Season 8 DVD Extra: āAngel Warrior: The Story of Castielā
[Dean: Cas weāre getting out of here. Weāre going home. Castiel: I canāt]
[Dean, Cas and Benney standing beside the river in Purgatory]
Singer: An angel who feels guilt, who says, āIām in the right place in Purgatory cause this is where I- this- this should be my punishment.ā Thereās a lot you can do with that character.
[Castiel: Dean!]
Carver: You know, itās just one piece of the proof that this character that started out as pretty much a warrior angel who rescues Dean from Hell had a certain richness.Ā
[Samandriel: Despite his mistakes, Castielās heart was always in the right place.]
Singer: Heās got this power, heās got this connection to heaven, but heās- he- heās behaving, you know, he has the emotions of a mortal, and those things always conflict within him.
Glass: It allows us to learn more about our own humanity. When you have a character thatās a blank slate, it allows you to explore so many things about humanity, the good and the bad. And I think Castiel is the perfect example of that.
[Dean: Hold on! Castiel: Dean! Dean--]
[Title Screen: ANGEL WARRIOR: The Story of Castiel]
[Dean: (in Hell) Somebody help me! (pants in pain) Sam!]
Edlund: Well, I think one of the- one of the first very important jobs that- that, uh, had to get done was, Dean had to get out of Hell, which is a big problem. We toyed with the idea of there being a kind of a quest or a large s-sort of series of events that took place, uh, for- for Dean to get out of Hell. And, um, it really came down to, we knew it was going to happen, so why not have it just happen?
[Dean examines the red handprint on his shoulder in the mirror]
Carver: We start in the writers room talking about what types of things could actually pull Dean from Hell, and knowing that we wanted to start getting into these ideas of, um, uh, angels and heaven and everything. At its root, it was just very smart that this divine thing pulled him out.
[Dean dodges breaking glass in the gas station]
Edlund: And, then heās sort of pursued by this sort of, uh, what seems like a sinister unseen force. That was the entity, Castiel, without a vessel, trying to make contact with Dean.
[Castiel reveals his black wings in the barn to a disbelieving Dean]
Glass: Yeah, our show is definitely not the Touch by an Angel's kind of angels. (laughs) Our angels, uh, have an agenda.
Singer: These are n-, yāknow, not little cherubs sitting on your shoulder and they werenāt Clarence in- from, yāknow, Itās a Wonder Life.
Dabb: These are people who are warriors. Theyāre there to enf- at least, at the very beginning, theyāre there to enforce what they believe is the will of God.
[Dean: I thought angels were supposed to be guardians - fluffy wings, halos - not dicks.]
Edlund: Supernatural branching into the world of angels? Uh, thatās a pretty big deal. It was, mythologically speaking, a big branch.
Jared: And Jensen and I both were like, well, you know we didnāt sign up to make, like, a show about religion, like, thatās not what weāre trying to do as actors. And, when we signed up for Supernatural we thought we were making, like urban legends, myths, blah-blah-blah.
Jensen: You know, I wasnāt quite sure where they were taking it. I mean, now all of a sudden we were dealing with angels and demons, whereas before we were dealing with, yāknow, ghosts and- and goblins.
[(FM) Misha: You guys want to run lines, orā¦? Dean: His nameās Misha. (looks skeptical) Misha?]
Misha: When they sent out the sides for this audition, for the role of Castiel, the sides said it was a demon, because Eric didnāt want to reveal that they were adding an angel to the show.
Edlund: The first episode of the fourth season was built to really be this slow build, with a big kind of introduction at the end of it, so keeping it quiet was pretty important.
Misha: I did one- one take of the scene and Eric said, āOkay, good, good, but actually, y-youāre n- catās out of the bag, youāre an angel, not a demon, now do it again.ā And I did, and apparently he liked what I did, cause, um, I got the part.
[Castiel walks into a barn lit by sparking lights]
Misha: The season premiere of Season 4, which was the episode that I a- first appeared in, at McGeeās offices, sort of at the screening party, and Sera Gamble, um, the writer and producer, was standing next to me. And right when I came on screen, she leaned over and whispered to me, āYour life is about to change.ā And then, lo and behold, it really has changed remarkably, and itās, um, itās been quite exciting.
[Castiel: Iām an angel of the Lord.]
Sgriccia: When we bring in Castiel, heās -heās in a human form. If you were to look at an angel, youād be blinded and youād be deaf from the sound of it.
