Samuel William "Sam" Winchester is a Hunter as well as a Man of Letters, and along with his older brother Dean, is one of the main protagonists of Supernatural. Both Sam and Dean are related to the Winchester and Campbell families - a Letters family and a Hunting family respectively. The pair also share a bloodline with Cain and Abel. Because of this, Sam was pre-destined to be the True Vessel of Lucifer (whilst Dean was Michael's). Both Sam and Dean were raised in the hunting life by their father John after the demon Azazel killed their mother. Sam left the Hunting life to pursue a career in law, and most likely would have married his college sweetheart Jessica Moore, had she not died. When the series begins, Sam is reluctant to start Hunting again, but after Jessica is killed, he jumps back into the hunting life. However, he has repeatedly tried to back out of Hunting in the hope of finally having a normal life that he wanted. He also wants revenge, drinking demon blood until he successfully kills Lilith. Over time, Sam accepts the lifestyle, knowing this is his life now, and he refuses to do it without his brother. He repeatedly sacrifices himself for the greater good, highlighting his selfless nature. Sam is very mentally strong, evidenced by his ability to overpower possession by Lucifer. Sam also served as a vessel for the angel Gadreel before expelling him.

Trivia

Character Trivia 18

  • Jensen Ackles was initially cast in the role of Sam, but was recast as Dean when Jared came along and auditioned.
  • When he auditioned for the role of Sam, Jared Padalecki had just finished starring in the Gilmore Girls playing a character called Dean.
  • Jared credits two classes in San Antonio high school that has helped his career and his character Sam. He did Speech and Debate, with Duo Interpretation. It is scripted, similar to acting to a green screen. Now on Supernatural, Jared does a lot of his acting to a tape mark on the inside of a camera box, before the special effects are added. It is strange for the actor, but he is used to it having done it for years in school. The second class he credits for helping him now is his Latin class. He took it to improve his SAT score to get into college on hopefully a scholarship. He just knew while taking the class that he would never ever use Latin in his everyday life. Now he is quoting Latin about every episode, either as an exorcism or an incantation of some sort.
  • Jared Padalecki has won a few awards including:
    • The Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actor: Sci-Fi/Fantasy for 2015
    • With Jensen and Misha the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Bromance for 2014
  • Jared Padalecki has been nominated for numerous awards including:
    • The Teen Choice Award for TV - Choice Actor, Drama for 2007
    • The SFX Awards, UK, for Best TV Actor for 2008 and Best Actor for 2013
    • The Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actor: Sci-Fi/Fantasy for 2011, 2012, 2013
    • The People's Choice Award for Favorite Dramatic TV Actor for 2013
    • With Jensen for the Russian National Movie Georges Award for Best Foreign Duo of the Year for 2014
    • With Jensen for the TV Guide Award for Favorite Duo for 2014
    • The People's Choice Award for Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Actor for 2014, 2015
  • The actor who plays Young Sam Winchester, Colin Ford, won Young Artist Award - "Best Performance in a TV Series - Recurring Young Actor 13 and Under". (2010)
  • "These boys live out of the back of their car, so they've got well-used looking items of clothing, so it's not just off the rack a lot of times. You might get your heart set on something specific, but we might need eight or ten of them because they are major action heroes. And Jared is a very tall boy (6' 4"), so I end up making a lot of his coats because they're really hard to find in eights and tens." - Diane WidasSupernatural The Official Companion Season 1, p. 145
