'Supernatural's Misha Collins is Actually a Perfect Human Being.

So, if you watched the season 7 finale of ‘Supernatural’ and didn’t fast-forward through the admittedly repetitive commercials, you might have caught a little something that Bing did over ‘Supernatural’ guest star/star/’special’ guest star Misha Collins, who plays Castiel. And while I’m happy that the CW and Bing are recognizing him and other actors for their contributions to society, I think it’s my duty as one of Misha’s Minions to communicate to the general public exactly how amazing Mr. Misha Collins really is.

First, I should probably expand on the whole, well, ‘actor’ part of Misha Collins, since that is sort of what this website is about and all. Sadly, there aren’t that many parts to bring in to play here—the biggest role he plays is in ‘Supernatural’, though he did have a part in the CW show ‘Ringer’, and he played the main character in ‘Stonehenge Apocalypse’, but it’s a Sci-fi original movie, and that’s really all I should have to say about that.

However, just because there’s only one major show he’s properly ‘starred’ in doesn’t mean there’s only one role to talk about here. Of course, he does an amazing job as

Castiel, especially considering that Misha himself is basically the polar opposite of the character (or, was, before Cas lost his marbles). Misha does an absolutely exquisite job of communicating ‘otherworldliness’ in his acting, and has such a piercing stare that the Supernatural people didn’t even have to tell us that Castiel can read minds. It was sort of taken as a given.

So, yeah, I could gush on and on about Castiel, but there’re other characters that Misha played, too. Firstly, in ‘The Rapture’ (4.20) Castiel’s vessel (the poor dude he was possessing), Jimmy Novak. This was especially interesting, because despite having the exact same wardrobe for most of the episode, Jimmy was immediately recognizable as…well, not Castiel. I mean, of course their voices are different, since Misha chose (though he somewhat regrets it) a voice for Cas that almost every fan out there seems to describe as “gravelly”. But when Castiel first possesses Jimmy, he doesn’t speak a word for a good 30 seconds, yet you can immediately see the change from worried father/husband to a self-proclaimed ‘celestial wavelength’ who’s just trying out his new body.

Then, jump to season 6, where we have ‘The French Mistake’, which I’ve already mentioned in a previous article. Cutting to the point, then—in this episode, Misha Collins plays Misha Collins (once again, not to be mistaken for the actual Misha Collins), the actor who plays Castiel in the alternate universe where Jared Padalecki has an alpaca in his backyard (well, they are the greenest animal). Meta!Misha not being that much different than the actual Misha, there’s not really much to say about his acting here, except he managed to convince a lot of people that he was actually that much of a dick. Which, obviously, he’s not.

Speaking of dicks; the Leviathan. (Wasn’t that just the smoothest segue you’ve ever heard?) Now, Misha didn’t spend that much time acting as Cas chock-full of Leviathans, and he was reportedly sick as a dog for some of that time anyways. But he still put forth a phenomenal performance, the only complaint I might have excused by the fact that at the time, he was limited by what his stand-in had done in his place. As for the rest of his acting, well…I think it’s best exemplified by the fact that Jensen Ackles was actually terrified when they were filming the scene. And I’m putting that lightly.

Believe it or not, there’s probably more I could say about his acting—about how he disappears into character and somehow communicates nonverbally as well as he delivers his lines, but I’m going to move on, because honestly, you just need to watch him to get it.

So, next topic; a couple other skills that Misha has that you might not know about, because obviously most of you reading this are fairly familiar with his magnificent skill Acting on Camera.

First one—writing. Obviously it’s his wife that’s the most writer-y in the family, having a published book and all, but Misha has done his fair share of writing, too. Allegedly (I don’t actually have a solid source for this claim, so bear with me. Or alternatively, send me one.) he wrote an episode of Supernatural at one point in time, though it was turned down by the head writers, to everyone’s disappointment, I’m sure. He is, however, a published poet, having two works in the Columbia Poetry Review # 21. His poems are, by the way, adorable. Spare a couple of moments to find them on Google.

Secondly, and really, most impressively, he built his own house. Not exactly from the ground up, but pretty close—apparently the only thing left from the house that stood there previously was the roof and the sub-floor, and no, I don’t know how that works. He talked about it in the most recent CW Connect he was in, and he says that it took around two years, during which he slept in a car port in his backyard and showered with a garden hose. So, yeah. If that’s not an interesting experience, then I don’t know what is.

So, obviously, Misha Collins is a man of many talents. Less in a jack-of-all-trades sort of way and more in a, you know, I-built-my-own-house sort of way.

But not only that, he’s also incredibly adorable. I think a lot of people would be willing to admit he doesn’t exactly conform to what a lot of people would call “traditional” standards of beauty, especially for males. He’s pretty skinny, and his face is sort of, I don’t know, round-ish. But look at the guy! What he lacks in whatever popular society thinks he should have he makes up for in having the most adorable expressions and eyes that look like they belong to an actual angel. And Misha’s actually pretty fit, he just has a slight frame. And I, for one, think that is adorable.

