Fans of Supernatural will be able to get their hands on the official Season 7 companion next week, but we have an exclusive interview excerpt you can read right now with Jim Beaver, who plays Bobby Singer on the show. *Spoiler Warning* Don't read this article if you haven't finished watching Supernatural Season 7.
"The hit show starring Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as monster-hunting brothers continues its spooky road-trip through the dark heart of America as the Winchesters face a new threat from the human-eating Leviathans. This official companion is packed with exclusive interviews, photos, behind-the-scenes secrets, a complete episode guide, plus a colour portrait gallery of the stars."
Exclusive Excerpt:
Hey, what am I, chopped brains on toast?
One of the things season seven will be remembered for is being the season Bobby Singer died and turned into a vengeance-obsessed ghost. “Vengeful Ghost” Bobby wasn’t the only “bad” Bobby of the season, either. Jim Beaver also briefly played Leviathan Bobby. “The occasions I’ve had to play bad versions of Bobby have all been fun,” states Beaver. “It’s always fun to look like Bobby and sound like somebody else. The technical aspects of playing opposite yourself, as I did in ‘Slash Fiction’, are kind of tedious, though. You have to do everything twice. Having a conversation with myself and remembering which lines to say and which lines not to say was a bit of a strain on my old brain, too.”
Beaver has mentioned before that he thinks there’s no harder job in acting than being one of the leads in an hour-long weekly drama series, so it’s no surprise that he found the Bobby-centric ‘Death’s Door’ to be a strain on his body. “I was worn to a frazzle when it was over,” he says, “but it was a lot of fun, if you don’t count how sore and tired I was. I was really grateful for being in the position where they’ve trusted me with the ball twice now [in this episode and season six’s ‘Weekend At Bobby’s’] and let me run with it in practically every scene.”
Beaver had a lot of time to rest after that exhausting episode, though, because the writers killed Bobby. “I was shocked,” Beaver admits. “I’d maybe gotten a little complacent, because by the eighth or ninth time that Sam or Dean died, I figured, ‘Well, it doesn’t mean much if you get killed on this show’ in terms of future employment.” However, “It seemed like a strong thing to do, dramatically,” Beaver adds.
Beaver’s “best memory of this season” occurred while shooting the episode during which Bobby died. “They have these things called safety meetings – the entire cast and crew in Vancouver has to attend a meeting about where the fire exits are and where to gather if there’s an earthquake, why not to pour water on the electrical outlets, stuff like that. They have these once or twice a year, and everybody has to show up and listen to twenty minutes on how not to break your neck on the set. When we were shooting episode 7.10, they called one of those meetings. If you’ve been to a few of them already, they’re kind of tedious, so I didn’t really want to go, but they called me and I went over to the set. I was surprised to get there and see that everybody else was there ahead of me, because I try not to ever let that happen. I was extremely shocked to see Jared and Jensen ahead of me, which they try never to let happen. Anyway, they said they were going to run this video about safety on the set and we all groaned, then it started up – but instead of a safety video it was a video tribute to seven seasons of Bobby Singer! It was very emotionally affecting to me. I was really touched. It got an enormous response from the whole crew, and I got a little weepy too. It made me realize, ‘This is really happening.’ They don’t normally give a memorial service to a character if he’s going to be back in the next episode.”
Bobby did come back, though, before he finally had to be vanquished by the Winchesters, and Beaver is optimistic that viewers still haven’t seen the last of him. “All I know is that the writers on the show adhere to the mythology that they have created, but they are still creating that mythology, so if they write themselves into a corner, they can write themselves out,” he says. “I figure they will write themselves out of [Bobby being gone for good]. I sure hope so. I don’t know what’s going to happen in season eight, I can’t tell you what the chances are that Bobby will be around, but it’s Supernatural. They will figure out a way to do what is dramatically strong and make the audience happy.”
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