Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Misha Collins

Episode Date: October 2, 2019

Misha Collins joins us as the second guest during Supernatural Week to talk about the hilarious memories from his 10+ years working on the show. He predicts how emotional the last few days with this ���family’ on set will be and shares his take on how unique the show is for keeping plot and concepts fresh even after 15 seasons. Misha gets deep and opens up about the adversity he faced growing up poor and homeless, his experiences as a child adapting around his mother’s agendas put onto him, and how his desire for philanthropy has led him deeper into politics.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Chris Sullivan is also on iTunes, subscribe, write a review. Chris Sullivan and I really appreciate you. October 18th, I'll be signing with Tom Welling in Columbus, Madison, Wisconsin on the 25th, November 8th in Austin. Germany, my band Left on Laurel will be playing. Our album is out, man. You can pre-order it right now on iTunes. Go to the iTunes store and pre-order the album. If not, on the 4th, which is this Friday, it's coming out on all platforms.

And merch, you can find that on inside of you store and all that. We're really excited. And at the end of this episode, I'm going to play a song. Yesterday, we played a song after the Mark Shepard one. But today, we're going to play one after this lovely guest. We're going to play the second track on the Left on Laurel debut album, Saved by the Ground. Right now, Misha Collins, boy, is this guy handsome. He is just a handsome son of a bee.

He's 45, too. I look at him. I'm like, why can I look like that at 47? I guess because I'm 47. But we really get into it. He's very open. I mean, he seems like a shy person. He is shy, but he's.

He's, uh, he's really sweet and fun. He's been on everything. I mean, the guy was on Charmed, NYPD Blue. He's been on CSI, uh, crime and scene investigation. What else? I mean, he's in a lot of these procedurals and then landed supernatural. And, uh, I think that really changed his life. And he loves you fans.

So listen to him. Talk about that. Let's get inside Misha Collins. It's my point of view. You're listening to inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum. Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum was not recorded in front of a live studio audience. Are you hearing me now? Yeah, perfectly.

Okay. You actually sound really clear. There's no echo. You look good. That's good lighting. I've been working on sounding good through the computer microphone. Do you do vocal warm-ups before your Skype calls? Yeah, but only for about 45 minutes.

dude good to see you this is uh this is pretty exciting misha you know i've been wanting to get you on the podcast for a while now making the mistake for a while of trying to do it in person and and our paths weren't crossing um frequently enough so so this is a wise choice this is a wise choice it's just very difficult for me to get up to vancouver but more so for you to leave vancouver it's true because of my contract that forbids me from leaving vancouver Is that true? Was it a 10-year contract? It's a 10-year contract, and they have a low jack on me, and if I cross the border,

explode and sever my foot. How many interviews do you do a year, do you think? I think we do a lot fewer interviews in the last five or six years than previously. When the show was newer, when Supernatural was still something that people were excited about. We were doing quite a few interviews. But then it was like, well, this show has been around forever and nothing has changed. And the guys that are on the show are quite old now and not interesting. They stopped. You're a liar. And now what we have, it's kind of exciting, is the end of the show. And so everyone is like, oh, finally it's over. Let's talk to them about

that. So I think that this year is going to be a year of a lot of interviews. Yeah. And probably this will be the last time anyone wants to talk to us. So we'll, I'm sure, really soak this up. You really, your dry sense of humor. Actually, I was thinking, oh, my God, he really believes this for a second. He really feels like he's washed up. And I'm like, he's crazy. Do you ever go to these conventions? Rob, have you ever been? Rob's here, Rob Hollis, my engineer slash producer. Rob, say hi. Hello. He's never seen supernatural. If I crane my head off to my left

Yeah, that wouldn't help at all They still can't see you It's not like looking through a window Let's Rob let's not get too comfortable looking at Robb though I just wanted you to see him My wife watched Supernatural Well it is Would you say it's mostly women who watch the show

I mean if you had a percentage No I don't think so I think it's mostly women Who are super fans of the show But it's a pretty good Demographic mix of people who watch the show So that's actually Yeah, they're two really separate demographics, the people who just watch the show and the people who love the show.

For some reason, it's a show that appeals, you know, to really enthusiastic female fans, but we get tons of guys who are like, you know, our entire barracks in the Marines watches Supernatural every week. So it's not a one-gender show, but women who are. unsatisfied in the bedroom often watch our show like awesome they're unsatisfied in the bedroom that's why she's she stopped watching yeah very good very good rob good one liner uh mecha like like look obviously me i said misha like look you noticed that did you hear that it wasn't great english i still haven't woken up yet well i have a misha like look so misha like look you do have a misha like look i don't want to talk obviously all about supernatural because that's not what the show is the show's not like, you know, we're going to do a supernatural week, which would be great because, you know,

