Jared Padalecki blasts CW after Walker cancellation
Jared Padalecki has blasted The CW after 'Walker’s cancellation.
The 41-year-old actor has worked with the network for over 20 years on shows including 'Gilmore Girls' and 'Supernatural' but admitted he is disappointed that it appears to be moving away from scripted television to "really easy, cheap content".
He told Variety: "I feel like The CW that I was a part of last year is not The CW that I was a part of under [former chairman and CEO] Mark Pedowitz for that entire, almost 20-year stretch. They’re just changing the network around, where it’s not really going to be a TV network as much as it’s going to be, 'Here’s something fun for an hour that you’ll never watch again, but hopefully you watch it. And it’s cheap!' And I hate to say that, but I’m just being honest. I mean, f*** it. They can’t fire me again. I’m just being brutally honest. I think it felt to me like they were looking for really easy, cheap content that they could fill up time with.
"I talked with the head of CBS [Studios] and the head of Nexstar/CW, I talked with the other [executive producers] on 'Walker', and I think it was a multivariate kind of issue. My understanding is — and again, this is just what I’m told — that Nexstar is going in a different direction with The CW. I mean, they have an hour of 'Trivial Pursuit' and an hour of 'Scrabble' coming up. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just download the app or grab a board game and play with your friends, but they’re clearly just — what’s that great quote? It’s like, 'If somebody tells you who they are, ask questions. If somebody shows you who they are, believe them'."
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And Jared admitted he is still grieving 'Walker', which he had hoped would continue for many years to come.
He said: "I left two days [after the cancellation was announced] to go to Europe for work and then for play. My wife and kids met me out there, and we took a little vacation that was already planned. It was strange, and it was both horrible and wonderful. It was horrible because I really wanted to grieve. I really wanted to sit there and grieve, and call my cast. But here I was, eight or 10 hours ahead of their time zone, and I couldn’t make a phone call to everybody I wanted to make. The texts would come in when I woke up in the morning, and I just wanted or needed a personal connection with everybody who I had worked with for so long. But it was great, because I had a lot of distractions...I still feel like I haven’t grieved the loss of 'Walker', so I don’t know yet if I trust my feelings."
Jared also revealed that the cancellation has made him reevaluate his work/life balance.
He said: "I need to take a good, long, hard look at my personal life and the time I spend with my family and my friends, and I need to stop being so aggressive and obsessed with work. I still want to work, but for now, you’ll find me in and out of the bushes, hanging out with family and seeing friends. If a project comes up and I don’t care about it, then money doesn’t matter. But if a project comes up and I love the story or there’s somebody I really want to work with, then all right, [I’ll do it]."