'Supernatural' Star Jared Padalecki Talks the Coming of Jack

First glimpsed in the closing moments of Supernatural's twelfth season, Alexander Calvert (Arrow) joins the cast of The CW's Supernatural with tonight's season premiere as "Jack" who is, essentially, the son of Satan -- and how to deal with such a powerful young man will be something that the two brothers at the heart of the show, Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Sam (Jared Padalecki), will be struggling with.

As we will see in tonight's season premiere "Lost and Found," for the no-nonsense Dean, the answer is to see a danger and kill it, whereas Sam takes a different route -- perhaps inspired by his own experiences, and seeing something in Jack that he can identify with.

Jared Padalecki talked about that storyline and his enthusiasm for it during a Q&A following a screening of the season premiere hosted by The CW.

"Just due to the way I'm naturally inclined as a human being, and as far as storytelling with the archetypes of feeling out there and different, I really love that storyline," Jared says of Sam's reaction to Jack. "I always loved it for Sam, and so it was really interesting and fun to see it woven in this season as well."

"Sam's able to play it off as if 'hey, no, no, no. We're going to research this first and make sure it's all fine'," Padalecki continues," but I know that Sam - or I'm trying to play Sam - as if he feels a bit of a connection. We explore that a bit more, and I really enjoy the way it ramps up a little bit as the season carries on, where Sam doesn't want to be wrong. He doesn't want to be careless if this kid or whatever this being is, is going to be evil - he doesn't want to be blind to it, but he certainly does see a bit of a chance for redemption."

"He wants Jack to be good, to see the same redemption that I think Sam seeks himself," Padalecki explains.

The addition of Alexander Calvert to the Supernatural cast has given Padalecki and Ackles a new target to haze.

"Fresh blood to mess with on set in Alexander has really been a specific, special joy of ours," Padalecki grins. "I think we have like ten minutes of footage of Ackles and I just messing with him. It's really kept it [lively] -- I have nothing but the utmost confidence in our writers and producers, but just invariably, there's a time in the summer where you're like 'man. What can they do that's not boring or repetitive? How are we going to keep this fresh and alive?' but as you all can see from [the season premiere], the storyline is brand new. It's super-fresh... and on set, it still is vivacious and there's as much camaraderie as ever, so I'm very excited."

This does mean, however, that Misha Collins is no longer the TV brothers' favorite target -- something that, so far, is thrilling the actor that plays Castiel. "We had a scene where Misha was on set and Alex was on set, and Misha was so thrilled to not be the whipping boy. He was just kinda just sitting there and smiling. He'll miss it soon," Jared teases.

The Supernatural season premiere "Lost and Found" airs Thursday, October 12 at 8PM ET/PT on The CW.