Misha Collins’ First Supernatural Scene Was So Bad He Had to Redo It the Next Day
Misha Collins originally auditioned to play a demon in “Supernatural,” so he could be forgiven for needing time to warm up to Castiel, the angelic character he ended up playing in Eric Kripke’s horror drama. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Collins and his co-stars, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, looked back on his early days on “Supernatural,” with Collins sharing an interesting detail about having to reshoot his first scene.
Castiel first appears in the season 4 episode “Lazarus Rising”, which is often considered one of the best episodes of “Supernatural”. The character’s grand entrance sees him bursting into a building where Dean and Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver) are standing their ground, absorbing a hail of bullets as he walks towards them, looking completely unfazed. It’s a great scene, but the creators weren’t happy with Collins’ first takes. As he said:
“My first performance in ‘Supernatural’ was so poor that we re-shot the next day because they got the dailies of my scary performance and they were like…”
Although he was heavily involved in the scene, Ackles does not recall being called in for reshoots, suggesting that Collins was the only actor who failed to live up to expectations at the time. That said, Castiel’s star became a major part of the show through “Supernatural” season 15, proving that the creators must have been happy with his overall performance. However, the reshoots pale in comparison to Collins’ worst experiences in “Supernatural,” as playing Castiel caused permanent damage to his health.
Playing Castiel on Supernatural led to Misha Collins suffering physical pain
Misha Collins’ first appearance as Castiel didn’t please the creators of “Supernatural,” but he improved and he took the role very seriously from that point on. In fact, Collins was so dedicated to playing the character that he developed a sore throat from the voice he used for the series — and the actor has carried that pain with him since the series ended. As Collins told TVInsider:
“So I went to the doctor and said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I have a sore throat that won’t go away.’ I was tested for strep, and it’s not strep. I was literally damaging my vocal cords. So, that’s something I took with me from Castiel. A real physical trauma. »
Collins noted that he never expected to become a mainstay on “Supernatural” after his debut, so he might have taken precautions to protect his vocal cords if he had known how long his tenure would last. Still, at least he got to be part of a hit series for a very long time, which is as good a reason as any to suffer.