And speaking of his expressions, he’s just so damn silly. Or, more like, Misha Collins does what he wants and he doesn’t care what you think, and some of those things are decidedly ridiculous. When he posts a picture of him decked out in mismatched costume pieces from a shop in Rio, no one questions. When he throws pastries at people he took out for dinner from a length of 20 meters, everyone just shakes their head and goes, ‘well, that’s Misha’. For more examples, check his Twitter page, there’re plenty—but meanwhile, while I’m on the topic:

The people he was throwing pastries at were people that he took to Rome. For dinner. Because they won a scavenger hunt.

Or, well, saying ‘a scavenger hunt’ doesn’t do it justice, at all. They won (and some got randomly picked from) the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen, more commonly known as GISHWHES, and when Misha calls something the Greatest the World Has Ever Seen, he means it—the hunt him and his ‘advisor’ Jean Louis put together actually won a Guinness World Record. And again, Misha just did this on a whim, because, you know, why not. And the items in the hunt ranged from a dog dressed like Castiel to an extremely specific set of instructions for creating a political website, from projecting poetry onto a Navy destroyer to dressing in a bacon dress, and only a bacon dress.

That’s the kind of stuff this guy gets up to in his free time, when he’s not filming or attending Supernatural conventions, which of course, the whole cast gets credit for, especially the work that Jared and Jensen put into the whole thing. But something special about Misha is that he gets really involved in the fandom. Well, for an actor, at least. Not saying that the rest of the cast dismisses us, of course, just saying that Misha has a weird fascination with us, like we’re some sort of science experiment, almost. He’s interested in the things that the fans do, from cosplaying to character analyzation to fanfiction, even, which I think we can all admit takes quite a bit of bravery and/or morbid curiosity on his part (and I pray that he has not nor will ever have found the RPS). He’s one of the few actors I’ve seen that don’t brush off questions about shipping, M/M shipping especially (not that Cas is male, but don’t even get me started on that), and at times he’ll go above and beyond the actual question and make the audience uncomfortable about it, which really isn’t something to sniff at.

He’s just, well, nice—he makes a point to go out and talk to as many fans as he can, and does his best in interacting with the ~450k people that follow him on Twitter. And, most importantly, he puts those hundreds of thousands of fans to good use.

I can practically hear across space-time the people reading this article and thinking, “Oh my gosh, she’s talked about all this stuff and she’s not mentioned his charity work yet?? What’s wrong with her!!”

Well, calm down extensively punctuated fan, I’ve saved the best for last.

The best being that once upon a time, Misha posted a link to raise money and got around $30,000, fast, at which point he realized something along the lines of; “Wow, all these people are willing to randomly give money to a cause like this, what if I got them organized?”

And thus was born The Random Act, where he occasionally posts calls to action for the members, but more often uses it to remind people about his missions to Haiti. In his “Hope 2 Haiti” campaign, he takes the first people who raise $5,000 or more for the program, and brings them to Haiti to help the community. He took a group over and rebuilt things after the earthquake, and is continuing the mission. And this isn’t some, oh-look-I’m-taking-pictures-with-poor-kids sort of thing that a lot of celebrities do for good press—he gets down and gets work done, him and his team helping build an orphanage the last time they were there, and helping with an art school for the children. Most of the people who go to Haiti with him talk about how hard they worked—allof them—but how rewarding it was to see how much they were helping. Someone said that

at one point when they were there with Misha, he had been up for 36 hours and was exhausted enough to forget his Twitter password, which I’m sure was devastating for him.

The Random Act also does other things, as I’m sure most of you have seen in the Bing commercial. Misha went with a team to deliver supplies to homeless people in LA, and they provide necessities for people who can’t afford them, and just altogether encourage people to exhibit kindness in every way possible.

In a video from a recent convention, Misha told us that he’s inspired by people who live by example. He doesn’t like preachy people or people that just tell you what to do—he admires the ones that just go out there and do it, and show by example how to be kind or trustworthy or whatever they wish to exhibit. And, it’s a little funny, because I don’t think he realizes that he himself is exactly the kind of person that he was talking about. As much as he goofs off and likes to pretend he’s something of a jerk at conventions and on his Twitter page, he’s really an amazing person. He wasn’t looking for publicity when he started The Random Act or thought up GISHWHES—hell, you actually have to look for his name on the websites sometimes. He just wanted to help people, and help them enjoy themselves, and help bring them together.

Plenty of people out there will tell you that Misha is perfect, and talk about how beautiful or funny he is, but I think that if

you actually asked them about it, they’d mostly tell you the same thing. Misha lives by example. He shows people that you don’t have to be born privileged to do great things. He sees an opportunity to help out or make people happy and he takes it. So while he is pretty or silly and definitely a great actor, there’s more to it. Misha is altogether, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, an amazing person.

Misha Collins is truly an inspiration for us all.

(P.S. If I used your photo and you want credit, go ahead and comment or something. I’ll put it up.)