you're all loved. But, you know, I find your story fascinating. By the way, where do we meet? Didn't we meet playing music together or you were playing music and I got on stage? Wasn't it at one of those events? Where was it? Well, maybe I was on stage briefly, but you're friends with Rob Benedict, right? Yes, Rob Benedict, Jensen, Jared. I mean, I was, you know, Jensen was obviously on Smallville years ago and that's how he became friends. I think it was a night that you were there when Rob was, Rob and his band were up on stage and I popped up on stage briefly. We had a brief, but very exhilarating encounter. Right. It was. I liked you. I think you're thinking about somebody else. No, no, no, it was you. I was like, that guy's really cool. He's

really handsome. And by the way, I hear from so many people how great you are to work with. And not only that, but you're like incredibly philanthropic along with being a good actor and all this other crap. But I mean, that's what I noticed mostly is like, I'm like, wow, he does so much for the world, so much for people. Am I right there? Yeah, that's me. I'm blushing right now, so I feel uncomfortable. So thank you for that. I guess that one of the good thing, I think that I always wanted to, when I grew up, be a net positive on the world.

And I thought for a long time that I was going to go into politics. Yeah, you worked in the Clinton administration or not Clinton administration? Yeah, I was an intern for Bill Clinton. And I don't know that that I did much work, but I was there. That's good. You were there. Yeah. And but I, in fact, actually, that experience kind of disillusioned me with politics.

I thought, oh, maybe this isn't the right path for me to take. What was it? What was it about that? There were a couple of factors that went into it. You know, I was in the White House. And I guess I had imagined that being in the White House, you were going to be in this. space were the best and the brightest minds in America and frankly the world were all under one roof. I mean, now we can very clearly laugh at that concept. But I think at the time, there were

probably a lot of people who thought that. And then when I got there, I discovered, oh, it's actually kind of, it's a lot of, it actually made sense. There were a lot of yaysayers. A lot of people who were just going to tow the line and like whatever the president wanted, the president got. And it was a team was there to support him. But what that meant was a lot of people who had volunteered on the campaign countless hours, they got positions in the White House or people whose parents donated a lot of money to the campaign. They got positions in the White House. I'm not talking about like cabinet level positions, but there are, you know, thousands of people that work below that that are presidential appointees. And it was just like kind of a lot of nepotism and not the brightest people

in the world and not the most engaging place. And I was like, I don't want to deal with this. But you could have made a difference. You were seeing it from the inside, or maybe that's what you thought. You thought, I actually can't make a difference. It's almost impossible to make a difference in here. Well, I guess I thought, at the time,

I thought, well, you know what, I'll start, you know, working for politicians and I'll find a way to work my way up and, you know, learn the ropes. And then I decided I would, my plan B was, all right, maybe I'll just get famous enough that I can make a difference that way. I get myself five years and five years later I could barely get a guest spot on Charmed. But you got it. I got it. And then I sort of gave up

on politics. And then ironically, Trump came along and it just rekindled something in me. And I felt like, all right, maybe I will, you know, dive back into that world in a bigger way. I don't, I I don't know that I'll ever run for office, but I want to be, you know, much more politically active. Well, you and Jensen, yeah, you Jensen and Jared, the three of you really supported Beto. You're not a Trump supporter? That's what, not what you meant? Oh, no, no, no.

I'm sorry if I misled you. Oh, I love Trump. We don't get political here, but I'm very interested. I was very interested in how that all happened. And like, so you sort of are inspired now to actually make a difference. You're going back on what you had thought. years ago and you know what i'm going to do whatever i can now with whatever little power i have or whatever power and try to make a difference i like that now you you grew up poor that's true

yeah because i you know i always when i read about that like poor as in homeless at times yeah homeless at times um and on welfare at times and on food stamps for a long time and um you know raised by a single mom, for the most part, I visited my dad. He was, you know, he was a satellite in our childhood. Meaning he just, he wasn't around. He just kind of buzzed, came in and out. We saw him like once, you know, a weekend, two weekends a month kind of thing. But he wasn't, you know, really a presence in our, in my upbringing.

But my, you know, my childhood was, it was interesting because on the one hand, it was full of adventure and, you know, living intense and learning that, uh, you don't need money to feel happy or loved. Um, but at the same time, there was a lot of struggle and a lot of difficulty because of that and a lot of, you know, not fitting in and a lot of, uh, I guess, embarrassment about being really, um, poor. How old are you at this point? Well, my parents split up when I was three, and we were living in pretty impoverished circumstances starting when I was five, I would say. Yeah, and we moved schools more often than once a year, which actually made it really hard because I never had a peer group, and I was always sort of the new kid and the weird kid.