Edlund: Thereās a lot that we owe to the badass presentation of angels. Like, thereās Constantine, thereās, um, Prophecy with, uh, Christopher Walken. One of the things that became a powerful icon for that character was just the trench coat. It became quite powerful.
Singer: It was really a stunning shot where you saw the- the shadow of these enormous wings. And it was not, uh, (in a hippie voice) āOh, wow thatās an angel.ā It was, (sounds nervous) āOh, like, geez, thatās an angel,ā yāknow.
Edlund: We didnāt swing for the, uh, animatronic wings that are constantly fluttering and re-fluttering behind him. Thereās a desire to step away from that sort of thing and be a little bit more low to the ground, which is Supernaturalās general aesthetic thrust.
[Dean: Who are you? Castiel: Iām the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition. Dean: Yeah?]
Edlund: When Misha created the persona for this character, I forget if he had a cold or not, or if he just decided to do it, but he, uh, pitched his voice down a little bit, to give himself gravitas.
Misha: Oh, I thought, oh, I sh- I should give him, like, a really commanding, powerful voice.
[Castiel: You have no faith.]
Misha: Something that I now regret, because Iāve been doing it for six years, and there are definitely times when I have to go home and like, drink hot lemon water and- (laughs) and have a sore throat.
Jensen: He came in with a, yāknow, he- he committed. And, yāknow, sometimes you- you win some and sometimes you donāt, but itās nice to- to have somebody with that kind of a conviction.
Carver: Yāknow, there was a vein that was struck there with this character. Iām probably not the one to say why it worked. I can only tell you... it d-did, and- and it has worked, and the proof is in the pudding.Ā
Jensen: The fact that you know, we have essentially an angel who can pop in and pop out wherever we are-Ā
[Castiel: Hello Dean]
Jensen: -I thought was a really good recipe for somebody to stick around, and- and be a- a- a greater part of this storyline.
[Castiel: Thank you. For everything. Dean: Save the Hallmark, okay? Itās gonna work. Nobody gets left behind.]
Carver: I donāt see ā and- and Iām not saying heās not, but ā I donāt look at Castiel as a mentor and a protector at all. I look at him as yet another person that was sucked into the Winchester brothersā orbit.
Edlund: He was on the heavenly payroll, and every time he showed up it was to accomplish some specific goal and he was not stretching too far out of that range to aid the boys. And sometimes he was a problem for the boys.
Glass: He sometimes gets lost along the way in what he thinks is right and protecting the boys, and does things that, at the end of the day, um, end up not helping.
Edlund: As an angel, his- his understanding of human emotions was something that was, like, naive, even though he had watched humans for so long.
Singer: His motives generally are right but, yāknow, he- he makes mistakes because he doesnāt quite understand everything.
[Dean: What the Hellās wrong with you? Castiel: I am an angel in a land of abominations. There have been things hunting me since the moment we arrived. Dean: (yelling) Join the club. Castiel: These are not just monsters, Dean. Theyāre Leviathan. I have a price on my head, and I have been trying to stay one step ahead of them to- to keep them away from you.]
Misha: He sees himself as Deanās protector, and at the same time sees Dean as something of a mentor, because thereās a lot about the world he doesnāt understand and that he can glean from Dean.
Singer: He saw in the boys, really, the worth in humanity, and he became sort of enamored of humanity as, yāknow, channeled through Sam and Dean. So, on the one hand, he thinks, āI owe this allegiance to God, I owe this allegiance to the angels, but I think this freewill thing is right, and I think thatās probably what God wanted.ā So, that was his sort of line of demarcation with the angels.
Jensen: This relationship that he has developed with these humans, uh, has- has truly shaped the story that he is- is now kind of creating for himself. Itās- itās much more freewill than it is about, yāknow, the- the- the duty of an angel.
Dabb: Castiel is the boysā best ally. Heās kind of the one friend that isnāt each other that theyāve been able to rely on for years. That doesnāt mean heās perfect, because he definitely is not that, and they go- that goes the other way, too. But heās always been there for them, and I think thatās been very important, because the only brother (sic) people in their lives who- who fill that role are them- are, yāknow, basically each other.
Carver: I donāt know if the relationship would have worked as well, if he was just a mentor as opposed to a- a friend.
[Dean: (startles awake, spilling his beer) Ugh. Dammit, Cas. How many times I gotta tell you? Itās just creepy.]
