Misha's Zap2it Interview

Zap2it: Where do we find Castiel at the start of Season 10? Misha Collins: We find Castiel beginning to try to help with the Dean-as-a-demon problem. But he will also be trying to grapple with his own issues because of his fading grace. Castiel is running on stolen angel grace and it’s fading, which means he’s getting weaker and weaker. His life force is draining out. Those are the two big issues that Castiel is confronted with when we find him in the beginning of Season 10.  Last week you tweeted a photo of you looking pretty beat up and bloody. Is Castiel’s fading grace going to be taking a physical toll on him? Absolutely, yes.  Yikes. Even though you’re a series regular, should we be worried that this could be the end of Castiel? Yes, you should be worried … Isn’t that a good tease? No, Castiel is not going to be dying in the beginning of the season or any of the scripts or stories that I have seen outlined in the first half of the season. To my knowledge, this won’t mean his expiration. But he is getting closer and closer to expiration and weaker and weaker, and less and less of his angel powers are at his disposal.  How will Castiel react to finding out that Dean is a demon, and how will that affect their friendship? It’s definitely driving a very, very large wedge between the two of them. I think that Castiel really doesn’t see Demon Dean as Dean. He sees him as a monster that, one way or another, needs to go.  Jeremy Carver recently told me that Dean and Crowley are going to get closer as a result of Dean being a demon, so how is Castiel going to feel about that new relationship? That’s a good question. I can tell you that Cas isn’t really a fan of Dean becoming a demon. [laughs] And by extension, his fraternizing with Crowley. I think that Castiel’s relationship with Crowley is certainly pretty strained. That said, everybody on the show has made deals with the devil, so to speak, over the years. Castiel is definitely conflicted about the character of Crowley. Can I just leave it at, “It’s complicated”?  Sure, that sounds like a good summation. Near the end of last season, Castiel’s storyline was separate from Sam and Dean’s. Will that continue in the beginning of Season 10 or will we see them join up again? The storylines are going to be interwoven, but there’s also going to be a strong, independent storyline for Castiel in Season 10. I think that that’s actually true of all of the characters in the show. They all have their own, distinct arcs that are not necessarily interdependent [with] the other arcs. It’s a very much more, I would say, personal season than seasons of the past. It feels like we’re dealing less with the massive, epic stories of heaven and hell and more with the personal stories of the characters that we’ve all come to know and love on the show. Those personal stories, each character will have his own storyline.  Do you enjoy it more when you get to play that more personal side of Castiel, or do you enjoy it more when it’s the big, epic storylines where everyone is together? I think that they both have their merits. My favorite is when those two are happening concurrently on the show. I think that’s something that the show does a pretty good job of keeping us grounded in personal storylines. I think that’s why the show has been so successful and has lasted for 10 seasons. At its core, it’s this story of two brothers that are dealing with family issues that we can all relate to, and at the same time, they’re dealing with epic mythology. The fusion of those two scales of storytelling is really compelling and keeps us engaged. I think if we were just watching a show that was about angels and demons and ghouls and goblins and didn’t have that personal, relatable, character story to ground it in, the audience would have left a long time ago.  Speaking of how long the show has lasted, I’m so excited for the 200th episode this season now that Jeremy announced it’s going to be “musical-ish.” Any chance we’ll get to see you sing in the episode? I have yet to see the script for the 200th episode, but I do know that Jeremy has said that it’s “musical-ish.” And I do know the fans have long been clamoring for a “musical-ish” episode. So I can’t wait to read the script and find out exactly what I’ll be doing.  How does it feel knowing that “Supernatural” has reached a milestone like 200 episodes? Not many shows can say they’ve made it that far. It’s kind of surreal. You’re right, not many shows at all can brag that they’ve made it that far. We were calculating recently and I think it’s something like 20 television dramas of all time have made it that far. It’s really amazing. I started working on the show in the first episode of Season 4, and I, as a rational human being, thought, “Well, this is probably pretty close to the end of the series. It maybe has another year left in it.” That’s typical of reasonably successful shows. They’ll go to five seasons and maybe make it to 100 episodes, then they get syndicated and peter out. I don’t think any of us imagined in Season 4 or Season 5 that we were going to make it to Season 10 and 200 episodes. I think that we’re all really happy to have had this long run. It’s really gratifying.  What are you most excited for fans to see from Season 10? I think that Season 10 has the potential of being a very emotionally impactful season and I think that the show is really getting to its roots of being very character-driven and about personal character struggles. I’m excited about that.