So I learned some like coping skills, but it was also challenging, and I probably have some emotional scar tissue from the experience. Well, I want to get into the scar tissue, But when you say homeless, I mean, you know, I'm thinking, you know, living under a bridge and a tent. Is it, are you talking shelters? Are you talking a little bit of all of that? No, I mean, we only went to a shelter when we were living in a tent and a hurricane came. But we were living in tents here and there. And we were living in subsidized housing that was pretty, pretty bad in a cabin that had an outhouse for a little while. And a windowless office space that didn't have a shower.

hour or a kitchen for a while. So it was like sort of patchwork. But, you know, I mean, as a kid, kids are, you know, incredibly resilient and can, uh, can deal with a lot of things. And, and luckily I had a, you know, my mom was incredibly present and incredibly loving. We just were super poor. But now that I have kids, I see, oh, wow, that must have been harder on me than I thought. Yeah.

I honestly just can't imagine. I keep thinking about this little boy, you know, living in a tent. And I think, I mean, do you think back, like, can you remember anything specifically when you go back and you, you know, I don't know if you've done any psychotherapy, but I'm about to dive into that shit soon? But I'm thinking, do you think of anything that you thought maybe as a five-year-old, six-year-old, whatever, little boy going, wow, this, I hope it gets better than this. Like, this is, like, I'm scared. Do you remember feeling scared? Do you remember feeling who are these people or any encounters with other people who are, you know, dangerous or seeing anything that you kind of like blocked out that remember now? that's a really interesting question um i'm gonna take a step back and just and and and say that

for the longest time all the way probably until my mid to late 20s i painted my childhood really heroically like all of the things that i experienced as a kid hitchhiking literally you know your grandparents say you know well i was a kid i used to walk you know 10 miles through snow to to school and i i used to like walk you know when i was seven years old i would walk two miles through the woods on a little little path with my four and a half year old brother in tow you know by ourselves in the snow and I felt like that built character and made you know made me stronger and made me not afraid of the world and my mother had this incredible irreverence she really was always about like bucking convention and not having us not having us cow to cultural norms and I really painted that heroically and then later it was like maybe my late 20s early 30s I started to reassess it and realize that some of those things were difficult like we we would you know at times not have a car and we would hitchhike and there would be you know men who would try

to you know pay my mother for sex and you remember that yeah and I and I remember like times you know feeling you know my mom would buck conventions but for example one of them was was she sort of cut, she cut my hair to look like a girl. I had short bangs and long flowing hair, and she painted my fingernails and my toes with nail polish and sent me off at four years old to Cub Scouts in a very rough, very working class town where I was really abused by my peers.

Why did she do that? You know, I think that she was like, you know, boys should be able to dress like girls. And I mean, now, now, in this modern moment, it's so much more culturally acceptable and it's so much easier to do something like that. But at the time, like, I was really eviscerated by my peers and it was really hard and it wasn't something that I was choosing for myself. It was something that she was choosing for me. And that was hard. And there were these little sort of alienating moments throughout my

childhood that were challenging. And at the same time, in some way, They built characters. It was a two-sided coin, I guess. Yeah. Well, look. This really is there. I'm going to cry. No, I mean, believe it or not, you know, the fan base or the listeners that listen in, they, this is what the, you know, it's not that we, like, we want to get dirt.

And it's, that's not what it is. For me, it's like, it's more about your journey, Mish. It's more about, I look at this amazing human being who I admire and would, I'd change places with you. I'm working on myself and trying to be a best. better person and I and I look at like hey you just haven't always been this strong solid guy who's always you know faced adversity and and you know I feel like knowing this I want to see the character and how how you survive because like I remember you know my mother certain things like you know she helped me dress up it was her idea for me to dress up like Pat Benatar in a very

conservative town to get extra credit for a class and I sing shadows of the night she put breasts and lipstick and all the stuff on me and I remember an entire classroom looked at me like you're you're who the fuck is this and I remember looking at them and this buzzing feeling got over me like I guess that was anxiety then and it was like oh my gosh you are failing right now you are failing and um I just remember leaving the room in full drag thinking oh my god thought that was gonna be so funny and I was going to be embraced um but you know I had a say in that I said I yeah this is gonna be funny and my mom helped me she didn't force me to dress like a woman or a girl so you know I had a say in that I said I yeah this is gonna be funny and my mom helped me she didn't force me to dress like a woman or a girl so what I'm saying is when I hear that does that make you years later did you suddenly say why did you did you ever say mom why would you do that when I didn't ask for it uh I don't know that I've ever confronted her on it and and it's a funny thing because I you know I think that we should live in a world where that isn't a painful experience for a kid like I I think that this should be a place where you can dress however you want you can present however you want you can you can you know

have you can love whoever you want you can be whoever you want and not be ridiculed for it and if somebody does ridicule you fuck them however um i agree with you by the way that wasn't the case and it was difficult and um and i think that there were um there were moments when sort of her philosophical framework was preempting my developmental needs i guess i have you know had conversations with her about that. Another one that was really challenging for me was she really wanted me and my younger brother to be politically aware and connected to the importance of justice and peace, I guess. But one of the casualties of that was that she was talking about nuclear war all the time

