INTERVIEW: From actor to director, Matt Cohen looks back on his ‘Supernatural’ journey
Courtesy of Creation Entertainment / Provided with permission.
Even though the coronavirus pandemic has delayed Supernatural’s final season, plans are still in place for fans to eventually say goodbye to Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles). In the interim, with new episodes on hiatus and the convention circuit a bit in question, fans will need to turn toward the virtual world to get their Super on.
Richard Speight Jr. has already taken part in a Creation Entertainment Q&A / meet and greet, and now it’s time for Matt Cohen, who plays young John Winchester on a couple episodes on Supernatural. He will welcome fans for a StageIt session Saturday, May 16 at 9 a.m. PDT / 12 p.m. EST (tickets are still available). Then, he’ll participate in an exclusive meet and greet on the same day at 10:30 a.m. PDT / 1:30 p.m. EST (tickets for this experience are sold out).
Cohen has a unique history with Supernatural. In addition to playing the young John Winchester, he has also appeared as the archangel Michael on the show. Additionally, for this final season, he directed his first episode of the series. Although he completed the production and post-production for the storyline, the episode has been held up with the pandemic.
It’s rare for an actor, who was meant to be a one-off character, to return time and time again, and then ultimately cap off his experience by helming an episode. It’s quite an honor for Cohen, who has also appeared in South of Nowhere and General Hospital, among other projects.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox spoke with Cohen about his experiences on this historic fantasy series. Here’s what he had to say …
On what fans can expect from his virtual experiences …
“They can expect an outburst of Matt Cohen that has been locked in a bottle for the last 40 or 50 days. I am so excited to just touch base. I have so much to talk about. You understand, I went up to direct my first episode of Supernatural basically on the front-end of the pandemic, like as attention was being drawn to it. I went up there to direct an episode. It was spectacular.
“I haven’t done a convention yet this year. I missed the Vegas one, and I’m just thrilled to get in with them. I’m going to have a meet and greet coming up. I’m going to have a panel for them. They can expect the truth, the pain, the laughs and everything in between. I am very excited to talk with them. As any fan of mine that’s ever spoken with me or sat in the room with me, they become my therapist, and I divulge all information on to them. And they leave shaking their head in disbelief and I think feeling like they got their money’s worth. I’m looking for to it. I know they’re going to enjoy themselves. I’m just excited to get to the weekend, man.”
On the differences between his acting and directing experiences …
“It was as different as literally day and night. Acting is a completely different beast, and directing is basically eight beasts because every day of production you’re essentially climbing a mountain that is too big to climb. When you get to that top of that mountain, and you conquer that day, you smile, you hug your crew, you guys laugh and cry together, and you realize you’ve got seven more mountains. It takes eight days to shoot an episode of Supernatural, and every day is a mountain.”
On the pressures of directing an episode of Supernatural …
“The writers of that show have done such a splendid job with giving us jokes and action and sci-fi and special effects, and all these things in each episode that are expected now. So you have a lot to deliver in a hour-long episode of Supernatural, and directing is just you overlooking, overseeing and being a commander in charge. It’s all that stuff. Everything you see in every frame and every action and every motion, you are collaborating with a lot of fantastic people, but it’s all on your shoulders, man. It’s a tremendous weight. I shout out and I applaud all great directors in television and film. I understand why they continuously do it because there’s no greater artistic payoff than being able to direct a movie or an episode of television and it working out.”
On his transition into the director’s seat …
“I’ve been fulfilled as an actor. You’ll get in a scene with a person, and then you’ll finish that scene. You won’t really know what happened because you’re so in tune with just talking and interacting with that person. You’re not there as an actor; you’re there as a human being having an experience, and when that happens, it’s remarkable.
“That’s 50 percent of the time in the acting world. … But on the directing side, you get that satisfaction every day, and if something didn’t go your way, you have tomorrow. You have the new day to retry the mountain and start again. Both things are equally rewarding. I look on to my future, and I’m in some negotiations on some projects right now for potentially directing and starring in. That’s just what I want to do.
