of demons. I thought it was great for the storyline." Padalecki, p.12

Lilith Incarnate, by Nicholas Knight
Except for a brief stint in demon Ruby's body, as portrayed by Katie Cassidy, Lilith had always inhabited the bodies of little girls before. Did you try to maintain some of that childlike quality? "I did, and I was glad that I had the chance to develop that more, and to bring out more sides of Lilith. You can't do it all in one scene, so it was awesome to be called back for another episode because I got the chance to actually bring out all the different parts of Lilith." Katherine Boecher, p.20

Rotate bodies, so "...I was pretty sure that that was it, that it was like, 'Hi Canada, bye Canada, I'm done.' So it was really surprising when I got the call, and I was very excited to come back." p. 20

"You know, I gotta say, there's a little part of an actor that's all, 'Aww, man, I'm dying.' But the story was so good that it really didn't leave any choice - she had to go -so I think it was definitely worth it. It was fun to play getting offed as a demon. A lot of fun!" p.20

"Mike would let me do my own thing and then he'd give me a little pointer here or there, or come and talk to me a little bit. He really allowed me to do whatever I wanted with the role, which was really cool." p.21

"[Kripke] was extremely specific about exactly what he wanted for each scene. It was interesting having my own ideas of what I wanted to bring to this episode and then coming and having the creator, the person who knows everything about the show, explain what to go with. It was amazing." p.21

She-Devil, by Nicholas Knight (season 5 stuff)
"It was just a regular audition." Miner, p.42

"One of the things that informed Meg most for me was that she has lived for thousands and thousands of years. I don't think that can really be lost. She's obviously evil, she obviously does not like the boys and they've given her a hard time, so she plays with them. But I think that perspective of time and the amount of time she's been around probably plays in to it, whereas if you or I were pissed off it would be so immediate. Meg's experienced so much life - or unlife - as a demon that there's a little bit more of relaxation and cat-and-mouse kind of fun to it all for her, because when you're out of Hell, which is not pleasant, and you get to be on Earth, you want to have as much fun as possible." Miner, p.43

"When I first got the role, it was pretty quick [to start filming the episode], so I hadn't gotten to see much of her work. I watched some clips, though, and I really enjoyed her work. It was an interesting balance, because I didn't want to copy another actress' work - that wouldn't be very good. On the other hand, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't too far off from it, because that wouldn't make sense since it's the same demon inhabiting a different body." Miner, p.43

"What was interesting, which I think is a testament to the writing, is that my instincts with the character were very similar to what both Jared and Nicki had done before. I just kind of lucked out in that my performance wasn't too far off with the choices I made." p.43

"I did take to heart that the character meant so much to people... That became something I took into consideration because I didn't want to disappoint people by taking away from what was originally there." p. 44

Director's Cut: Adam Kane, by Nicholas Knight
"Colin Ford and Brock Kelly were so in tune with the emotions that were built into the script and had such a great rapport with each other." Kane, p.48

"Because of my background as a cinematographer, we were able to talk specifically about lenses and camera placement, and Serge really embraced that with open arms. He had terrific ideas about ways of color-timing the episode so that the footage we shot of the younger boys had a slightly different feel, but not so dated that it was jarring." p.49

"There was a big question mark over whether Jensen was going to go for that or not. It was written in the script as sch, but we had prepared an alternate costume that was long sweatpants or something. Fortunately, he wanted to do it! I'm so glad he did, because the whole bit in that scene is about the visual gag, and he just owned it." p.49

Supernatural Visions, by Nicholas Knight
"In season four through season five, there's been a shift in the visual effects - they're getting bigger. Because it's getting toward that apocalyptic climax, we're seeing some more of the grandiose effects that we shied away from in the first three seasons when we left a lot up to the imagination. For example, with the introduction of Castiel in season four, when we did the angel wings shot [in Lazarus Rising], we enhanced the framing that was there, and when Eric and everyone saw that it !!! was a very effective shot, that set the stage for visual effects from then on. It's been like a freight train ever since." Hayden, pp.57-58

