Jensen Ackles Shares How His New Thriller Show is Surprisingly Similar to Supernatural & The Boys

The new action-thriller Countdown, starring Jensen Ackles, Jessica Camacho, and Eric Dane, is equal parts familiar and fresh for fans of this genre. The rare Prime Video series to earn a 13-episode season order, Ackles and company trade hunting monsters and supervillains for all-too-human criminals who are no less dangerous. Despite how different the series is on the surface from his past work on Smallville, Supernatural and The Boys, the veteran actor doesn’t see his character, Detective Mark Meachum, as all that different from his past roles.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Ackles explains his approach to bringing Mark Meachum to life and how it’s remarkably similar to the way he approached building Dean Winchester for 15 seasons of Supernatural, and the first Vought International “superhero” Soldier Boy on The Boys. He also spoke about how the years he spent making more than 20 hour-long episodes per season on broadcast television helped train him to handle the demands of leading Countdown, and then immediately heading to film The Boys’ final season. Even though Meachum lives in a much different world than Ackles’ other, better-known characters, there are enough similarities fans of either series will find in the show. While Countdown doesn’t feature monsters or magic, it delivers the kind of hyper-reality which makes action-thrillers so much fun. Even though it’s not as difficult in this series, Ackles helps ground the show with authenticity through his interpretation of the characters.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

CBR: Countdown is grounded for an action-thriller, at least in the sense that what happens in the show needs no fantasy to justify it (frighteningly). But the cast is full of science-fiction and fantasy veterans like yourself, from The Boys to DC movies to The CW’s Arrowverse. Is it functionally different for you to play a character like Meachum, who exists in a more realistic, less fantastical world?

Jensen Ackles: I don’t think so. I guess my approach, with anything in the sci-fi genre or even the horror world, like Supernatural, is that I always try to [play it the same]. In fact, we would tell guest stars coming on to Supernatural, «This is real. Like, play this as real life as possible. We are in the real world, and shit is going down, and you can’t explain it.» I always tried to play Dean as real as possible in a world that is unexplainable.

And I feel like the more human you are with the characters in those genre-type of shows, the more relatable they are. I mean, because then it’s like, «Oh, what would I do in a zombie apocalypse? What would I do if my house was haunted? What would I do if a superhero became an idol and was horribly flawed, with very human flaws?» So, I think you must approach any role and bring as much humanity to it as possible. Unless you’re playing fuckin’ Jabba the Hutt, you know?

So, whether it’s a world that looks like the one outside the window or one where magic isn’t just real but commonplace, you ground your characters in those basic elements of humanity all viewers can relate to?

You’ve got to come up with other characteristics. But all the characters that I’ve played in these kinds of genre roles? They’re all humanistic. They all have human qualities. They all hurt. They all have emotional reactions to things that are humanistic. So, I always try to approach it [that way] as much as I can. So it wasn’t that great of a departure as maybe one might think to go and play in the real world, which is what Countdown is, because I’ve been doing that.

I mean, I always put Dean in the real world. And I told the writers, «Listen, you can put him in any situation. You can put Dean anywhere. But I’m still going to play him as this person.» Not as a creature or a monster or, you know, some sort of a Nephilim or whatever you want to call it. I’m going to play him as the human being that I know him to be in any situation. So, approaching Countdown, it was [the same approach] without the genre parts. Instead of it being ghosts and vampires and demons that I’m having to figure out how to kill, I have to figure out a way to kill a «bad guy» — a guy who wants to bring mass destruction to a city. So, he is also a monster, but a monster in a human sense.

To that end, it feels like you play Soldier Boy on The Boys as a guy who is awful at his core but who thinks he’s great and doesn’t deserve any of the bad things that happen to him. On the flip side, Meachum is a heroic, at least selfless, guy, but because of his life experiences, he feels like he deserves it when bad things happen. Was that an intentional choice on your part?

Yes, it was, in a sense, but that’s also just great writing. For Soldier Boy? I’ll start there. I heard a quote — I want to give Lee Marvin the credit for this, but I could be wrong — but someone asked why he always played bad guys. The response was «I’ve never played a bad guy in my life.» Because even the bad guys are the heroes of their own story. They may not think they’re «bad.» I mean, even in Countdown, the Big Bad that we’re going after? He thinks he’s doing the right thing. He’s inflicting vengeance on others for being wronged, and he’s trying to make it right.

So, I think approaching [characters] in the cartoon-y, twisty mustache approach like «Ha-ha, I’m the bad guy!» — that’s fine for certain things, but not for the real-world type of bad shit. I think that Soldier Boy doesn’t think he’s a bad guy. He thinks everybody else is stupid. He thinks he’s the guy that has got wisdom of age and all the answers. And he thinks «[Everyone else] is all fucked up. None of you guys have any idea what you are doing. I know what I’m talking about. You’re all idiots!» That’s a fun thing to play when everyone’s looking at [the character] saying, «You’re actually wrong.» That creates tension and that creates the drama and that creates entertainment.

