Jensen Ackles may have moved on to land an exciting new role on The Boys, but it seems that Supernatural just keeps on sticking with him. The actor, who of course played Dean Winchester for 15 seasons, recently revealed the wrap of his time filming as Soldier Boy in The Boys Season 3 with an announcement that also calls back to Supernatural in a pretty bittersweet way.
Amazon's The Boys was a pretty juicy follow-up project for Jensen Ackles after well over a decade playing the same character on The CW, and even though it reunites him with the Supernatural creator, Soldier Boy sounds like he couldn't be much more different than Dean Winchester. Still, as Ackles noted in an Instagram post, there's an unexpected coincidence between the two:
Alright, gang, fun fact for ya. A year ago today – September 10, 2020 – was the last day on the set of Supernatural. Today – September 10, 2021 – is the last day on the set of The Boys. Coincidence?
The second half of Supernatural's final season had to be delayed due to pandemic production shutdowns, meaning that the show wrapped much later in the year than it would for a typical season, and that surprisingly lined in up with what turned out to be Jensen Ackles wrapping on The Boys. The coincidence may be good news in the sense that filming concluding could mean The Boys getting closer to premiering its third season, but a bittersweet reminder of the end of Supernatural, which remains divisive.
Interestingly, Jensen Ackles is boasting a new look in the Instagram video that he posted to share the fun fact with fans. Take a peek:
That's not just a different look from what he sported on Supernatural for all those years, as it in fact looks more like Jared Padalecki's hair in his early days playing Sam Winchester. It's also an extremely different look from what Jensen Ackles had going on earlier in filming for The Boys Season 3, when he replaced the classic Dean Winchester stubble with a full beard that left him all but unrecognizable.
Based on photos and videos, Jensen Ackles still had the full beard through at least early June, and finally cleaned up (but not fully clean-shaven) by early July. Is his look in the Supernatural callback video that revealed the end of Boys filming a sign that Soldier Boy is all shaved up by the end of Season 3? Or just that Ackles himself shaved before filming for Instagram? Considering how little has actually been revealed about The Boys Season 3, Ackles' facial hair is much more of interest than it would be if some actual plot details had been released by this point.
This new video also wasn't the first time that Jensen Ackles made a callback to Supernatural while working on The Boys, and he shared a video of him wearing a hat for The Boys while blasting "Eye of the Tiger" in a nod to a famous blooper sequence from The CW show. It's not really surprising that Ackles isn't exactly distancing himself from Supernatural, all things considered. While some actors might be keen to step away from a defining role after so many years, Ackles is developing a Supernatural spinoff that will involve Dean Winchester, albeit not as star.
The spinoff started generating more drama than interest almost as soon as it was announced due to Jared Padalecki's reaction to learning about the project on Twitter rather than from Jensen Ackles himself, but the drama has evidently been smoothed over between the former on-screen brothers. Plus, Padalecki himself moved on to a new role after Supernatural, although he stuck around The CW.
As for when Jensen Ackles will make his debut on The Boys as Soldier Boy, Amazon hasn't announced a premiere date just yet, but hopefully the wrap of filming in early September means that Season 3 will be ready to launch in late 2021 or early 2022. For now, you can find the first two seasons streaming on Amazon, and Ackles in full Dean Winchester glory with all 15 seasons of Supernatural streaming on Netflix.
