‘The Winchesters’: Jensen Ackles Narration Won’t Be ‘Wall to Wall.’ Says Showrunner
The Supernatural prequel The Winchesters isn’t just the story of how John (Drake Rodger) and Mary (Meg Donnelly) met. Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) returns in The Winchesters too. Dean narrates the show and appeared at the end of the pilot with the Impala. But, don’t expect too much Dean in The Winchesters.
Showrunner Robbie Thompson was at the Winchesters press conference on Oct. 4. Addressing the Dean Winchester narration, Thompson spoke about how much of Ackles’ voice the show will actually include. The Winchesters airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m on The CW.
Why ‘The Wincheters’ won’t have ‘wall to wall’ Jensen Ackles narration
Ackles gives The Winchester its direct connection to Supernatural. Thompson promises some more cameos in the first season, but Thompson still wants The Winchesters to stand on its own.
“We did not want this to be wall to wall narration,” Thompson said. “A light touch was what we wanted. It’s a real treat when you’re working on a script and you can say like, ‘Gosh, what would Dean Winchester say?’ And then you text Dean Winchester, and then he tells you. And it’s been just a great dance.”
That’s smart. The pilot probably has more narration than subsequent episodes will need. Once John, Mary and their demon hunting friends get started on the mission, we won’t need as much Dean telling the story. It’ll still be nice to hear him every once in a while though.
Jensen Ackles helps make the ‘Winchesters’ narration ‘Supernatural’-worthy
Thompson continued to describe the notes Ackles gives on the narration he and the writers write for The Winchesters.
“We as writers will work on a draft of the voiceover,” Thompson said. “I’ll send it to Jensen. He and I will get on the phone and like, ‘How about this? How about that? We said this one last one.’ Then I would say you kind of do like a final sort of pepper pass in the actual booth. We have to do extra, extra due diligence. And it’s always a fun phone call.”
The narration sold Robbie Thompson on the ‘Supernatural’ prequel
Thompson wrote and produced for Supernatural. He said Ackles was a big draw to returning to that world.
That was a big selling point to me when they reached out to me about it. The idea of it was very interesting, but I’ll just be completely honest and say the option to write some more dialogue for Dean Winchester, aka Jensen Ackles, was extremely tempting to the point of being a pretty big selling point. In fact, we were on these stages shooting our first scene. So I’m having this surreal moment of like, ‘Oh my gosh, here we are, we’re doing it.’ And then Ackles sent me the first temp recording. And so I stepped into the other stage and listened to it, and he’s doing the Dean voice, guys, he was doing it. It was down here. And it was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s Dean Winchester in my ear holes.’ And I got goosebumps. I get goosebumps telling that story right now.
Robbie Thompsons, The Winchesters press conference, 10/4/22