So, does Meachum think he’s the hero of his own story while still feeling like he’s «less than» in some fundamental or emotional way?

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With Meachum, he is inherently a good guy. He has been dealt a lot of bad cards in his life, from childhood to adulthood. And so, does he feel like he’s getting a fair shake? Maybe not. But it’s the hand he’s been dealt, and he’s going to have to play it. So, for him, he’s trying to make lemonade from those lemons. The way that he knows how to do that is to just go out guns blazing and try to take out as many of «the bad guys» as he possibly can. I think there’s an honor in that. Instead of giving up and saying, «Well, I’ve been dealt a bad hand so, I’m just going to crawl up and be a nuisance to society and.be a shitty person.» He takes the — I wouldn’t say the high road, but he takes the alternate route.

Not to go too deep, but I have a friend of mine, a dear friend of mine who had one of the worst childhoods you could ever possibly imagine. I mean, his father killed his mother, his father went to prison. And he could have gone — he could have gone really bad. He could have turned out to be an absolute menace to society. Instead, he’s now a motivational speaker. And I think when you can take darkness and make it light? That is a brilliant thing, and that’s a difficult thing. And it’s not something that everybody can do, but I think we all have it inside of us to maybe do the right thing. I think we’re all inherently good. We just have to figure out a way to do it. And so, I feel like Meachum has just been dealt a shitty hand his whole life, but he refuses to give into it.

Speaking of the real world, California — to fall into a bit of a cliché — feels almost like a character of its own in the show. Was that the goal? Because it hits differently since the terrible wildfires at the start of the year.

I mean, we were filming during those fires, and it was crazy. A camera operator lost his home and countless friends lost theirs, too. Eric Kripke, the creator and writer of The Boys and Supernatural, lost his home. So, there was a lot of devastation in that moment. I do think that any city, whether decimated by a tornado or whether it gets decimated by fires or whether it gets decimated by countless other tragedies, there is a resilience within human nature. I think that resilience usually comes to light when they’re facing really tough, tough times.

In Countdown, Meachum is facing a tough time, and he’s doing it in this city and in this place. He has an opportunity to go to a beach like [a character] told him and just kick his feet up and drink Mai Tais for the rest of his days. Or he has an opportunity to go and maybe make some rights out of some wrongs and maybe bring some people justice. And I think that is more rewarding than sand between your toes.

With The Boys in its final season, and Countdown in its first, how do you feel about streaming given the current attitude towards it in the larger industry? Even though The Boys is just eight episodes per season and Countdown is 13, both feel like shows that could only happen on something like Prime Video.

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Well, look, I’ll say this: We were doing 23 episodes per season on Supernatural and it was a grind to do broadcast TV at that pace and to that extent. Now, I’m conditioned for it. I mean, people ask me, «How are you working so much?» [Note: Ackles went directly from filming Countdown to The Boys.] Because The Boys is currently filming Season Five right now. They finish, I think, next month. I just finished The Boys on Tuesday, [June 9th], and I think I’ve got all my stuff done. But I don’t know. You never know. They might have to bring me back for some other stuff. They do eight episodes, and I think, with streaming, it usually is about eight-to-ten episodes. So, when we got the 13-episode order [for Countdown]? I could be wrong but I think it’s the first time Amazon’s ordered that many episodes.

Not to get too deep in the industry aspect of it. For streamers, the pendulum swung one way with «Let’s do eight to ten episodes,» and you had broadcast over here doing 22 episodes, which was kind of the industry norm for many years and still is. I think the whole Netflix model has maybe shifted back. Now, instead of dropping them all on one weekend, maybe we can spread them out and keep people more engaged with the show.

As an actor looking at it from a macro perspective, I feel like it’s better when you keep people engaged longer. Because then it’s a longer engagement. There’s more talk about it as opposed to one show dropping on a single weekend, and if you missed it, now you can’t participate in all those water cooler discussions. Then you think, «Well, it’s too late. I’ve already missed it and somebody, So-and-So in the office, spoiled it for me. Why watch it at all?» So, we’re starting to see the pendulum swing back a little bit from [the binge-watching model] more towards the broadcast model. And, shocker, that model has been proven for decades and decades. So, I think there is a happy medium. I think we’re trying to find it, and I’m glad that they are maybe using Countdown as a bit of a guinea pig to find that middle ground.

Countdown premieres its first three episodes on June 25, 2025, on Prime Video, and new episodes will debut weekly on Wednesdays.

Countdown

Release Date

June 25, 2025

Network

Prime Video

Showrunner

Derek Haas

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  Jensen Ackles

  Mark Meachum

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  Jessica Camacho

  Amber Oliveras

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