Jensen Ackles

Jensen Ackles (born March 1, 1978) is an American actor and director. He is known for his roles in television as Eric Brady in Days of our Lives, which earned him several Daytime Emmy Award nominations, as well as Alec/X5-494 in Dark Angel and Jason Teague in Smallville. He currently stars as Dean Winchester on the CW series, Supernatural.

Early Life
Jensen Ross Ackles was born on March 1, 1978, in Dallas, Texas, to Donna Joan Shaffer and Alan Roger Ackles, an actor. Jensen has a brother, Joshua, who is three years older, and sister, Mackenzie, who is seven years younger. He is of English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. He planned to study sports medicine at Texas Tech University and to become a physical therapist, but instead moved to Los Angeles to start his acting career.

Career
After modeling on and off since the age of 4, Jensen began to concentrate on an acting career in 1996. He appeared in several guest roles on Mr. Rhodes, Sweet Valley High, and Cybill before joining the cast of the NBC soap opera Days of our Lives as Eric Brady in 1997. He won a 1998 Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Male Newcomer and went on to be nominated three times (in 1998, 1999, and 2000) for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series for his work on Days of our Lives.

Jensen departed Days of our Lives in 2000 and went on to appear in the mini-series Blonde, about the life of Marilyn Monroe. He also auditioned for the role of the young Clark Kent on Smallville, a role offered to actor, Tom Welling instead. Next he appeared in a guest role on the series Dark Angel on Fox in 2001 as serial killer Ben/X5-493, the brother of main character Max/X5-452 (played by Jessica Alba). His character died in the episode, but he returned to the show as a series regular in the second season as Ben's sane clone, Alec/X5-494. He remained with the show until its cancellation in 2002.

Jensen worked steadily throughout 2003. He joined the cast of the WB's hit show Dawson's Creek during its final season, playing CJ, Jen Lindley's lover. Afterward, he filmed several episodes of the unaired series Still Life for Fox before it was adruptly dropped. He also had a small role in the 2004 short film The Plight of Clownana. He was the producer's first choice to play Eliza Dushku's love interest on the second season of Tru Calling,  but he turned down the role, which was then offered to Eric Christian Olsen and the character's name was changed to "Jensen" because the producers of Tru Calling liked Jensen's name. He returned to Vancouveer (where Dark Angel was filmed) in 2004 to become a regular on Smallville playing the assistant football coach Jason Teague, who was also the newest romantic interest for Lana Lang (played by Kristin Kreuk). He also had a lead role in the 2005 film Devour in which Jensen's father, actor Alan Ackles, also had a role playing the father of Jensen's character, Jake Gray.