"We view our demon smoke as a character. So when I read the script for Lazarus Rising where Sam first uses his exorcising powers and the smoke jets out, moves around and then burns into ash, !!! I started to think, 'How can we make our smoke look like it's helpless?' We looked to dry ice and came up with a particle simulation. Then we took the idea of it burning in the air, but we pushed it down and burned it on the floor. The art department then created a burned floor segment so that as we push the smoke through the normal floor, we leave the burnt floor." p.59

"For Alastair, we actually had an idea where it'd be more akin to the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade scene where the person would wither away like a mummy. It looked great and we were going to go with it, but because we knew what was coming at the end of Lucifer Rising, we weren't sure how we were going to be able to tie that in with Lilith and all that blood. So then we went back to the first time the Colt was used to kill that vampire [in season one's Dead Man's Blood]. We also talked about when Dean killed the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Then we got the bricks shaking and made it a bit of a monumental thing." p.59

"It's a lot more challenging. It's not like we're getting more time on the schedule to do the bigger effects. For the first episode of season five, we did 76 shots. With the exception of some of the shots in the plane, every shot in the teaser has visual effects, so that's a big undertaking. Looking at the story arcs that they've got coming up, it's going to be an even bigger season ahead, that's for sure." p.60

"For the demon-killing knife it's typically an all-CGI blade when they're killing someone." Hayden, p.60

"In episode two, there's a big matte painting where we're destroying a bridge, which was a lot of fun and a big challenge for us." p.60

"This year [season 5] we've added a new outer particle layer to the typical inner core to give the smoke more life and depth. It's subtle, but the look is excellent. We've also added more 'curve and twist' to the smoke. Fans may also notice the camera roving around more during visual effects shots as we 'unlock' the camera and further utilize available tracking technologies." Lead visual effects artist Mark Meloche, p.61

"Our 3D and 2D department knocked it out of the park. Using live elements of the boys nested into our compositions, and using photos and HD video reference, our artists created a photo-real scene including such nuances as flowing water caustics on the various bridge surfaces, atmospherics, and falling debris." Mark Meloche, p.61

"Sam ends up going through a painful withdrawal from consuming demon blood [in When the Levee Breaks]. One particular shot is of a series of black veins climbing down Sam's arms into his hands. The entire shot is synthetic. We used photos taken on set, 3D-generated arm, leg, feet, and hand geometry, and projected the photos back onto the 3D models. The POV of the hands was so close up, the construction of the shot had to be carefully choreographed. Depth of field, color correction, and final touch-ups were handled in compositing." Mark Meloche, p.61

Last Men Standing, Nicholas Knight
"If you see the black grow and then shrink back, that's obviously CGI, but if it's going to be black for a while, then a lot of times they'll throw in contacts. I actually like having the contacts. Instead of them going, 'Now open your eyes and slowly blink and now they are black and back again,' I'd rather see through demon eyes. With the contacts you feel weird and you can't see very well. You feel like a demon because the black contacts have this little slit in them that goes over your pupil. It 's like looking through a straw or something, and it makes you feel otherworldly. It's very focus and pinpointed-it's like demon vision!" Padalecki, p19

A Wing and a Prayer, by Jayne Nelson
Season 5: "We have a second-unit day this season which means basically each episode has a ninth day of shooting; last year we were shooting in eight days what we're shooting in nine days this year, and that makes a huge difference for the crew, because the hours are a lot more manageable." COllins, p.21 Season 4

Brothel scene, "[Castiel] was horrified." (Collins laughs) p.23

In season 5 "I am sick of the suit! It's kind of perfect in that sense. It's almost a metaphor wrapped inside a metaphor. Oddly, I think the outfit does help me with the character now, because I just put it on and automatically certain things happen to my body. I immediately feel a little bit stiff. It has been indelibly printed on the character." Collins, p.24