and like taking us to nuclear Holocaust films at a young age. And I had like terrible nightmares about that for the longest time. So as I'm starting to parent, I'm trying to strike a balance where trying to make my kids aware politically, but not traumatize them. We have a big homeless population, a few blocks from our house. And I always try to make the kids walk with me, you know, on the sidewalk where everybody is camped out so that they develop the sense that these are just people and that actually they're often very friendly people who they can feel like are part of their community and

not an alien other, but at the same time, I'm also really being careful not to show them movies where everyone is burned into fiery ash. Sure. Were you, did you tell them like, hey, daddy was homeless? Yeah. Although I don't know if that's really settled in with them yet. And that's got to be kind of like, how old are they? Six and eight.

So it's hard to sort of comprehend, right? Because obviously you live such a, you know, the lifestyle that's so different from that now. It's just crazy. It's crazy to hear, you know, the story and it is. I agree with you 100%. I know how, I don't know how anyone can't agree with you. When was it where you finally were able to move into an apartment, move into a house? Things started to get better. You saw a light at the end of the tunnel. When was it that you said, okay, hey, this is, because it seems like even incrementally, like every, you were so far down in terms of homelessness and all these things. And, you know, your dad and the relationship with them. And all of a sudden now you're, you're, you're,

You can only look up at this point, right? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess I was, I never, I was never really thinking of our situation as terribly dire. And I think that maybe that was because I was, you know, growing up in a relatively poor town where there were a lot of other kids who were in struggling situations. I was, I do remember being, you know, a little bit embarrassed about having other kids, you know, come over to our windowless office or, you know, I never brought friends home to the tent. I think that my not feeling like I fit in made me work extra hard so that I could, you know, impress my teachers or find some sort of a touchstone where I was like, well, I'm good at this. So you can't criticize me for this.

And so, you know, I did well in school from a young age and, you know, I went to a good high school and went to a good college. And I kind of carved out a little avenue for myself to be successful at, I guess, so that I could feel good about myself. I also worked hard, and maybe that was, I think, you know, looking back, I think that that was some sort of compensation, too. Yeah. And you say your mom was loving, which you always wanted to say, I love you and you're going to be something big and I support you whenever you do. And there was always that feeling of I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. I could do whatever there is I want to do. And you think that also helped you really get through it. Because if she wasn't, not having your father there is present, it's really up to your mother. And if she wasn't there, who knows where you'd be right now. Yeah, no, my mom. I mean, that was like a real gift that my mother gave me. She really, she believed in me. She never really questioned what I was doing. She was always supportive. You know, like if you go into the field of acting, it could be really challenging if you're coming from a family that thinks that you're making a foolish decision. When you, when you decided to become an entertainer, did you, did you have support?

not really i think my mother was she's pretty eccentric and she was just kind of like yeah whatever i did theater but like she didn't really care um my father was definitely like you know he worked in a pharmaceutical company he's very bright like 1420 in his SATs when the 1600 was the highest and i wasn't i wasn't anything like him which i felt like you know i could not get his approval because i was so different so yeah i remember being a denny's after a play and i'm like i'm going to be an actor and he's like eat your steak and that was you know that was sort of it and he just never and it wasn't until you know it just took a long time before he ever sort of i think it was like it was actually smallville that he probably said i don't think he ever

said hey you're really good i never heard that but i think it was like hey um i need some pictures to give to my employees that and i felt like oh wow he wants some pictures of me that to me was the most i was going to get it wasn't like i you're so goddamn good you're the best legs ever never heard of that shit but you know um that's high praise though it was like for me yeah so yeah i didn't get that that um sort of approval i you know i always think i always talk about this you know ad nauseum that you know for children especially in their developmental stages and your your proofs in the pudding i mean you know for some kid who was living in a tent and homeless to make it to where you have it says a lot about your mom it says a lot about the love and support

you got and you know and shows and your strength not i'm not going to give her the all of it but like you had this inner strength that you said, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to fight this and I'm going to, I'm going to be the best that I can. Yeah, I think it was definitely both, but I, I, I think that it's really important for a parent to just sort of shower their children in unconditional love and support and say, I believe, you know, I trust you to make the right choices. And I mean, you know, that's not, you can't paint with too broad a brush on that because at some points you have to sort of carefully redirect to your children, but, um, but that support was really, really helpful. It's, you know, it would be just like swimming upstream if you're fighting against parents who

don't want you to, you know, pursue that kind of thing. Right. And many people go through that. I mean, it's a dumb question. I always ask this question. This is not the first time I'm asking, but do you get anxiety? Do you get depression? Do you get like, uh, I can't do this? I have fear in the way. Or do you, are you someone who, because I know you like do crazy meditation, you go and retreats every year. Do you still do the retreats 10 days a year for yourself? Since my children were born, I have not been doing a 10-day retreat every year, but I just got back from one last week, and it was great. I was like, oh, I missed this so much. What happens on these retreats? I mean, in a nutshell.

