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12/01/2010
Sci-Fi Blast From The Past - Jensen Ackles (Dark Angel)

Jensen Ackles in Dark Angel. Photo copyright of Fox Television.

Welcome to "Sci-Fi Blast From The Past," a new daily post in which I'll be sharing short excepts from the many celebrity interviews I've done over the years. Hope you enjoy it. First up, Supernatural's Jensen Ackles talks about his guest-starring role of Max's (Jessica Alba) genetically engineered brother Ben in the Dark Angel episode Pollo Loco. This eventually led to the actor's regular role of Alec McDowell, a genetically enhanced transgenic super-solider in the show's second season.

“I had a rather quick audition for Ben,” says Ackles. “In fact, I only read once for the show’s producers, which was unusual. Normally, you go through a far more lengthy process. However, I think they were running behind schedule insofar as casting the character. They were seeing just a select few actors and I happened to be one of them. I guess I was what they were looking for because within four days I was on a plane to Vancouver to start filming.

“Ben was mentally messed up,” continues the actor. “He was a genetic soldier who was trained to kill by Manticore. Ben eventually gained his freedom and ended up in the real world. Unfortunately, after a few years he suddenly flipped out. All his training came back to him and he started acting as if he was back in the military. He began hunting down innocent civilians and killing them. It was like a game to him; in Ben’s mind, this was what he was born to do.

“He was a neat individual to play. I was up in Vancouver for a little over two-and-a-half weeks. It was a pretty complicated episode to film because there was a lot to it. The scenes in which Ben is hunting his victims down were shot up in the mountains and the forests around the city. It was March, so it was pretty wet and chilly when we were on-location. Overall, though, I had an amazing time.”

Steve Eramo

As noted above, photo copyright of Fox Television, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

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Jensen was great as Ben, he was already showing signs of the versatility and depth he's known for today, after playing the complex Dean Winchester on Supernatural for the last 6 years. Ben was scary but he was also sympathetic, it was hard not to feel sorry for this poor guy, for whom freedom didn't set him free but instead drove him mad.

It is funny that Ackles viewed it as such a quick and simple casting process because, little did he know at the time, it wasn't.

One of the episode's writers, Doris Egan(of House), has posted about how Jensen almost didn't get the part because one of the male producers, who had had nothing to do with the audition process, looked at a photo of Jensen and almost dismissed out of hand as being "too good looking"(on a show where slender gorgeous Jessica Alba was playing a trained super soldier? Jealousy much LOL) and believing that because it happened to be all women doing the casting for the episode JA had somehow hypnotized them with his looks(again, on a show where gorgeous slender, relatively UNEXPERIENCED Jessica Alba was playing a trained super soldier. Chauvinistic much?).

Of course the same producer, after Jensen had done such a terrific job at playing Ben, was ready to cast him for a regular role the next season, as a very different character(Alec who was more of a charming rogue trained to kill than a psychopathic serial killer) without even knowing whether he could play comedy or not. Lucky for him, Ackles is great at it and Alec became something of a break out character, if a show on the verge cancellation can have such a thing.

The other interesting thing is that now Ackles has spent most of the last 9 years acting in Vancouver(Dark Angel, Smallville, Devour(film) and Supernatural), whereas at the time of this interview it was clearly a novelty for him.

Posted by: reaper | 12/03/2010 at 10:48 AM

@темы: jensen ackles, дженсен экклз, dark angel, интервью