The following is an interview during AHBL3
The Pursuit of Happiness with Supernatural’s Misha Collins
By Jacquie Lee on May 25, 2012
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All Misha Collins wants is a moment of happiness for his angelic alter-ego, Supernatural’s Castiel. And he’s got something special in mind.
“At the very least, I think that Cas should be involved in an orgy. Maybe I’ll put that in my contract. Yes. That’s gonna happen.”
Speaking to LUNA from sunny Sydney ahead of his appearance at this weekend’s All Hell Breaks Loose fan convention, Collins spoke candidly about what life as a servant of the Lord is really like.
“Being an angel does have its hardships. For instance, time travel is pretty draining; and… as an angel you don’t have sex, so that’s kind of disappointing.” (That explains the orgy request then). But it’s not all bad news. “It’s got its perks, you know: you can teleport, you can read minds, things like that,” he adds. “And the time travel is also great if you’re trying to do any kind of stock trading.”
But Collins has his sights set on a loftier role for Castiel. “Being God, which Cas also had an opportunity to do, is much better. I highly recommend it, if you ever have an opportunity.”
Perks aside, Castiel has been through a lot since first appearing at the start of the series’ fourth season. He’s (*SPOILER ALERT*) fought and killed demons, angels, Leviathans and even the occasional human; been killed and subsequently resurrected not once but twice; and played host to all of the souls and Leviathans of Purgatory – an act which led him to proclaim himself the new God, but which eventually resulted in a case of amnesia and a brief stint as a human named Emanuel with a divine gift for healing. And in the show’s seventh season, an increasingly insane Castiel (the result of absorbing Sam’s post-Hell mental trauma) finds himself sucked into Purgatory with Dean and the soul of head Leviathan, Dick Roman.
With all that in mind, has Collins found Castiel to be a challenging character to play? In short, yes.
“Cas has been through a ton over the past several years, and it’s been fun to get to play all of the changes that happen along the way,” Collins says. “And there are times when I’m very insecure about what I’m doing as an actor, and not sure if it’s going to work, at all. I had a tough time figuring out how to play crazy Cas (at the end of season 7) and there were a million ways to play that; and we spent some time on the set, me and the Director (Ben Edlund, who also wrote that episode), figuring out how to make it work. And I think we got it in the end. But my initial version of crazy Cas, I think was not good.”
“But yes, it has been a challenge at times,” he concludes.
Challenge or no, Collins and Castiel have emerged as strong fan favourites, arguably as beloved as the series’ star siblings. Not bad considering Castiel was originally only meant to be around for a couple of episodes; a rumour that Collins attempts to clarify.
“You know what, actually to be honest with you, I don’t even know that that’s true,” he admits. “I know that… I was originally signed up for 3 episodes. And this is the first time that it’s ever dawned on me, but it’s possible that the writers intended for Cas to be around for an entire season or longer at the get-go; because there’s this great device that they have on Supernatural which is that the Supernatural characters – angels and demons, ghosts and ghouls and that sort of thing – can usually occupy different human vessels. So it’s possible that they intended for Cas to be around, but just weren’t sure they were going to keep me as the actor, around.”
“Meg is a good example,” Collins adds. “The character of Meg has been around for years but played by several different actors, and that in the Supernatural universe is okay.
“I think that, at this point, I – and, by I, I mean Misha – have kind of been around long enough and people have gotten to know my face well enough that it would be a little weird if Cas were in another vessel. Although Castiel did take on the vessel of my human…” He pauses, obviously searching for the best way to explain one of Supernatural’s many complicated plot developments. “Oh, now it’s too complicated,” he finishes. “Of a little girl. For one episode.”
Perhaps part of Collins’ success can be attributed to the time and effort he puts into engaging with his fans. He regularly treats his 449,462 Twitter followers to candid snaps, silly videos and tongue-in-cheek tweets that display a sense of humour at odds with his character’s dour nature. Collins modestly claims that his social media success took him by surprise – “I wasn’t really trying to cultivate anything there” – but has found a humanitarian use for his unexpected popularity.