It's always something different, but you spend 10 days in silence. You spend 13. Whoa, whoa, hang on. You can't just do that because you're talking to someone who can't be silent for 10 seconds. Well, I think anyone, I think anyone can actually do it. I think that the silence is the easy part. It's the sitting on a cushion and meditating 13 hours a day that is crazy making. And you go through a lot. You really, you go on a psychic and spiritual journey that's very challenging at times. But I invariably come out the other side just feeling like,

Like I've had major epiphanies and feeling much more grounded and happy and present. So I think it's a really useful tool for me. I don't know where I'd be without it. It helps, frankly, mitigate depression and anxiety quite a bit. I haven't suffered terribly in my life from anxiety. I'll have moments of anxiety or, you know, sometimes at night when something's really bothering me. I can sort of loop on something or ruminate too much while I'm lying in bed, but anxiety is not crippling for me at all. And I go through this thing that I call

molting once every few years, which is frankly, I think any mental health professional would call it depression. But I just, you know, go through a period of feeling quite depressed and it's often not connected with any story it's not like it's a situational well i would say or it's just internal like maybe it's some sort of a cyclical chemical process i because it is cyclical and because it's usually lasts like two or three weeks for me um i have called it molding like shedding something um because it feels like i just kind of want to curl up in bed and uh not talk to anybody and not do anything for a couple of weeks. But when I say it's not connected to a story, it's not like, well, this thing happened in my life that precipitated this feeling. Or if I'd gotten that

gig, things would be great, but I didn't. So now I'm morose. Instead, it's just, I just feel shitty. So you welcome it as this is part of your physiological, biological. I try to. And when it comes, I try not to fight it. I try to just let it be. But it's a challenge. phase and it's I'm in some ways grateful that I've had these periods because it allows me to have a little bit of empathy for people who struggle with depression chronically because when I'm in that state I feel like I am dysfunctional like I really couldn't do anything if I wanted to and I can't imagine that being a chronic state I imagine just now like your wife walking and just now I'm going, what the fuck are you talking about this?

You're embarrassing me. Why are you getting so deep? Don't they want to know about episode 340? What are you doing, dude? Great episode. Hey, hey, by the way, look, I really appreciate you talking about this. I don't know, it just means a lot. By the way, have you ever, I just watched this documentary.

Have you ever tried ayahuasca or LSD or anything? When I, it's been a very long time since I did hallucinogenics. ayahuasca, you know, when I was in high school, I had, you know, a phase of experimentation and I did some, I did acid, I don't know when it was, long time ago. I know a lot of people who've done ayahuasca and not really ever fully come back. So that's really? Yeah. So it's dangerous if you're, if you OD, so to speak.

Well, I don't know that it's an OD thing. It's just people sort of, you know, they come back from a, you know, a. 10-day trip in Peru and I'm never the same and I I don't know I yeah so anyway that one that one scares me I don't I'm not eager to do ayahuasca well I was watching a documentary last night called becoming Carrie Grant and Carrie Grant who's you know one of great actors and

movie stars of our time or of all time or up another time of all time actually but he talked about how he sort of like, I guess, childhood trauma and this and that. And he went on to say that he threw an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife, actually, he experimented in LSD. And then went to the psychiatrist who he would be, you know, he put on a eye mask and he would just trip balls on LSD. And he'd be like curled up in a ball going, oh, oh, God, oh my God. And like, he would go on these trips that just opened his mind so much that it changed his attitude. towards life his his felt more alive he felt more humane he his relationships with people were better and he

swears swears by it that lSD did this because if not he was not living this happy life that everybody thought he was living he couldn't get close in his relationships he didn't feel like he could love he didn't feel and he he swears i you know we watched this last night we're thinking Carrie Grant. Carrie Grant, you look at these beautiful, you know, people and how could they be so down? And so my point was, you know, did you find anything that was freeing about it, that opened your eyes to other things that kind of made you look at the world in a different way? I've definitely had, I've definitely had drug experiences that have precipitated epiphany. I read this book last year called Stealing Fire.

And it's sort of about this burgeoning movement of microdosing and I-O-hacking and the combination of, you know, occasional drug use and meditation and, you know, the right kind of intense exercise. And it's like there's a, you know, whole, I mean, these people, the people that wrote the book, Stealing Fire, have set up labs at, you know, Google campus for, you know, you know, people to come in and, you know, experiment with these things. Not that they're microdosing people as a matter of corporate course at Google. But I think, you know, all over Silicon Valley, that's a trend right now. And it is something that I think can expand your mind. It is also a field in which you have to be really careful because if you, you know, do too much or do it too often, you can totally derail your life.