Hell's Angel, by Nicholas Knight
"I didn't audition for it. They just called me. I'm not sure what the machinations were behind the scenes, but maybe they thought since I was playing a Christ-like figure on Lost that there'd be that dichotomy with playing the Devil on Supernatural, that it'd be an interesting overlap." Pellegrino, p.30

"The good thing about Supernatural is that I think Lucifer has a real beef that's very worldly in nature and easy for anybody to understand. He's been betrayed. I think any person can relate to wanting justice. Whereas Jacob is more of a celestial kind of character; he's a little more difficult to relate to. I think Lucifer's really down to earth. I think he's got a real cause to be upset. He's been betrayed and he's seeking justice. I try to make him be as human and as relatable as possible. And sympathetic." Pellegrino, p.30

About manipulating Nick: "I think Lucifer was being utterly and totally honest from his point of view. It could be that the ends justify the means in Lucifer's mind, so it's okay to lie because the end is just, but I like to think of him in terms of being utterly straight. And if you think about it, his case is pretty strong. He really doesn't have to go through a lot of fancy machinations to make somebody believe that he has a just cause." p.30

"Lucifer didn't want to serve man. I think being asked to serve a being that's lower than you is like asking a virtuous man to sacrifice for the unvirtuous. It feels like injustice. Then to be condemned and cast out, to be betrayed by your father for it....It's quite a tale of Hamlet-esque, Shakespearean proportions. That's the way Lucifer looks at it: it's a horrible injustice." .p30

"I took out the girl who played my wife [Bellamy Young] and talked with her !! over a glass of wine about the work and got to know her so that we had a connection during those scenes together." Pellegrino, pp.31-32

Things That Go Bump in the Night, Nicholas Knight
"It makes it interesting because we always try to be as 'real' as we can, so with the angels it's not some choir type thing coming up [in the mix], because our angels have a lot of attitude. It's not a soft sound when they're here. The softest we get is probably when they appear or disappear because we want a little feeling of wings for them, a movement through the air when they come and go." Supervising sound editor Michael Lawshe, p.66

"From the angels' first appearance - Castiel's entrance - we had the sound of wings, but little by little we're getting away from hearing the wings because often the angels just appear and disappear. The introduction of Anna, who heard angel voices, started the sound of angel whispers. Sometimes the angels appear so fast there's no chance for it, but for something like Chuck saying, 'They're coming!' we'll hear the angel whispers." Supervising sound editor Charlie Crutcher, p.66

High frequency noise: "You have to be right on that edge, because there are certain frequencies that the human ear is tuned to that are in most people's mid-range, and that's the one you want to pick, because it doesn't have to be super loud, but people [will] think it is. Something in the 3,000 cycles range cuts through really bright. You go just long !! enough that people want to turn it off, but by the time they reach for the remote, poof, we're out of that scene." ML, pp.66-67

Setting the Stage for the Apocalypse, Nicholas Knight
Use for main article

Pit Boss, by Kate Lloyd
2009, voted Best Villain by The Official Supernatural Magazine readers in online poll, and Best Demon/Monster/Ghost in Readers' Awards.

"Once I was cast I looked at the episodes that Mark had done and I just loved the 'music' that he'd brought to Alastair, and I thought that had to be honored." p.38

"It was funny, actually. Just before my audition I was [surfing] YouTube and I came across the video with Jensen doing his 'Eye of the Tiger'. Seeing that, I thought, 'Ah, man, I'd really love to work on that show, that guy looks like a lot of fun!' Literally two days later I got the call and went to audition." p. 38

"I kept is with the script, but knowing what's going on in a scene and the mythos behind it is also absolutely necessary, so I certainly did my research too. There's no point in walking into these things without knowing exactly what's going on and what exactly the characters are talking about. It's too huge [not to do] that." p. 39