Carver: Just to speak of the Dean-Cas of it, I think youāve got two incredibly dynamic, uh, yāknow, characters slash actors in their own right who are so good at being exactly what theyāre supposed to be, and what they are, essentially, is an odd couple.
[Dean: In the police report, it said that the, uh, the bush- it talked to you. Yeah? Victim: It sounded like Klingon to me. Dean: Iām gonna need exact words. Victim: Youāre serious? Castiel: Thatās his serious face, yes.]
Edlund: Castiel the entity. This celestial being, as the fish-out-of-water- um, h-heās an alien. Heās an alien to human experience.
[Castiel: Whatās so funny?]
Jared: Mishaās brought so much. I mean, Misha, heās a very intelligent person and heās brought a soul and understanding and some awesome humor and, um... so many other things.Ā I mean, Cas, it feels like he lives and breathes on-screen.
[Dean: Itās wabbit season. (Sam smiles.) Castiel: I donāt think you pronounced that correctly.]
Sgriccia: Misha plays it so straight. Heās like Starman. Heās just this guy that you think- he looks human, but his cadence, his rhythm, his timing on things is off. Thereās huge funny pieces that happen with him and the guys.Ā
[Castiel: Iām going to become a hunter.]
Sgriccia: Because he says something thatās totally straight ā it comes off as really, really funny.
[Sam: Really? Castiel: Yeah. I could be your third wheel! (Sam laughs and bites his tongue) Dean: You know thatās not a good thing, right? Castiel: Course it is! A third wheel adds extra grip, greater stability-]
Glass: Everything from the way he plays him, where, yāknow- And it allows us to write great jokes where he doesnāt always get whatās being said, you know, and always, yāknow, takes things very literally.
[Dean: Sheās right, you know. I mean, the whole heart jumping out of the guyās chest, the- the delayed fall - thatās straight-up Bugs Bunny. Castiel: So weāre looking for some sort of insect-rabbit hybrid? How do we kill it?]
Jensen: The fact that he is (laughs) has really committed to that character, uh, I think made it really, uh, really unique and interesting for the storyline.
[Castiel: (interviewing a cat) Iāve almost cracked him. Dean: Now! Castiel: Hey, Iām not through with you. Cat: Dumbass.]
Edlund: Misha really played that in a lot of different ways. I mean, thereās been a lot of different incarnations of Castiel, because heās gone through so much.
Glass: Iām gonna go really geeky on you guys right now. (laughs) Um, you know, heās our Data from Star Trek: Next Generation, you know? He is our character that allows us to explore humanity. Heās an angel who loves humans, and so I think what youāre getting to see in him and what makes him such a great character is, heās a reflection of us.
[Castiel: (yelling) Why did you kill your husband?! Dean: Agent Stills? Sam: Please, forgive my partner. Heās, uh, heās going through some stuff.]
Edlund: Itās his un-formedness, in a way, as an angel that allows him to make the decisions he makes during the course of the- the story. He had what Dean and Sam later described as a moral lapse.
[Castiel: Speak plain. Crowley: I want to discuss a simple business transaction, thatās all. Castiel: You want to make a deal? With me?]
Misha: One of the biggest problems with the character is that heās too powerful, and you donāt want an ally, uh, for Sam and Dean who can solve all of their problems with a snap of his fingers, so one of the things that theyāve been doing with Castiel over the last several years is finding ways to impede his power. He becomes kind of an enemy by being God, or he goes insane. Thereās all these different layers that they have used to incapacitate him in some way. When we first met Castiel, he was very much the good little soldier. Over time, his exposure to Sam and Dean has made him much more human. It has given him, yāknow, questions to wrestle with, like, āDo I have freewill? Do we all have freewill?ā Questions that a good little soldier doesnāt normally wrestle with.
Mark S.: We intersect with each other because we have agenda that are similar.
[Crowley: Iām talking about Raphaelās head on a pike. Iām talking about happy endings for all of us, with all possible entendres intended. Cāmon. Just a chat?]
Dabb: Crowley was made in Hell, Castiel was made in Heaven, and both of them are rebelling to some degree. Theyāve both kind of broken away from the home office. Theyāre both kind of rebels in that way, and I think thatās what really gave them a common ground. Theyāre like, yāknow, weāre rebels. Youāre a rebel, Iām a rebel, letās be rebels together.
[Crowley: Itās either this, or the apocalypse all over again. Everything youāve worked for, everything that Sam and Dean have worked for-- gone.]
