We were lucky to have the chance to chat for a bit with Jared Padalecki at the Toronto Con, and also to get a report from Jared’s VIP meet and greet from passionate Jared!girl Lynda.
Fans kicked off Jared’s meet and greet with a question that immediately put him in a great mood – can we see a photo of Thomas?
Jared said sure, and pulled out his iPhone, saying that Gen sends him a photo of the baby every morning, so he never has to go a day without seeing his son.
Fans: Awwww
But when Jared pulled out his phone, what came up was not a photo of baby Thomas – but a message from Richard Speight! Jared had busted Richard the day before, sending him a photo of a store called The Small Man Store, with the message, “you should shop here”. Richard had just retaliated by sending Jared a photo of The Moose Factory, with the message “I’ll check that out as soon as you get your mane combed and your hooves clipped.”
Fans: Boys!
Luckily, Jared had plenty of photos of Thomas to share.
Fans: More awwwww
Fan: So what else is going on? What’s new?
Jared said that he’d been approached by actor Justin Hartley and asked to appear on his new reality tv show that explores the exciting lives of the rich and famous. Jared declined.
Jared: My life is too boring! I go to work, come home, play with the kid, play with the dogs, study my script, that’s it.
Fans: Sounds plenty interesting to us….
Jared confided that he’d never really been into the Hollywood scene of premieres and red carpets, and now that he’s a dad, even less. Fans nodded their approval.
A fan then brought up the topic that is currently taking over many of our twitter feeds – Jared’s hair.
Fan: So your hair is sort of wavy and long now – is it naturally curly?
Jared: Yes, actually it is. On the first season of Supernatural, they straightened it for Sam. But every time I pulled my shirt over my head, it got all messed up and looked terrible. So I eventually convinced them to stop.
Fans: We approve. (Because Jared’s hair?? Yeah. We might have a bit of a thing for it….)
When talk turned to Season 8, Jared confided that he’d been worried about fan reaction to Sam not looking for Dean after his disappearance at the end of Season 7.
Jared: You guys have to remember, every other time, I’ve had a clue where Jensen is – I mean, where Dean is. I knew he was in hell or something. Sam has always had a way of trying to find him. But this time, I had no idea – he just disappeared and I had no handle on it to even look for him. Also in the past when Dean disappeared, Sam had some support – he had Bobby, or he had someone – but this time there was no one, everyone was gone. It was truly a “fresh start” for Sam. And Sam had to make a new life for himself, and he did — there’s even the Dog.
Fans: *wibble*
Like Jensen, Jared also talked about the conflict coming up between the brothers, over Sam’s fresh start and over Dean’s new relationship with Benny the vampire.
Fans: *are biting nails* Hang on for a wild ride this season!
With a table full of passionate fans, talk turned to how many more seasons of Supernatural we can count on, especially since the boys shared that Mark Pedowicz, the newish head of the CW, had come up to Vancouver and taken the guys out to dinner recently. That bodes well, right?
Jared confirmed that yes, it does.
Fans: Phew!
Jared: It’s gonna go ten years.
[Note: just to clarify, no network pick-up yet, but what Jared thinks]
Fans (are greedy): And after that?
Jared: I don’t know. You can’t ask me about it now, I’d have to consider the circumstances at that time. I’ve had a lot of good advisors throughout my career, there have been things I was offered that I haven’t accepted.
Fans: Like?
Jared: Like the movie American Pie.
Fans: (are imagining certain scenes from American Pie recast with Jared Padalecki….)
Jared: And maybe I could’ve gotten famous overnight, but it wasn’t the direction I wanted my career to go. There’s nothing wrong with the film and those who did do it, but it wasn’t the right direction for me.
Fans: (are hoping that SPN is the right direction for Jared’s career for a long long time!)
We chatted with Jared later in the day about our book that was published earlier this year, Fandom At The Crossroads. Since Jared, Jensen, Misha and Jim all contributed extensive interviews to the book, we gave each of them a copy – but we honestly didn’t expect any of them to actually read it.
When we gave a copy to Jensen, we thanked him for his thoughtful contributions.
Jensen: (grinning) I’m pretty sure you did all the work!
Totally not true, we pointed out – after all, some of the interviews they gave us took place well after midnight after a long day of shooting! Then Jensen made us cry by insisting that we autograph the book. For *him*.
Jensen: After all, I’ve given you tons of autographs over the years, fair is fair….. Um, are you okay?
Us: Um, fine. Something in our eyes….
Then Jared made us get all emotional too at Toronto Con. Damn these boys for being so sweet!
Lynn: So we heard you read some of our book?
Jared: (emphatically) Some?! I read it ALL, every bit of it! Didn’t Misha tell you? I told him to tell you!
Kathy: Um, yeah, he did… but we thought he was probably exaggerating….
Jared: No! I read all of it – and I loved it.
Us: (gaping unattractively) You did??
Jared: I did. It was really well written. And it really helped me understand a lot of things better. Even here, at the conventions.
Us: (still gaping) It did??
Jared: (nodding) So am I still the only one (of the cast) who’s read all of it?
Kathy: Jensen read some, Misha’s been kinda busy, and Jim Beaver read about 2/3 of it last we checked (avid reader that he is, Jim read that much the first day we gave it to him).
Jared: (grins) (with dimples) (just sayin….)
Kathy: (finally recovering some composure) In all seriousness, we really want to thank you, you contributed so much to this book, and it’s done well enough that we have two more books on Supernatural coming out.
Jared: And I’ll read those too! Um, are you okay?
Us: Oh sure, fine. We just keep getting something in our eyes….
You’ll have to forgive us for being so emotional – it’s just that these guys are sometimes too awesome for words. We had a great time at TorCon and were thrilled to catch up a bit with Jared, Richard Speight, Matt Cohen, Chad Lindberg, and Misha Collins. More from those chats later – right now, we need to find some tissues.