Supernatural's Jared Padalecki: "Sam Will Hit a Whole New Low"

Warning: Supernatural Season 7 spoilers await…

With an all new episode of Supernatural airing tonight ("Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie"), and Sam poised to face down his childhood fear of clowns, Jared Padalecki talked to IGN TV about Sam and Dean's relationship seven years in, the killing off of important characters like Castiel and Bobby and his all-time favorite Supernatural villain.

So with eight episodes left in the season, what can we expect from Sam? "Well, as you know Sam's been totally losing his marbles and that's going to continue," Padalecki said. "He's been working really hard to juggle his craziness and his brother's needs. And then on top of all that there are these new demons, the Leviathans, who are un-killable and constantly trying to hunt them down too. So we're going to see Sam really break down. Sam will hit a whole new low. Obviously we've lost Castiel and now, of course, Bobby. But we have a saying on Supernatural which is the only way to guarantee that you'll come back, is to die. Which is to say that they're not totally dead yet."

"We're also going to have Mark Pellegrino [Lucifer] back," the actor confessed. "And he's awesome to work with. I love working with Mark. And we'll have Misha [Collins, Castiel] back too. But I think fans will like what they see. I don't know. I haven't even caught up on our show now. I think I'm still in the middle of Season 5. But one of these days, I'll sit down and watch."

Keeping things fresh in Season 7 is a hard trick to pull off for any show, but is the killing of major characters, like Castiel and Bobby, one of the ways to raise the stakes? "Well, they're part of the family, so it's been difficult to lose them," Padalecki told us. "And like I said, I doubt they're really gone. But it's been nice, in the past, for Sam and Dean to have that crutch to fall back on. But on the flip-side, that's why we had to get rid of them. Because if they were always there to guide them then it's no longer a challenge for Sam and Dean. If we died, Castiel could bring us back. If we got in trouble, Bobby could bail us out. So I see why the storyline had to find a new role for Castiel."

"And as an actor and as a friend, I love acting with them," Padalecki continued. "And their final episodes were amazing. As a fan, I'm going to miss them. As an actor in the story though, I understand why they're gone. And killing Bobby wasn't just done to raise the stakes. We were killing off our cheat-sheet, essentially. He was their cheat-sheet. So I think that was necessary for the show because it gives Sam and Dean a whole new challenge to deal with and it also kind of lets you get a glimpse of how these two will have to operate in the future. Down the road. When they have to figure everything out themselves."

"Luckily for me, I don't have to keep it fresh," Padalecki stated. "The writers keep it fresh for me and I just do their bidding. So it's been interesting to see where we go. Because obviously Sam and Dean have been up, down and all around so this season they had to figure out to keep raising the stakes. And sometimes it seems impossible after something like having them face Armageddon. But we've kept going onwards and upwards and it's become not about the demon we hunt every week but about the brothers' relationship and how they grow and how their dynamics have changed. And so we see them fight and then reconcile and all that good stuff. And life is long, you know. Hopefully. And so it really reflects the path of say brothers and friends who have a life-long relationship. It's a TV show, but it has to grow. And so while Sam and Dean have the fate of the world on their shoulders, they're going also develop this really intricate, tight relationship."

Over the course of seven seasons, Sam and Dean have come up against some epic villains and monsters. But who was Padalecki's favorite? "You know what, honestly, it's Ruby," the actor laughed. "Other than the obvious reasons too [Padalecki married actress Genevieve Cortese in 2010]. I liked the fact that I didn't know, until the very end of the season, maybe by the last two or three episodes, whether she was going to turn out to be good or evil. I had no effing clue. It was so well-orchestrated by Kripke [Eric, creator] and the other writers that the audience didn't know either. And so it was like 'I love you, but I think I hate you. But you're helping me do what I want to do.' And it was such a conundrum. And it kept me going. It was thrilling for me. I couldn't wait to read the scripts for the next episodes to find out what she was going to do."

One of the signature episodes from Season 6 was "The French Mistake," which saw both Padalecki and co-star Jensen Ackles have to step into the shoes of…themselves as actors. And film a crucial Supernatural scene not knowing how to act. "You know what? God's honest truth. That scene? Terrified me," Padalecki confessed. "I was so nervous to do that scene. Nervous nervous. I was thinking 'this isn't going to be funny.' And I didn't know what to do. But you know what I loved about filming the scene? As we were shooting it, Misha was laughing so hard that he had to excuse himself. He was like 'Hey guys, don't take this the wrong way, but when you're saying you lines I'm going to walk off camera. Because I can't watch you guys and not laugh.' And so we just did it over and over. Had a lot of fun."

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The Supernatural episode "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie" airs tonight on The CW at 9/8c.

Matt Fowler is an Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @MattIGN.

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