Sgriccia: I think there was always gonna be some flaws in him ā you know, power corrupts. So he got corrupted, and he went the wrong way, and it went- horribly bad. You know, because he had all those souls in him, um, and he realized that it wasnāt gonna work. Y-you know, thatās the human part coming out, that he realizes that. Otherwise he would have just kept going.
[Castiel slams Crowley against a wall.]
Carver: For me, itās all a balance between the joy and the pain.
Mark S.: I mean, this is- itās an amazing push and pull.
[Crowley: This is not how synergy works!]
Mark S.: They need each other. Theyāre, yāknow, theyāre two sides of a very similar coin.
Misha: Ah, boy, Crowley is pr- a big problem. And he just doesnāt seem to be going away, unfortunately. I donāt know what to do about it.
[Naomi: Tell me about Sam and Dean. Castiel: The prophet is being kept safe. The tablet has split in two, and the Winchesters are trying to recover the missing piece. Why am I telling you any of this?]
Mark S.: The introduction of Naomi adds a- a second twist to it, which is, angels arenāt just the goody-goody- I mean, weāre getting a sense here that the stuff being done ā āfor the good of the garrisonā shall we say ā goes beyond what we thought angels were capable of doing.
[Naomi: Let us put the tablet back where it should be. Castiel: I need to protect it.]
Singer: When he realizes that heās been sort of a pawn in this game again, he feels I donāt- I canāt do anything right, I- yāknow, it- it just wh- Whatever I do in relation to the Winchesters or whatever I do here on Earth when I think Iām being helpful, here Iām being puppeted by this-this person.
Dabb: Cas is seen by heaven as an agent of chaos. You know, for good reason.Ā Like, he ripped the place apart, heās instrumental in the downfall of these Archangels.
Singer: Heās kind of crestfallen a-about this. He feels, āThe best thing for me to do is just,ā you know, āGet the hell out of here. Go underground. Not be- not be involved.ā
Sgriccia: The humanist part helps him correct himself in a way. Thereās this whole thing about heaven and the angels and how theyāre dysfunctional and just like humans in a way, only a different level of arguments and disagreements. And thereās- is, you know, itās in disarray in heaven, and he doesnāt want that anymore.
Jared: Cas is starting to see the power of humanity, um, through these brothers, and what theyāre willing to do and what theyāre willing to sacrifice. And I think thatās kind of a story that Supernatural is trying to tell.
Edlund: His ability to connect with a human, a naturally flawed, naturally imperfect, naturally given to the doubts and caprices of freewill ā thereās something broken in Cas that resonates with whatever it is that is broken in humanity.
[Naomi: Castiel. Castiel!]
Edlund: Thereās a crack in Cas and, I put forward, the crack through which amazing things come. Thatās why he keeps coming back. It has to be this way, in part because he was the one who was primed to lose it in the face of humanityās plight.
Singer: He realizes the, um, the importance of the angel tablet and his one last sort of thing of āIām gonna do the right thingā is āIām going to protect this- this tablet.ā
[Castiel: Theyāre getting closer. Waiter: Whatās that, Chief?]
Singer: āThis is- this is my last connection to God, really, and I have this tablet and Iām going to at all costs hold it and keep it. I donāt want the Angels to have it, I donāt want the Winchesters to have it. This is my last shot to make it right for me.ā
[Castiel: Shut up! (knocks an angel down and casts him out of his vessel]
[Castiel walking into the barn in Season 4]
Glass: You can write a great character, but if itās not acted right, uh, then it doesnāt mean anything. And, what really any writer or producer will tell you is whatās amazing ā and I know this is the case with Misha ā where you write a great character but then they come in and even bring it to a whole other level.
Dabb: You have a universe. You have stories you want to tell. You have different moving parts. And if someoneās a moving part that can, yāknow, twi- spin and spin and spin, theyāre al- youāre always gonna get more use out of them, versus the one person thatās just there for a little while. Sometimes, you know that kind of early on, but more often it- itās something that is really only apparent- only apparent in hindsight.
Misha: Thatās also something that has worked well for me. Itās just gratifying and interesting to play something that is always changing, and not to be sort of stuck in a rut.Ā
Dabb: Itās- a character ā like any character, but especially a character like Castiel, whoās grown so much ā really is a collaboration between the writers, the directors, yāknow, the production, and, uh, particularly the actor.
Glass: Misha just- heās- heās amazing as- as- as Cas. And, I think this guyās gonna do okay. I think this is not the last weāll see of this Misha. Hm?
[Castiel looks up at the sky as the angels fall.]