"But when you find the bad guy roles that are three-dimensional and there's a struggle going on internally and there's something interesting happening, there's nothing better. So I will have to say, yeah, I'm pretty much down with the bad guy, as long as he's got a little bit of good guy somewhere. Although with Alastair, I'll completely contradict myself and say that I dont think there's any 'good guy' in him.But that's also what makes him so much fun. He just unabashedly loves creating havoc and pain and thinks it's the greatest thing." p. 40

Deja View: Steven Williams, by Jayne Nelson
Watch before? "No, I never watched it. I wasn't even aware it was on! They sent me over the first couple of seasons before I [started] so I could watch it beforehand. I liked it. I've always been a part of shows like that - I was the host of something called Encounters for about a season, and then I was the mysterious Mr. X on The X-Files. Supernatural was right up my alley!" Steven Williams, p. 9

Backstory "Well, the backstory's already there! He's an ex-hunter, and in my jagon he's a 'recovering hunter.' You're never an ex. Once a hunter, always a hunter. He's a hunter who maybe burnt out over something, or he just doesn't want to live the lifestyle anymore or he's found something else to live for. He's gone to the bottle; the bottle has taken the edge off him. We can add stuff as we go." p.9 "'None of us get out of here alive' is sort of his attitude." p.9

"He'd been a cop. He was an ex-cop. All the hunters have jobs, as I understood the script, but I didn't get into it that much. They are something else other than hunters; I do believe that probably there have been students who turned hunter or cops who turned hunter or lawyers who turned hunter. Rufus actually says [in his first scene with Dean], 'A girl like this walks through my door, I check her out.' He's sort of a detective kind of guy." p.9

Getting the role "It was one of those wonderful things that actors absolute love-I was just offered the role. I was offered it by Kim Manners; he held the distinction of being involved with me in two of my favorite shows-21 Jump Street as well as my very last episode of The X-Files, so in between we had a history. We met in 1986, and when the role of Rufus came up he went, 'Steven Williams, that's the guy.' Me and Billy Drago-those were the two characters [in 'Time is on My Side'], Kim informed me when I got to set, 'When I saw these two roles I looked at you for this guy and him for the other guy.' We were both just offered the roles. It's an actor's dream."

Production crew "I knew most of them. I'd worked with most of the crew for five years already on Jump Street, and we did some episodes of Wiseguy when that show shot up there. The Vancouver crew is like family to me."

"That's the reason for having him back! You gotta see what a badass this guy was! He has to be the guy to come in and rescue everybody. He can put that bottle down and stumble into the monster's lair and take him out! I love that!" p.9

Trick or Treat, by Bryan Cairns
"I didn't audition for that role. It was offered to me because Supernatural executive producer Bob Singer produced a pilot I was in many years ago [Sam's Circus]. I assume Bob and the casting director thought I'd be right for the role, although I'm not sure how they reached that conclusion, considering I played an alcoholic, Southern, World War II solider in the pilot he produced! I think it was all the !! time we spent in the hotel in London after shooting. When I got the job, it was simply a call from my agent saying, 'You got an offer of a role on a show called Supernatural.' I was like 'Great! What's the gig?' 'You play a janitor.' I said, 'I can do that. I'm in.' I assumed it was a gust part with one or two scenes where it turned out he did the crime or whatever. I didn't really stress out about it, got on a plane after the holidays, and started leafing through the script. As I was reading it, it like like 'Oh, I'm not just any janitor. I'm a janitor with God-like powers! This is much more interesting than I thought it would be." Richard Speight Jr pp.18,20