And maybe that's what I noticed with the people who I know who are doing Iowa. The ones that came back and never really seemed like themselves again were the ones that, you know, went a second and third and fourth time or were doing ayahuasca, you know, twice a month because they were trying to like chase that high or that feeling. So, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm, I'm all for careful and guided experimentation. I did this. I just did this ketamine treatment. I haven't really talked about it, but there's this facility. and real doctors they talk to you and see if you're even like a candidate like hey could this help you and the doctor's like yeah I think this can help you and I was like look I don't trip I've never tripped I've never been a drug user I mean you know I've been dealing with all this stuff and you're like you know I think you you'd benefit and then so I went to this clinic

and they sit you in this chair and it's very calming in fact the people in the waiting room I'm like hey man have you done this before oh yeah and I'm like cool do you uh does it work He's like, it's incredible. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, it's just really profoundly worked on me. And then you look over to this girl who's just looking at a magazine. I'm like, you too? Oh, yeah.

And I'm like, okay, so I feel comfortable. And I walk in because I'm freaking out because I'm not the guy who's like, if you hand a piece of acid or what do you call a piece of acid, a hit of acid, a piece. Come on, man. Come on. Get your jargonaut. I've never done acid, but it's a tab.

It's a tab of acid. A tab of acid. So I go into this room and I sit in this chair and they pull me back in the chair and we're watching you 100% monitoring you. We've got cameras on you so we're not going to upload these to the internet or anything. Don't worry about that. And we're just going to make it. If you have any issues, you wave your hand, we're going to come in and we're going to make you feel comfortable. And here's some blankets and here's some headphones that the doctor has sort of talked about the music that's going to be on them, which is sort of classical.

And they go, hey, we're going to give you a little IV of Ativan to just calm you. to make sure you're calm and a little stuff for nausea. You sit back and enjoy the show. That's sort of what he said. Enjoy the show. And so I closed my eyes and I put this little mask over me. I, of course, I had all this. I was apprehensive.

I was, you know, and I go, listen, whatever dose you normally give people, give me half of that because I honestly am a lightweight. So they did. And I did a couple sessions. And the first session, I could feel like there's just, they said, there was just this smile on my face. I had this nice warm smile. At one point I was playing piano with the music.

I felt like I was directing this movie. And what it did was for me, it sort of let me step out of my mind that doesn't stop running. And it took me away from all these things that weren't that important and sort of brought me into this new world where it opened up. It opened me up a little bit. And so can I say, oh my God, it's worked wonders? I think gradually, like you say, like you have micrododial.

I felt like it is helping me a little bit. It's sort of, as long as it's a controlled environment and a professional, you know, for me, it did. For some people, I think it does. For those people, Bob and the girl out there, they're happy as clams. And, you know, whatever it takes, I mean, I look at these, I think as I'm getting more, as I'm getting older, I just feel like I'm always in control of everything. I'm always, I got to be in control of this. I got to be in charge of this.

I got to, you know, tell Rob, Rob, do we? do this and I need to just fucking chill the fuck out and get out of my mind and so for me I think it was imperative that I try something like this as long as it wasn't dangerous or it wasn't going to kill me which so anyway have I educated you at all in ketamine yes thank you ketamine is also it's a dissociative so you can see yourself from a distance if you do enough of it just kind of a crazy thing to think about like you could watch yourself I remember being at a party about 20 years ago where everyone was it was in a motel and everyone was doing ketamine and there was these two women that were trying to just like shitty motel room and there was a really cheesy

cheap print of a of a bad painting on the wall and they were trying to crawl into the painting all right by the way this ketamine that you're talking about the party drug the special care or whatever is wildly different than what I'm doing they say that even on the thing they say this is controlled microdust it's like I read the article about it and it's like people think oh he's doing ketamine he's doing this massive drug and it's not it gets a bad rap

you know but but that's pretty that's a wild story they just try to climb to it I don't ever want to get that far you should ask them to up the dose just to the point when you try to crawl into a two dimensional painting just to see what it's like I mean I remember the nurse coming in there and I

lifted up my mask and I went hey there and she's like hi Michael and I'm like, what are you doing? And she's like, we're moving this chair. And I'm like, why are you doing that? She's like, oh, we need to get ready for another patient. And by this, I'm balls deep in this trip. And I'm like, am I okay?

And she goes, you're great. And I go, how's my resting heart rate? She's like, it's perfect. It's perfect. And I go, thank you. And she goes, have a nice day, Michael. And she walked out. She looked like a cartoon character, and then I closed my mask, and then I went on board, got back on board, and tripped out.

Dude, it was insane. How's my resting heart rate? I swear to God, I asked her, how's my resting heart rate? Like, am I doing okay? You're doing great. Anyway, look, for those last few minutes, I want to talk to you just about supernatural. We've talked about, I thank you for being so open. And so, look, I feel like I know you more now.

