A ‘Brutally Honest’ Jared Padalecki Slams The CW for Its Focus on ‘Really Easy, Cheap Content’
The credits had barely rolled on Walker‘s series finale when Jared Padalecki’s unvarnished feelings about the state of The CW became known.
While discussing the show’s cancellation with our sister site Variety, Walker star and executive producer Padalecki — who also fronted the CW staple Supernatural for over a decade — slammed the channel’s current leadership for its focus on “cheap” programming.
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Nexstar, which acquired the network in 2022, is “changing the network around, where it’s not really going to be a TV network as much as it’s going to be, ‘Here’s something fun for an hour that you’ll never watch again, but hopefully you watch it. And it’s cheap!'” Padalecki said. “And I hate to say that, but I’m just being honest. I mean, f–k it. They can’t fire me again. I’m just being brutally honest. I think it felt to me like they were looking for really easy, cheap content that they could fill up time with.”
Singling out the upcoming fall game shows Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble as examples of the network’s new strategy, which also includes plenty of foreign imports and co-productions, Padalecki noted, “I feel like The CW that I was a part of last year is not The CW that I was a part of under [former chairman and CEO] Mark Pedowitz for that entire, almost 20-year stretch.”
TVLine has reached out to The CW for comment.
When TVLine spoke to Padalecki ahead of the series finale, he noted that he was “pretty tired” after so many years on TV. “I’m a little disillusioned about the state of the industry that I’ve loved and been employed with for 24 years,” he said. “So I have a lot of thinking to do, and I have a lot of time to be with my wife and our kids, my friends, and think about where this industry is.”
Padalecki added that he doesn’t foresee himself signing up for another long-running network show, which could potentially take him away from his family for years.
“You really have to sacrifice a lot, and I’ve sacrificed everything I have to sacrifice for many, many years, and I think I’m at a point in my life where I want to spend more time with my wife and kids,” he explained.
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That said, Padalecki is open to reteaming with Supernatural creator Eric Kripke on his Prime Video series The Boys, which could potentially reunite him with his former Supernatural castmates Jensen Ackles and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
“[Eric] and I have talked about what it could look like. It’s not written yet. He said it wouldn’t really be until 2025. We wouldn’t shoot until probably January-ish,” Padalecki shared, adding that he’s game to “go play in the playground [of] the guy who created Sam Winchester. I’ve had good times in his playground, so I’m happy to do it again.”
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