Fun playing that glib, snarky attitude? "You know, I did, because when I read it getting on the airplane, I got a different concept of what the character was going to be. As any actor will tell you, reading the script helps, so when I actually looked at the material, I thought it was a whole different animal. In 'Tall Tales', the writers were definitely clear on what this guy was like and what they were going for as far as him being the prankster and a little edgy, but funny. It also leaves a lot of wiggle room as far as you want to interpret that. I just looked at it as if it was less about the lesson and more about the laughs for this guy. If you know you're 10 feet tall and bulletproof, it gives you a lot of leeway to be as obnoxious as you want to be. That was his approach to the guys in that first episode when he didn't have a relationship with them, so I figured I would go on set, swing for the fences, and if they want to pull me back, they can. They just let me go on my merry way and do it thew ay I thought." p.20

"No, I still don't think he's evil. Even with Dean's reaction to the Trickster killing all these people, he actually kills [only] !! assholes. Obviously, we don't do that [in real life], but he was a demi-god! He's the Judge Judy of the Supernatural universe! He's doing what we all dream of doing on a daily basis. I don't think he's evil. He's violating all the laws as we humans utilize, but in the lawless world of the great beyond; in his mind he's doing [humanity] a service." pp.20-21

Not getting killed off in season 2 "Yeah, that was interesting. When I read the script, I was like, 'Oh, that's cool. I live!' Usually in episodic stuff, regardless of the show, you're a one-in, one-out guy. I'd never seen the show when I got the job, so I never had a template to go by. I hadn't even heard of it. I thought I would figure the part out on the fly, that I would have conversations with people, and get a sense of what the show is. The funny thing is, from the airport I was taken to the production office where we did a table read. I meet the two guys, another guest star, Brad May, who was directing the episode then, and we were on a conference call with [the producers] back in Los Angeles. Obviously for the Supernatural people, it was a little off the beaten path at the time because it was more of a humor-based episode. However, the only adjective they kept using at the table read was Supernatural. They kept saying, 'Don't forget the Supernatural-ism of the sequence.' Everyone would nod, 'Yes, yes.' Or, 'Be sure to Supernatural that moment' I was thinking, 'Another adjective would help a guy who doesn't know the show! Throw me a bone here!' I literally left the table knowing less than before I got there. Again, that's why I jumped in with both feet. The auditorium scene [where Sam and Dean confronted the Trickster] may have been the first one I shot, so I just went there. This isn't my first rodeo, so if they wnated to go in a totally different direction, they'd let me know. Otherwise, I thought that was the fun way to go with this guy. Obviously it synched up ell with what they were envisioning." p.21

Mystery Spot "I thought it was a really clever way of bringing him back. From an actor's standpoint, I didn't have a lot to do in that episode, but from the character's standpoint, I thought it was really well executed. Like with 'Tall Tales', if you're going to bring the guy back, you have to do it in a way that balances the humor and the drama. He can't just be all jokes or all serious. That's hard to do on a show like Supernatural, which can be so intense. You have to find that middle ground of having a blast, but wrapping it up with a reason and a conclusion at the end that most likely ties in with the overreaching arc of the show. I thought they did a great job. I get a lot of people who tell me that that's one of their favorite episodes of the series, and that's not because I'm in it! The writers struck an amazing balance of letting some air out of the balloon, but when you least expected it they turned on you." p.21

Returning for season 5 "It was unexpected. I knew they left the door open in 'Mystery Spot'. Obviously, they were leaving their options open, but a season of TV had gone by since then. I was thinking they would go in a different direction, so I was very surprised and pleased. I hadn't lost touch with the show because I'd been doing conventions for it, so Supernatural was still on my radar. I was thrilled to get the call again and then when I read the script, I was even more thrilled." p,21

