Jensen Ackles

Jensen Ackles, born March 1, 1978, in Dallas, Texas, is an American actor, director, and singer best known for playing Dean Winchester on the supernatural drama series Supernatural. Before acting, he modeled as a child and began pursuing television work in his teens. His early roles included appearances on Wishbone, Sweet Valley High, and Mr. Rhodes.

Ackles gained wider attention as Eric Brady on the NBC daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives, a role he played from 1997 to 2000. His performance earned him a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series. He later appeared in television dramas including Dark Angel, where he played Ben and Alec McDowell, and Dawson’s Creek, where he portrayed C.J.

In 2004, Ackles joined the cast of Smallville as Jason Teague, Lana Lang’s boyfriend during the show’s fourth season. He also played Priestly in the 2009 romantic comedy Ten Inch Hero. His most significant career role arrived in 2005, when he was cast as Dean Winchester in Supernatural. The series followed Dean and his younger brother, Sam, played by Jared Padalecki, as they investigated paranormal cases and confronted demons, ghosts, monsters, angels, and other threats. Supernatural ran for fifteen seasons and concluded in 2020, making Ackles’ portrayal of Dean one of television’s longest-running dramatic performances.

Ackles directed several Supernatural episodes, beginning with “Weekend at Bobby’s” during the sixth season. He also served as an executive producer on the series’ prequel, The Winchesters, in which he provided Dean’s voice as narrator. The show premiered in 2022 and centered on the relationship between John Winchester and Mary Campbell before the events of Supernatural.

Outside that franchise, Ackles starred in the third season of the crime anthology series Big Sky as Sheriff Beau Arlen. In 2022, he joined the cast of Amazon’s superhero satire The Boys as Soldier Boy, a powerful, aging superhero whose storyline challenged the series’ existing characters and mythology. He reprised the role in later episodes and the spinoff Gen V.

Ackles has also worked in music. He and musician Steve Carlson released the album Radio Company Vol. 1 in 2019 under the name Radio Company, followed by additional releases. In 2010, Ackles married actress Danneel Harris, and they have three children. His career is particularly associated with Dean Winchester, whose humor, loyalty, grief, and resistance to responsibility made him a defining figure in modern genre television.