And I feel like people who, like, when they go to conventions, I don't know if you ever got in this deep. Do you ever talk about this stuff? Probably not all at once, but. Well, I appreciate you for being so open, and I hope I didn't upset you by saying anything. No, no, no, it's all right. I'll just book a double appointment with my therapy.

Do you go to therapy? Not really. Very occasionally. I should go. Are you only saying that because you're running for office? I'm literally, I'm one of those people that always is, I'm always thinking to myself, I should do more therapy.

I have a therapist who I've spoken with three times. So it's a start. That's a start. Supernatural. So you've been on it all 10 years? Supernatural is going into its 15th season, not to correct your mind. Oh, sorry, 15. That's what I meant.

Rob, what the fuck? I've been on, this will be my 12th season. When I hear your name, people say, I think it was Mark Shepard who said they throw so much at him like you're the guy who has all the dialogue like a lot of the big dialogue is that true no no it's actually on the contrary they often use me as a glorified extra because they don't like how I deliver my lines is my assumption um no you know Mark it's funny Mark actually um when he was on the show he had he had these really beastly big meaty chunks of dialogue and he had had he had these really beastly big meaty chunks of dialogue and he had this lovely kind of lyrical maybe it's just because he's from the UK and they have an unfair advantage but you know there's maybe maybe there's like Shakespeare in his blood or something like that but he he had this knack for even even though often he couldn't really remember his lines when he finally got them they just sounded it just was lyrical um so yeah mark would often have these

long soliloquies when he was on the show which was lovely Um, but I've been, you know, they keep me busy. Um, but I'm often, I'm often, uh, sort of monosyllabic. Do you sort of, do you ever get to a point where you're like, you had to, because we all have, but where, you know, you're working here and now in your sixth season at this point, you know, I know, I know you've done 12 seasons, but have you ever thought, you know, at the sixth season, you're like, oh my God, I'm saying the same stuff or I'm doing this or there's times where like, I just want to go do something else or where you always like, it's easy to say, no, I'm happy. I want everybody to know how happy I was and perfect.

Life's great because you're human. So you're going to go through stages of like, okay, this is, I've kind of had enough. Did you ever get through that? There's definitely moments when I wake up. I mean, you know, you know from Smallville, the schedule can be bruising. The idea of waking up and, you know, I live quite a long ways away from set. And, you know, I often have to get up at 4.30 in the morning to get to work. And then, you know, by the end of the week, we're shooting until four o'clock in the morning.

And it's kind of exhausting. And sometimes I don't want to go to work. But one of the things that makes our show great is that it feels like it's never repetition. We're always doing something different. The characters, I mean, my character, I played the human that my angel possessed. I played my angel when he first came on the show and was just a. servant of God. I played Lucifer. I became insane. I became a human angel. I had amnesia. I was this weird being with a strange accent who was keeper of the empty. I was a weird Nazi

iteration of myself with a quasi-German accent in a parallel universe. We are constantly shifting the terrain under our feet and making it kind of Interesting. So, yeah, I mean, I've worn pretty much the same costume for 12 years, and there is some stuff that starts to feel a little bit redundant. But for the most part, this is not, you know, a procedural drama where we're interviewing perk number two in the witness room every week. It's, we're kind of doing weird, new stuff all the time. We're breaking the fourth wall. I played Misha, the actor who played Castile on the TV show Supernatural, like. We do enough weird shit that it kind of does make it feel fresh. That was a factor that went into the decision to end the show was, you know, conversations about like, well, we could, we could stretch this storyline for another three years, or we could go out with a bang and have one great final season.

And everyone was like, you know what? That sounds like the right choice. Let's not go out with a whimper. Let's go out with a bang. So I really am genuinely not bored. Sometimes I don't want to go to work, but it doesn't feel like a drag. Right. So you go there, your attitude pretty much is like, hey, I'm getting paid to act, probably a lot, and it's fun, and I love the people I work with, and it's a success, and it makes an impact on so many lives that, you know, it makes you get up and enjoy life a little more.

I mean, miraculously, all of those things that you just said are true. We all, we really do love working together. Our crew is incredible. We have a great working dynamic. We do get to do very strange stuff on the show, which is exhilarating and satisfying. We do get paid more than we should be paid. And yet, it's remarkable. But you can still go into that set of circumstances and be like, I don't want to go to work.

I think we humans have this incredible capacity to be dissatisfied with wherever we are. That's so true. You know, Mark might have said, Shepard might have said, this instead. Maybe I got it wrong because it was a while ago that he said that maybe they fuck with you the most. Oh, that's right. Okay, that's right. They fuck with you the most. That's what it is. For the last three years, we've had a new actor on the show, Alex Calvert, who looks like me 20 years ago. He looks like my son. And it's been a real breath of fresh air because Jared and Jensen have taken him as they started hazing him instead of hazing me. So,

I have gotten a little bit of a reprieve from the abuse. But it was interesting for me to notice, this is again another thing to sort of notice about yourself. For a long time, Jared and Jensen would make it really difficult. When it was all three of us on set, they would invariably fuck with me, right below frame where the camera couldn't see, where the director couldn't see what was going on.