Gabriel "I thought it was outstanding. Keep in mind I'm not a diehard Supernatural viewer, but when they made that turn in that last scene where he gets serious and throws Dean against the wall, I was like, 'Oooh, cool! They added a little spice.' They took it to a whole other level at the end when they made this huge revelation about his true identity. I was flabbergasted. My other two episodes were open-ended, but really stand-alone. This was an intensely different deal, so I thought it was awesome, but I had to do my homework. The first thing I did was email Bob !! [Singer] and say, 'Unbelievable episode. I need some backstory. Who can you put me in touch with?' He gave me the production office number for writer Jeremy Carver, and we had a couple of conversations. The production office was kind enough to lend me 10 episodes from seasons four and five to watch and catch up on the mythology. It's so intensely rich with layers, story, and intertwining plotlines that have been developing over the years. It's so impressive, and Jeremy even allowed me to watch so DVDs of episodes that weren't out yet, because it informed so much of what I was able to do. In the episode ['Changing Channels'] were I'm saying, 'And whose fault is that? Who let Satan out of the box?' You don't want to ask, 'Just out of curiosity, who did let Satan out of the box?' I've got to inform the Trickster, who I clearly realize now has been following these guys. He's more interested in these two than we would previously have believed." pp.21-22

Losing control and bring that rage out "That's why you get into [acting] as a kid, because of the nuances you are able to bring. You don't often get these kind of guest spots that have all these things going on. I loved the character before this episode. I had a blast with him in 'Tall Tales' and 'Mystery Spot' where there were some slightly grounded moments, but he was still doing his own thing. When they gave me this, this was like playing baseball, where I get to go and really work for a living. I dived into it, because you don't get that opportunity very often. Usually when you do guest star spots on shows, you're the guy who committed the crime, they interrogate you, you admit it, and they go home. This was a whole different animal. They gave me enough strong material that I was able to dole it out in small doses. It was a slow burn that started to raise eyebrows from not only Sam and Dean, but from the audience. What's interesting is that the Trickster is swimming against the current. He doesn't want those things to pop out; he's trying to keep it all together and just encourage the boys to do what they're supposed to in his own Trickster way. He doesn't want to get made a take off the mask. When those sparks are shooting through the cracks, it's fascinating to play because it's trying not to be angry when !! you are angry. He's trying to rein in and keep the facade up. The last thing he wanted to be called out and sucked into the fray." pp.22-23

"I've always felt he likes Sam and Dean. I think he likes them on a deeper level than that they're just fun to mess with. He relates to them in a way that supersedes anything we've seen before with him. I can't imagine him not coming in on Sam and Dean's side when it all goes down." p.23

He is the Prophet Chuck!, by Jayne Nelson
"I hadn't seen the show, so because Chuck has to know so much of the backstory of these guys I went out and rented the first couple of seasons and caught up. So much of the stuff that I said in that first episode were in-jokes and references to other episodes, such as the episodes with the bugs and the ghost ship. I wanted to know what I was talking about. By the time I went up to Vancouver I was an aficionado, but I didn't know a thing when I first went in! It's that kind of show-either you know it or you don't! Because of the nature of my role, I had to know. It was a good mixture-I knew the facts, but I was still new to it all, and in that episode I'm still new to these guys and the idea that they've come and found me. So that was sort of easier to play. I felt like I'd been plucked out of LA and dropped into Vancouver and liked like, 'Okay, what am I in the middle of?'" Rob Benedict, p.26

Carver Edlund, amalgamation of Jeremy Carver and Ben Edlund p.26

"I don't think I'm necessarily mapped after one of the people [in particular], but I think I'm sort of a combination of them all together. Especially in that first episode-so many of the things I said were jokes from the writers' room. We were rehearsing that one scene I had in my first episode where I'm going over all the other things that I've written, and the cast and crew were all dying laughing because that was all inside jokes for them. So yes, he's a combination of lots of the writers. And I think that a lot of times he's Eric Kripke!" p.26

"He's almost down on his luck, one of those lost writers-he never asked for this, you know? He always thought maybe he'd be better than this and write more, but he just felt like he's a hack. But now that he's involved in the stories, it gives him a new-found focus." p.28

More proactive in fifth season "It's almost like the Winchesters' real-life story is the glue that's holding Chuck together! And if that falters, I go, so that's the anxiety I'm playing. I've gotta keep all this stuff together. Somehow it feels as though it rests on my shoulders! Chuck's so scared of all the powers above us, the powers-that-be who all appear and disappear, and they freak him out a lot." p.28

