Jensen Ross Ackles (born March 1, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in television as Eric Brady in Days of our Lives, which earned him several Daytime Emmy Award nominations, as well as Alec/X5-494 in Dark Angel and Jason Teague in Smallville. Ackles currently stars as Dean Winchester on the CW series Supernatural.Ackles was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of Donna Joan (née Shaffer) and Alan Roger Ackles, an actor. Ackles has a brother, Joshua, who is three years older, and sister, Mackenzie, who is seven years younger. He is of English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. He had planned to study sports medicine at Texas Tech University and become a physical therapist but instead moved to Los Angeles to start his acting career.
After modelling on and off since the age of 4, Ackles began to concentrate on an acting career in 1996. He appeared in several guest roles on Mr. Rhodes, Sweet Valley High, and Cybill before joining the cast of the NBC soap opera Days of our Lives as Eric Brady in 1997. He won a 1998 Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Male Newcomer and went on to be nominated three times (in 1998, 1999, and 2000) for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series for his work on Days of our Lives.
Ackles departed Days of our Lives in 2000 and went on to appear in the mini-series Blonde, about the life of Marilyn Monroe. He also auditioned for the role of the young Clark Kent on Smallville, a role offered to actor Tom Welling instead. Next he appeared in a guest role on the James Cameron television series Dark Angel on Fox in 2001 as serial killer Ben/X5-493, the "brother" of main character Max/X5-452 (played by Jessica Alba). His character died in the episode, but Ackles returned to the show as a series regular in the second season as Ben's sane clone, Alec/X5-494. He remained with the show until its cancellation in 2002.
