Jensen Ackles explains why Supernatural opted to not recast the older John Winchester after Bruce Campbell passed on the role. Throughout Supernatural‘s run, Jeffrey Dean Morgan has played John, the father of Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Ackles). Morgan has racked up an impressive number of television credits across his career, from a memorable stint as Denny Duquette on Grey’s Anatomy to his current role as the bat-wielding Negan on The Walking Dead. However, Morgan’s time as John Winchester is rarely far from fans’ minds, even though he has only appeared in eleven episodes out of the show’s current 320 total.

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Morgan first played John in Supernatural‘s pilot during a flashback to 22 years before the start of the show. The series itself kicks off when John disappears while on a hunting mission, prompting Sam and Dean to reunite in order to find him. Their investigation into John’s whereabouts, as well as what he himself was tracking, forms a large part of season 1. The original plan was to have an older actor take over the role of John for the scenes set within the present day, because Morgan is only 12 years older than Ackles. However, Supernatural ended up going in a different direction.

Ackles recently appeared on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast Inside of You and shared some behind the scenes secrets about Supernatural. As was previously known, Bruce Campbell was approached to play the older John, and “that was the only person that they wanted.” However, for reasons Ackles was unaware of, the Supernatual producers were unable to get Campbell for the role. Because he was the only actor they had considered, they were left to come up with a new solution. As Ackles put it, “They kind of threw their hands in the air, and they’re like, ‘Well, maybe we can gray Jeff up and have him come back and play an older version of himself.'”

Ackles agreed that was the right decision for Supernatural, as Morgan put on an excellent performance as John and, by keeping him on, the continuity from the pilot was maintained. While it might’ve been fun to see Campbell as John Winchester, it turned out for the best that Morgan remained in the role. He was able to return for Supernatural‘s 300th episode, which provided a heartbreaking goodbye for John. However, as Supernatural wraps up its run this fall, some fans might hope Morgan could appear once more.

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Supernatural was supposed to end earlier this year, but the coronavirus pandemic disrupted production on the final episodes. Luckily, however, work has resumed, and the last seven episodes of Supernatural will begin in October. Undoubtedly, there will be a few surprising returns and callbacks, but it remains to be seen if any of them will pertain to the father who started it all. In 2019, it seemed unlikely that Morgan would return to Supernatural, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be some additional mentions. Only time will tell.

Supernatural season 15 resumes on October 8 on the CW.

Source: Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum

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Rachel Labonte
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Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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