Deal or No Deal, by Nicholas Knight
Worked with Kim Manners on M.A.N.T.I.S. and friends outside of that. "...he was always telling me about how much fun Supernatural was and just how much fun it was to actually do the show. And I could see how excited and happy he was to be a aprt of that. We were always talking about the possibility of getting Eric Kripke and the others to get me on the show. An opportunity arose and I was willing to come in and audition for the role. It wasn't written for me, but it was something I was willing to audition for. I read it and liked it and said, 'Absolutely! I'll go in and do it.' Reading the teaser I was like, 'Well, that's the way to make an entrance! If it starts this way, it's going to be a very interesting episode.' With Mark Pellegrino as Lucifer, you've got a very strong actor in that role, and anybody that goes up against him is gonna have an awful lot of fun. SO I jumped at the opportunity. I was nicely surprised at just how fun it was for me." p.51

Watched some previous performances of other Crossroads Demons. p.52

Abandon All Hope "The intro was certainly a bit of a shocker. It's not often that I get to kiss a man on the crossroads! But it took us a long while to get the scene. I think the actor, Harvey Gold, was very brave in that way. The poor man had to kiss me for many, many hours. It must've been extremely nerve-wracking for him. Harvey was wonderful. I felt for him greatly!" "Phil [Sgriccia] made it as difficult as he possibly could! Phil made sure there were hundreds of takes form hundreds of angles. And it was six hours of kissing the guy, so I got chapped lips..." p.53

"There was a definite sense of inevitable, as though I'd been paying attention, that Crowley had been waiting his turn, waiting for his chance." p.52

The Road Crew, by Nicholas Knight
Impala Transport Coordinator Mark Gould Transport department "Yeah, we totally take care of the car. The car guy on our show is Jeff Budnick, and he's the best there is in Vancouver. He has an assistant, and those two guys look after the cars. They do everything, from top to bottom, including tune-ups." p.56 "The fans probably want to know more about the car than anything else we do. They should know that there are two high-performance cars that we use. There are Chevy 250 engines in there, they've got cams in them, and four barrell carburetors, and four-wheel disc brakes. All the breaks have been converted; they're not old drum brakes anymore. So the stunt guys can do 180's and lock up the real wheels." p.56

"We have four cars on the show that we use, and then we've got a couple of really bad junkers. The car's so rare now - it's 42 years old - so we have two junkers that we use for spare parts. Like a piece of chrome, for example, is just so hard to find now. There are basically four cars, and which one we use depends on what the production requires. Sometimes, for a particular episode, they may want it aged down, so we don't just make it dirty, the guys work at it to give it a certain look. That car's never seen !! on-camera dirty, ever, unless that's how they want it." pp.56-57

Rogue Angel, by Nicholas Knight
2009 SUpernatural Awards, The Official Supernatuarl Magazine voted Best Female Guest Star, p.46

"The only time I ever felt weak as Anna was in that first episode when she was a confused mental patient, but after that I've always felt she was very strong." p.46

"I think Anna's always trying to do what she thinks is right. She might make hasty decisions, but she always tries her hardest to make the right ones for the good of all humanity. I mean, she tries to stop the world ending!" p.46

"I was originally supposed to be in the second episode of season five [Good God, Y'all], but they literally had to cut about 15 pages of the script; so much stuff had to be cut for time." return postponed. p.47

"I think that all of Anna's actions are motivated by what she believes to be the only solution to this Apocalypse." Rewrite history "To Anna, this is the easiest thing to do, and she's gonna do it because she doesn't want the Apocalpyse to happen." p.47