Jared would be, you know, he would have a broomstick in my crotch while it was my coverage. And I would just be biting my cheeks and trying to muscle through it and, you know, cursing them. And Alex came on the show and they started doing the same thing to him. And I just jumped on the bandwagon. I was like, thank God it's not me. And it was a good thing to learn about myself that it wasn't that I had any kind of moral compass or anything.

I just didn't want to be the one getting abused. And I was happy to throw someone else under the bus. So now I just join in with making it difficult for him to work. And it feels like everything is right in the universe. There's, you know, being around a family like that, I know it's, you, you hang out with these people more than you do with your own family, probably, or most of your family, except your immediate family. There's so much laughter, there's so much love.

But do you ever see, uh, other emotions? Do you ever see any anger? Do you ever see any real sadness? Do you ever have to take care of each other in that regard? Because it can't always be pretty. Oh, yeah. I mean, particularly, you know, me, Jared, Jensen, you know what? That's not really even true.

I think even the, the, um, recurring. characters you know we've we've all been working together for so long and we've all gone through difficult things you know there've been divorces and bouts of depression and difficult chapters in everyone's life and we have definitely been there for one another in those times and you know I mean we've had times when we've just sort of had our arms around one another in our trailers and you know patted one another's backs and said hey you know we're here for you we love you And it is really nice to feel like we have that support network at work. I mean, we're friends.

We're coworkers. We drive each other crazy. It really does, in a lot of ways, look and feel like a family. It's got all of the emotional texture of a family. What do you think the emotion is going to be the last day on set for you? You probably don't even know. No, I think we all have probably a taste of it. I mean, just making the announcement that we were ending the show was a little bit of a glimpse into what that's going to feel like.

It's certainly going to everyone's going to be crying. It's going to be a shit show in that department. I don't know how they're going to actually shoot anything on that final day. But I think that there is a bitter sweetness to it because it is, you know, it's been a really long chapter in all of our lives. and it'll be an exciting moment to look forward to a new future where we don't know what's coming down the pipe. You know, new adventures will come our way. And I think we're all looking forward to that in some respects,

and we're all really going to miss the show. And the show's not going to ever go away for us. It's always going to be a part of our lives. You were on Smallville, the whole run. Seven years. I left after seven and came back for the season finale. Series finale, series finale. serious finale that i mean you so you know kind of that feel yeah we did 22 years so i did about 160

episodes that's a huge you know for me it was time to go yeah it was huge it was oh my god it was and it was and it was and i cried i didn't think i would and i cried when i left i hugged my makeup artist nantly and i said all right well good scene and then oh jesus and it was just uh just floodgates um because it is she's like she was a mother to me she listened to me unlike my real mother she did though she really listened to me and i knew her family and i would remember i remember stories that i tell about to tell this day about her kid and i remember some stupid stories she comes home at two in the morning we're filming so late and she comes home and she's getting in bed her husband goes hey natalie i little blake wants to talk to you he wants you to

wake him up he has to tell you something very important you just he's like i'd take 2 30 in the morning honey i just i'm so touch she's i ain't saying no i promised him that you'd wake him up she's like okay and so she goes in a little blake's room and she shakes and she goes Blake Blake yeah dad said you wanted me to wake you up you had something really important to tell me I threw up today I just went back to bed but I just remember I was so captivated by her stories and her family and I was interested and you know it was just it was it was so sad that when I went I was like these people I'll rarely see again if at all if ever I can remember their names and it's like especially you know 12 years for you it's almost twice that much in these guys so at the end I imagine that they're going to need Kleenex is going to probably sponsor the final episode for Supernatural and we could get a good sponsorship there well dude I appreciate you I'm going to talk to your other buddies today and uh all right this is the most we've talked yeah um it's been mostly pleasant yeah it has it really has I really enjoy Jamisha Collins thank you for allowing me to be inside of you I enjoy

to you being in me, and I hope we get to spend more time in each other. I cannot wait, my friend. I cannot wait. Good luck with the final season, man. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Don't be nice to Jared and Jensen, please.

Never. Oh, my God. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to Misha Collins. Right now, as I promise, Left on Laurel, this is Track 2. Please check out the album, buy it, spread the word. Go to Left on Laurel on all social media platforms and merchandisees on Insighty. You can get a lot of great stuff. This one is called The Ten.

We can do all right When I fall to pieces You don't stay the night I'll look in the mirror Everything's all right I got half a tank I guess I'm on the ten now East and out of sight

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