Season 14 of The CW’s long-running ‘Supernatural’ premiered October 11 and we finally got to see Michael in Dean’s body suit (portrayed by Jensen Ackles) in action. He is wandering the earth, talking to various beings, trying to figure out what they want. By no means is the Archangel looking to protect the interests of humans, he just wants a clean slate – again – but this time around he does not intend to make a s**tshow out of it.  

Ackles looks all sorts of sexy in Michael’s choice of clothing, specifically, suits, and the new diction isn’t all too bad either. As it turns out, Ackles was fully involved in the creation of this new Michael, previously played by Christian Keyes, with co-showrunner Andrew Dabb letting him do his “own thing” with the character.

There were no rules to who or what Michael is, making him a blank canvas. “I had an idea of what I wanted to do and I played around with it over the hiatus,” EW quotes Ackles as saying. “When I got him up on his feet in the first couple of episodes, to be honest, I was kind of floundering a little bit — what I had intended to do was maybe not popping as well as I wanted it to.”

While episode 1 ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ saw very little of Michael, episode 2 ‘Gods and Monsters’ has a lot more of him, which means we get to see Ackles really sink into the character, play with him. There are elements of comedy, charm and pizzazz, that comes with playing a character like Michael.  

“I only had, like, two scenes in the first episode, so I really didn’t have a chance to dive into it. But the second episode I got to play with him a little bit more — there were a couple really good scenes,” explained Ackles. “I started to add a bit more flavor [to Michael] and spice it up a bit.” He also acknowledged the inputs of Richard Speight [Jr.], best known for playing the trickster, who directed episode 2.

“I was originally trying to take the traditional angel approach. I thought I’d take that method of this omniscient being that is essentially humorless,” Ackles said. “I quickly 180-ed on that after reading through a few things a few times. There wasn’t a whole lot of comedy written for the character, so if I was going to filter some in, it was going to have to be between the lines, which is fine, I like doing that and I like finding those moments. But then I realized that there have been a couple of angels that have had humor and that would be Lucifer and Gabriel. And those were two archangels. So, I did take a little bit of liberty with that and thought, if they can do it, maybe this guy should have at least a small dose of that, so I do play a little bit of that in there.” 

Ackles compared the process of figuring out who Michael in Dean’s bodysuit is, to figuring out what Dean was like in the beginning of ‘Supernatural’ 14 seasons ago. “It wasn’t until about the third or fourth episode [of season 1] where I really felt like I had a handle on the idea of who this guy was. So, I feel like I’m back in that same seat again, 13 seasons later. It’s cool,” he explained.  

Don’t forget to watch ‘Supernatural’ season 14 episode 2 titled 'Gods and Monsters' at 8 | 7 c on Thursday, October 18.