  • "The boys do have a lot of different clothes. It's like the magic trunk because if they really were what they were they probably would have two shirts and one coat and a pair of jeans, but we obviously have to keep it more interesting for them and for us as an audience. We try not to worry about how many clothes they have in their trunk!" - Diane WidasSupernatural The Official Companion Season 1, p. 145
  • Jared does not get to make decisions about Sam's hair or beard. However, at the start of season 14, Jared went back to the showrunner and asked if he could grow a beard. With the idea that Sam is extra busy, Jared was told he could have "longest stubble".
  • Jared insisted he cannot act without that slate snapping. He uses it as a 'starter pistol' to jump into the character of Sam.
  • Jared come from Gilmore Girls before Supernatural. Gilmore Girls is a show that is based in reality, so he reacted to the supernatural as maybe any human being would react - as if it were bizarre. Eric Kripke came to Jared and said "You're complaining about it, but it's NOT weird to you. Remember, you've been dealing with the extraordinary all your life. Like traffic sucked. It's understood. Connect to a world - my hamburger sucked same as that rugaru took a while to kill. It is not bizarre, just reality." Jared had a difficult time knowing what this is, and sliding into that mind-set for Sam.
  • Jensen and Jared chew gum on set during shooting. During a convention between seasons 13 and 14, Jensen announced that anytime Dean or Sam is shown in a scene, in any of the seasons, they have gum hidden in their mouth; it is generally in the roof of their mouth, behind their front teeth. Jensen's 10th grade English teacher claimed to know when anyone was trying to hide gum, and he does it to prove he can.
  • "There was one funny thing: Jared had a serious aversion to writing while on camera. I thought he was kidding, but he was dead serious and got really embarrassed when I had him write the sigil on the wall. He was a great sport and we had a big laugh about it; I theorized that when he was a little boy some huge, mean teacher criticized his finger paintings and scared him to death!" - Director PJ PesceWednesday's Watching Supernatural 12.13 "Family Feud" on TheWinchesterFamilyBusiness.com
  • In The Magnificent Seven, the directer wanted the sense of urgency and did a few retakes, asking Jared (and some others) to move faster. Up until this point Jared had carefully crawled in the back seat, since Bobby's car was a bit smaller than Baby. Jared leaped into the back seat, scraping his head on the ceiling - and lost a chunk of hair and scalp.
  • Jared tweeted "778-237-3022". It is a number to a prop phone used on set for Dean Winchester. So many fans texted and called, it tied the phone up and used up all the data that was paid. Thankfully, it was a pre-paid phone.
  • Jared and Gen keep spoiling planned storylines. At the end of season 4, the storyline was for Sam and Ruby to be married. However, in real life they announced their engagement and the show-runners figured that it would be a tacky move for their characters to follow suit, so the story was rewritten for Dean to stab Ruby. They again messed up a season 7 storyline, when Ruby was to come back and have Sam's baby. But Jared and Gen beat the show to the punch by announcing they were expecting a baby.
  • Jared Padalecki was asked at the start of season 12 by Entertainment Weekly what episodes did he consider his favorites. He easily lists the scripts that made him cry - Bloodlust, Heart, Sacrifice, and Baby. The common thread is the heartfelt interaction between the brothers. Jared mentioned a specific scene in Baby - where the brothers talk after Sam wakes up in the back seat. "The weird juxtaposition of what the boys are going through right next to reality is what makes this show what it is. I feel like those situations where we treat the abstract and the fantastical as just part of life is where the show thrives."EW
  • Other actors that portray Sam are:

