Unquestionably, the show Jensen Ackles is best known for isSupernatural, but his whopping 15 seasons playing Dean Winchester somehow still didn’t net him the most episodes he’s been in among all his projects. Instead, that honor goes toDays of Our Lives, a show he was only on for three years.Ackles, with his upcoming movie and TV shows, has become one of Hollywood’s hottest commodities, appearing in multiple TV shows since his time onSupernaturalended, and also stepping into an executive producer’s role on multiple projects.
Ackles is a tested veteran by now, and he had an established career even beforeSupernatural. Even so, no one would argue that it was the role of Dean Winchester that put Ackles on the map and made him a household name.It was impossible not to know who he was, withSupernaturalrunning as long as many network police procedurals and medical dramas.That’s why it’s a fun and shocking bit of trivia to learn that it’s not even the show that holds the title of most episodes for him.
Jensen Ackles Was In 327 Episodes Of Supernatural
Dean Winchester Is A Truly Iconic Character
Jensen Ackles held it down as big brother Dean Winchester for 15 seasons ofSupernatural, which ran for so long that when it initially started, it began on the WB before it merged with UPN and became the CW.Supernaturaleventually became the CW’s longest-running scripted show, and it wasn’t even close, with the supernatural drama beating out7th Heaven(11 seasons) andSmallville(10 seasons), both of which also began on the WB before becoming CW shows.
All told, Ackles appeared as Dean in 327 episodes on the show, which is an enormous number of episodes for any actor. If you factor in his narration work on the short-lived spinoffThe Winchesters, thenhis total number of episodes playing Dean Winchester in theSupernaturaluniverse is 340.
It’s impressive for an actor to get to 100 episodes on the same show these days, let alone well above 300.
Considering most TV shows last an average of about 3–7 seasons, and seasons have been getting shorter in the past decade with the rise of streaming and its shift to big-budget seasons of 8-10 episodes, it’s impressive for an actor to get to 100 episodes on the same show these days, let alone well above 300. Even so, Ackles' time onSupernaturaldoesn’t hold a candle to his breakout TV show.
Jensen Ackles Was In 448 Episodes Of Days Of Our Lives
He Played Eric Brady
Astoundingly,Ackles' first major TV show was the soap operaDays of Our Lives, where he appeared as Eric Brady in an eye-popping 448 episodes of the NBC soap, 108 more episodes than the entire total of his time as Dean Winchester in theSupernaturaluniverse. The difference between the number of episodes he was inDays of Our LivesandSupernaturalbreaks down tothe equivalent of five full seasons of a network TV show.Again, that’s longer than many TV shows even last.
Even more surprisingly,he did it in only three years.Had he gone at the same pace forSupernatural, it would have taken five more seasons – 20 in total – before Ackles appeared in the same number of episodes he’d been onDays of Our Lives. As Eric Brady, Ackles' time onDays of Our Liveswas certainly impactful, but he was hardly the actor who lasted the longest on the show. In fact, his time was relatively short in the grand scheme of things – while some actors' time on a soap opera is brief, only a few months, others last longer. At three years, Ackles was a tenured member ofDays of Our Lives, but hardly a longstanding pillar of the show like, say,John Aniston, orDeidre Hall, who became the longest-running soap actorin history in 2023.
How He Could Possibly Have Been In More Episodes In Only 3 Years
It Has To Do With The Continuous Shooting Structure Of A Soap Opera
It’s hard to understand how Jensen Ackles could possibly have blown past his episode count forSupernaturalin just a few years onDays of Our Lives. To understand that, you have to understand how soap operas work, as they operate in a completely different way than most other TV shows. Key to this is that, unlike any other kind of TV show outside of news, soap operas have no off-season. Even game shows likeWheel of Fortuneand late-night talk shows have off-seasons, with the game shows airing reruns and talk shows doing the same or having guest hosts fill in. There is no off switch for a soap opera, however.
Unlike any other kind of TV show outside of news, soap operas have no off-season.
The reason is that soap operas are built around ongoing and open-ended narratives; multiple storylines are simultaneously juggled with new ones constantly beginning and ending, some lasting for weeks and some for years. The continuous story is key to keeping audiences engaged; thus, there are never any real endings in a soap opera. As such, soap operas air new episodes five days a week, 52 weeks a year. While actors can certainly take a break for a week or two, they do not naturally have any built-in downtime in the shooting schedule of a soap opera. Because of this, soap operas don’t actually have seasons, with each show being treated as one long, unbroken narrative.
If one looks atDays of Our Lives’IMDbpage, for example, they’d see that tomorrow’s episode is labeled S1.15150 – in other words, episode 15,150 of season 1 – and by the time you read this, that episode count will have already increased. Considering that, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to understand how Jensen Ackles racked up so many episodes in such a short time onDays of Our Lives– he never had a week off in three years.