“I want to be able to hire the actors I want to work with. I want to act with the actors I want to work with, and I want to direct stuff that I want to watch on TV and in the movie theaters — or maybe not in movie theaters anymore, but who knows. I want to direct something I want to watch. I want to act with the actors I love. I’m surrounded by a great group between my core fan bases in General Hospital, Supernatural, and these things have tremendous amount of talent around. I’m ready to go off to the races and start making the stuff the way I want it, the way I see it. I think people latch on to my vision. I think I’ve got a fun, quirky, kind of out there unique vision that’s a fresh take for Hollywood right now. People are responding to it, so I’m trying to keep it honest, man. My work and my art, my acting, my directing keep it as honest as possible, and we’ll keep moving forward.”
On the details of the episode he directed …
“I completed the episode. I shot essentially Jan. 15 into the first week of February, and then the day I came home, there was about a couple days off. Then I got into the editing process in Los Angeles, and I sat in the editing bay for four or five days. … We got my episode very, very, very close to being finished. Now I don’t know if it’s finished — finished because color correction, sound, these different things, I don’t know who went on lockdown first and how that really happened in the process. But my episode is directed. It did go very well. I’m very happy with it, and it will eventually be released when we get the ball rolling here and get Hollywood — or whatever the new version of Hollywood is — up and moving again.”
On how he first came to Supernatural …
“We’re going back to season four now, which is hard to say out loud, but you’re talking 11 years ago. I wasn’t even the same man I am today. …
“But, yeah, I got an audition for a younger Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Robert Ulrich, a fantastic casting director, he cast me and brought me in for reads several times, a tremendous guy. I really loved him. I walked in the office, and more or less said, ‘Wow, you look just like Jeffrey. I hope you don’t screw up this audition.’ He basically said that.
“I did the audition. I thought it went well. They brought me back again for a callback in which I was with Robert Ulrich and Mr. Eric Kripke, shout out to Eric. I love him dearly, the creator of Supernatural and The Boys on Amazon. If you haven’t seen it, it’s fantastic. It was Robert Ulrich and Eric Kripke who essentially hired me as young John Winchester on that show, and at that point it was a one episode, no chance of coming back or any of that type of stuff. But in the Supernatural world nobody ever dies.”
On how one episode turned into more …
“They brought me back as the archangel Michael and then again as a vessel for Lucifer delivering a message to Sam there in the car in season 11. They gave me a chance to fill the shoes, very big shoes of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, a masterpiece of a man and an actor. I like a lot of the things he’s doing with his life and his acting career. I admire him greatly. The people at Supernatural thought it was good enough for me to come in there and try to fill the younger version of his shoes, and that was it
“Shortly after doing one episode, did a convention, met some fans, kind of started to break out of my shell, and then I got another episode later on. More conventions, and then I made friends with my mentor in the directing world, Richard Speight Jr. He kind of introduced me and brought me in with Jensen and Jared, the leads on the show. …
“Fast forward five or 10 years, I get a call, ‘Will you come back in season 11 as an actor?’ Great, happy to do it, and then I signed a deal to go on General Hospital for three years. And I enjoyed my time there, but I really wanted to direct. So I stepped away from General Hospital for a little bit and directed a short film starring my wife and several actors from Supernatural, and the executives at The CW and Supernatural and WB everybody thought I was good enough to give a shot. That’s how the story goes.
“I got up there. I took it real serious. I directed an episode of what is a show that has defined essentially the last 10 or 15 years of my existence here in Hollywood, and I hold it close to my heart. Working with that crew that I’ve worked with as an actor, working as a crew member on the other side of the camera was just so special, and it’s such an incredible unique group of individuals there that work their butts off to put out an hour of television 20 or so times a year. It’s spectacular. Again, I can’t say enough of the amount of gratitude I feel for those people, that franchise, those actors in that show. It’s quite immense.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Matt Cohen will take part in a virtual Q&A session via Creation Entertainment Saturday, May 16 at 9 a.m. PDT / 12 p.m. EST. Tickets via StageIt are available. The more intimate meet and greet on the same day is currently sold out. Click here for more information.
