It's rather remarkable how Jensen Ackles can stay in such high spirits.  AS Dean Winchester, he's been in nearly every scene of every episode of Supernatural for five years, but at the 100th episode party, he was still as excited as a little kid.

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When I talked to him, Jensen fondly reminisced about five seasons and 100 episodes, looking back at the moment he first new the show was special (it happened a lot sooner than you might think), how he's managed to cope with the long hours and his favorite prank on the set that involved the late Kim Manners.

More 100th Episode Party Interviews:
Jared Padalecki
Misha Collins
Jim Beaver
Writer Sera Gamble
Writer Ben Edlund

Listen to the full interview or check out the best quotes below.



Jensen Ackles discussing the moment he knew Supernatural was something special:
"I would honestly say there was a moment when Jared [Padalecki] and myself and Eric Kripke and David Nutter were standing on a bridge shooting the pilot episode five years ago and we looked around and had this big giant night scene. It was a crane shot. It was a car on a bridge. The whole valley we were shooting in was filled with smoke. The rapids were rushing underneath us. And we were just like 'You know, if this goes, this is going to be something else' and I think we all kind of had that "Aha!" moment right there on the bridge. This could really be something if we get some legs. And fortunately enough we got some legs and here we are."

On what advice he would give himself if he could go back to the start of Supernatural and do it all again:
"Get more sleep. Get more rest. Figure out a way to pace yourself early on because those first several years were just exhausting. When we came back after the writers' strike I had realized that I'm gonna need to like find a way to pace myself a little better because I was just exhausting myself. And I have. I feel like I even got better because I really kind of sat down and thought about my work ethic, and how I was gonna approach certain things."

On how filming Supernatural is like playing baseball:
"I used to play a lot of baseball. It's not getting in a hitting slump, but I'm gonna switch up my swing a little bit to see how that serves me. And now I'm not getting the cramps in the legs, the elbows or anything like that. And I'm hitting the ball farther in my eyes."

On his favorite prank on the set and remembering the late Kim Manners:
"You know when Kim Manners was around there was definitely a heightened sense of awareness as far as the "prankness" goes. One of the last ones that he pulled before he passed away was we had some little motorbikes that we ride around the set on. Just kinda kids toys but they're fun and we'd get into trouble on them. It's something fun to pass the time sometimes. And we were cruising around starting to make tracks on the set and we were messing up the set and Kim was yelling at us and we were laughing back at him. The next thing we know, the next day, we walked on the stage and hanging in the rafters are these two motorbikes that we have. And I'm talking like 30 feet in the air. He had the riggers wrench them up and tie them off and just hang there and then have a lighting crew spotlight them in the ceiling. It just goes to show that this is the kind of guy he was and how much we miss him. That's the last one I remember."


(Image courtesy of the CW)