Drawing the Sword, by Nicholas Knight
Returning "I had no idea. Amy Gumenick, who plays Mary Campbell, and I both hoped that we would be returning, but we didn't know. SO when I got the phone call asking me back, I committed to doing the show regardless of the script-I didn't care if I was going to be a featured extra in the background with no dialogue. I'd had such a great time with the entire cast and crew; they have one of the most perfect programs running there that I've ever been a part of." Matt Cohen, p.54

Playing Michael "I approached the role very tentatively. I had so many ideas going into playing God's right-hand man. I talked to Jensen Ackles a lot about that, because Jared Padalecki had played Lucifer in an earlier episode, and I hadn't seen that episode. I kind of wanted to be hand-in-hand with that. I wanted Lucifer and Michael to have similarities, because in that regard I didn't want to reach outside the Supernatural box. I wanted to keep Michael's humanity. Even though he's this perfect being and all these [incredible] things, he's humane, and I felt that was important. Jensen helped me out a lot, just with some ideas that Jared had brought to the table, because Jared wasn't with me on set the day I was playing Michael. I feel fortunate that Jensen took the time and worked with me." p.54

"I think the scenes when John becomes Michael are my favorite pieces of work that I've done thus far in my career." p.57

Meg Uncaged, Bryan Cairns
Caged Heat: "I was very pleasantly surprised. In the past, I would show up briefly in an episode, so I couldn't believe how much I got to be a part of it. It was really fun working with the guys for a change." p.32

"I enjoy every line they give me. I don't have to imbue much in it because it's just amazing dialogue." p.32

Sexual tension between Meg and Castiel: "Well, that was so much fun to play, and I know not all the fans love it. I've received mixed responses on that. Some people !! are jealous and others feel it should never happen. There's nothing better than some good sexual tension between characters that don't belong together at all." pp.32-34

Meg playing headgames with Castiel?: "I don't know. It's complex when you are dealing with a demon, but Castiel definitely sparks her interest more than most. He had some effect on her especially with that kiss." p.34

"I like the character and her strength, even though she's not a good guy. Meg is definitely tough, always has that sense of flirting, and is trying to keep some sense of integrity, even in the worst-case scenario. Unlike some characters, who are total victims in certain circumstances, she's trying to hold onto a position of power when she obviously doesn't have it." p.34

"Meg has a lot of strength and power that we've barely seen so far. I'd love to explore more. She doesn't necessarily have to exert much effort to wield that power either." p.36

"She's obviously quite powerful and has literally gotten inside Sam and Dean's heads, sometimes even in their bodies. It's probably the luck of the draw that she's managed to make it out alive, but part of it is that Meg seems to know when to exit. As in the last episode, she made a hasty withdrawal and gathered her forces to come back. That's her strength... she doesn't take the brothers on unless she has the upper hand." p.36

The Devil and Miss Masters
"'Caged Heat' was my favorite episode, just because there was so much fun stuff to do in it. The episode took Meg in a lot of directions that you might not have expected and that were fun to play." p.63

"I think for Meg and Castiel it's just a fun deviation." p.64

Between Caged Heat and Born Again Identity: "It seems like she's been having a bit of a hard time. Meg doesn't have a lot of allies, so I think she's just basically trying to survive at this point and that's mostly what's been going on. She's obviously been keeping somewhat of an eye on things-I think she keeps in mind everything she can that might affect her, including what the Winchesters are up to-but for the most part she's been trying to avoid Crowley and staying hidden." p.64

"I think Meg's an ambitious demon and she's always got plans up her sleeve, so any opportunity she sees to gain power she leaps on." p.64

"I'm curious to see what direction it'll go in; whether she is watching over Castiel purely for her own ends or whether there's actually some part of her that cares about him." p.66

Rest
TV Guide's "Best Shows of 2008" list

http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/popwrap/item_Wqrw7MK1v7svIukz3OYiKJ;jsessionid=41DB4A2239EBB507811A11068F36EF08

Season 4 best episodes http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rant/2009/01/07/the-50-best-episodes-of-2008-number-30-21/20090107/

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2008/12/lost-battlestar.html