Writing the Episode 29

  • Sam's character is influenced by Luke Skywalker of Star Wars.
  • According to Eric Kripke, Sam was originally the main protagonist of the series and the story centered around him.
  • Sam was originally named Sal, and the last name was Harrison. So instead of Sal Harrison, we now have Sam Winchester. The reason Harrison was changed to Winchester was that there was an actual person named Sam Harrison in Kansas.
  • In The Song Remains the Same, Michael reveals that Sam is descended from the biblical Cain, the first murderer, who killed his younger brother, Abel.
  • We knew from the pilot that something was different about Sammy. We knew that there was a character who ultimately did something to Sam in his crib. He's got these powers that make him effectively what he and his family have been hunting all their lives. - Jared PadaleckiSupernatural Oral History
  • Sam's birthday is May 2nd, which means his zodiac sign is Taurus. In 2007, this also became the birthday of executive producer and creater Eric Kripke's son, which Kripke describes as "creepy".
  • Jared told about a backstory he had made up for himself in the Pilot as to why Sam and Dean had not spoken for 2 years. His idea was that Dean had slept with his girlfriend. They fought, and Sam left for college in a huff.
  • Sam had a magician phase, mentioned in Criss Angel Is A Douchebag.
  • Sam's fascination with serial killers is shown briefly for first time in No Exit.
  • It does not say "Federal Bureau of Investigation" on Dean and Sam's FBI badges. That is because even if it is just being made for a prop on a TV show, it is illegal to make a fake FBI badge. Instead they read: The Federal Bureau of Justice, United States Department of Investigation.
  • A running gag in the show is that Sam almost always gets hit across the back of the head.
  • Whenever Sam is sleeping, the camera shows his feet hanging over the end of the bed. Supposedly, this is to remind the audience of how tall he is.
  • He only allows those closest to him, such as Dean, John, and Mary, to call him "Sammy". However Meg, Azazel, Ruby, Lucifer, Crowley, and Rowena have also called him Sammy at least once. Rowena has also called him Samuel.
  • Many of the characters Sam is romantically or sexually connected to end up either dying, being revealed as supernatural beings, or both; exceptions include (to the best of our knowledge) Lori Sorensen (Hook Man), Dr. Cara Roberts (Sex and Violence), Lindsay (Free to Be You and Me), and Amelia Richardson (Season 8). Dean referenced this trend in-show in the episodes Sex and Violence and Season 7, Time for a Wedding! Sam himself brings it up in Rock and a Hard Place, saying that most of his relationships do not end well while at a chastity group, with Dean wholeheartedly agreeing.
  • Sam suffers from coulrophobia (fear of clowns).
  • Q: Well we ever re-visit the whole story which seems to be a hole right now?
    EK:    : Right. Honestly, probably not. There was going to be more to the Gordon storyline but it had to get cut. External events affecting your internal reality. Gordon was going to find out about this hunter that Sam killed and use that to really round up the posse and go after Sam. There were going to be multiple episodes of this band of hunters that wanted to kill Sam. It was a developing story. But unfortunately, the word from Lifetime [network] was that we could get Sterling [Brown] only twice more, so that particular storyline had to drop out the window and we had to get to a climax with Gordon. At this point it would be too repetitive to bring it back up again with more hunters wanting Sam dead, so that's probably a storyline that will never see the light of day. - Eric KripkeWebCitation.org
  • It was really fun to kill Sam. You don't very often get to kill the lead character. One of the really fun things about "Supernatural" is that you get to kill whoever you want, and it's part of the evil genius of Eric Kripke. From pretty early on, he understood the power of doing the unexpected thing to the character the audience thinks is safe. He fought hard, and he was always someone who, in the room, who would push us to not get precious with a character, to not try to save someone because we think they're amazing. If we love them, we'll bring them back in some other form. Because we had a plan to bring Sam back, we got to write the super-emotional scene with his brother that we knew that Jensen would knock out the park, and both of them knocked it out of the park. - Sera GambleSupernatural Oral History
  • Sam has killed one major antagonist; Lilith at the end of season 4. He has also killed two secondary antagonists; killing Jake Talley and Alastair. In season 5, Sam defeated main antagonist Lucifer and secondary antagonist Michael by sending them to Hell.
  • Sam is the only Winchester to not have successfully made a deal with a demon, as both Mary and John made deals with Azazel whereas Dean made a deal with a female crossroads demon.
  • Sam, like several other members of Team Free Will, has been to Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.
  • Interestingly, Sam with no soul was similar to the concept of a philosophical zombie, a creature in a thought experiment that has no soul/mind/internal experience but acts exactly as if it does, e.g. exactly like a person.
  • When Sam had no soul, he used a different gun than that of the normal Sam uses. This was seen prominently when Soulless Sam and normal Sam confronted each other: each used the gun they preferred to use while in control of Sam's body.
  • Sam might have a supernatural sense to some degree, as he was able to sense that Benny was not human by shaking his hand.
  • Sam has attempted the Demon Curing Ritual twice and used it successfully once: to cure his own brother.
  • Sam is the only being on the show to be possessed by five different beings: Meg, Lucifer, Ezekiel/Gadreel, The Wicked Witch, and Crowley.
  • Even though he has had a stronger connection to demons he is the Winchester to become possessed by an angel twice. Once by the Archangel Lucifer and the second time by the Seraph Gadreel.
  • Despite being briefly possessed by him, Crowley never actually did anything to control Sam's body, a first for someone being possessed.
  • Sam is one of two characters known to have been possessed by both an angel and a demon, the other being his father. However, unlike John, Sam had been possessed by an angel and a demon at the same time, the only known human on the show to have done so.
  • Sam has twice been able to seize control of his body after being possessed by an angel. His father and Bobby Singer had previously managed to seize back control from demons, but for shorter periods of time than Sam and against foes much weaker than Lucifer or Gadreel.

Episodes

  • 1.01 Pilot
  • 1.02 Wendigo
  • 1.03 Dead in the Water
  • 1.04 Phantom Traveler
  • 1.05 Bloody Mary
  • 1.06 Skin
  • 1.07 Hook Man
  • 1.08 Bugs
  • 1.09 Home
  • 1.11 Scarecrow
  • 1.12 Faith
  • 1.13 Route 666
  • 1.14 Nightmare
  • 1.15 The Benders
  • 1.16 Shadow
  • 1.17 Hell House
  • 1.18 Something Wicked
  • 1.19 Provenance
  • 1.20 Dead Man's Blood
  • 1.21 Salvation
  • 1.22 Devil's Trap
  • 2.01 In My Time of Dying
  • 2.02 Everybody Loves a Clown
  • 2.03 Bloodlust
  • 2.04 Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things
  • 2.05 Simon Said
  • 2.06 No Exit

Actors

  • Alex Ferris
  • Jared Padalecki