“Another thing that’s lucky about having this kind of fan base is that they’re a very active, very devoted and very generous group of people,” he explains. “So I’ve been in collaboration with fans doing some fundraising for a number of different charitable endeavours, all under the umbrella of a non-profit organisation that I started, again with a bunch of fans.”
That organisation is Random Acts; a collective which “aims to conquer the world, one random act of kindness at a time.” Collins’ next (not so) Random Act will be a trip to Haiti, where his organisation is building an orphanage, community centre and dental clinic, and helping to fund an art school.
“I’m just amazed by the amount of work that we’ve been able to get done down there,” he says. “We have some great partners, some Haitians that we have developed real relationships with there who are just doing some amazing work and who are really selfless, and it’s just an honour to get to work with them and do some stuff that we can feel good about.”
Another thing Collins can feel good about is the reception he’s sure to receive when All Hell Breaks Loose hits Sydney and Melbourne.
“The fan conventions are also a huge surprise,” he states. “I didn’t know that Supernatural had fan conventions, and I certainly didn’t expect them to be all over the world. In the last four weeks I’ve been in Germany and the UK, Brazil and Australia, and I think I might be going… who knows!
“It’s kind of amazing, but it’s a great thing for an actor on a show to get to see the fans in person, because it can be kind of a lonely and alienating experience shooting television. You actually don’t have any interaction with your audience, so it’s great to actually get out there and meet fans, and it’s great that they love the show so much.
“And uh, you know, it’s also fun to get up on stage in front of a thousand people who are screaming and occasionally throwing bras at you,” he adds cheekily. “I occasionally feel like a rock star, and that’s a lot of fun; and I can do it without actually being cool or talented, which is a real coup.”
However, any fans who think they already know the “real” Misha thanks to season six’s The French Mistake should think again. The episode sees Sam and Dean thrown into a parallel universe, where they’re actually Jared and Jensen, actors playing Sam and Dean on a television show called Supernatural (confused yet?)
“It was a shattering of the fourth wall, and everyone in production on that episode was very nervous that that was going to be the end of the show,” Collins admits. “That it was either going to work and be a really funny and really bizarre episode, or it was just going to destroy the show forever. And fortunately it worked; it’s actually my favourite episode of the series.”
Collins was presented with “a very light-hearted satire of the real-life character of Misha”, which he requested producers tweak to be more of a “douchebag”. Not quite getting the result he was after, Collins then took it upon himself to portray the character of Misha as “the biggest douchebag possible” during shooting.
“And, I thought I did a reasonably good job of it,” he says. “He certainly is self-absorbed, and screams like a girl and things like that. But after it aired, everyone said, ‘Hey Misha, it was great to finally get to see you play yourself!’ A crushing blow to my ego, needless to say.”
Douchebag or not, Collins will be back in the role of Castiel for Supernatural’s forthcoming eighth season. So what would he like to see in store for the currently insane, disgraced angel?
“Um… You know, I don’t know,” he muses. “Cas sort of fell from being an angel; in season 5 he became increasingly human. There’s a movie by Wim Wenders called Wings of Desire, where an angel…falls from being an angel to being a human [because he falls in love with a woman], [and] he gets to experience all of the joys of what it’s like to be a human. Having that first sip of coffee…the first time as a human he feels sunlight on his skin, and things like that; and it’s just so magical,
very sweet celebration of humanity.
“And Cas’ experiences of being a human so far have been the exact opposite end of that spectrum: It’s been what it’s like to be drunk, disillusioned and lonely and depraved. So I would love Cas to have some, just one nice thing to happen to him.
“But it’s a show that really does sort of explore the dark side more than anything, so I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s in store,” Collins concedes. “My guess is that there are more travails to come for Cas, and Sam and Dean; but hopefully good stuff.”
Good stuff such as orgies.
That video is very well done. I could tell the author really cared about the friendship.
