Jensen Ross Ackles (born March 1, 1978) is an American actor, singer and director. He has appeared on television as Dean Winchester in The CW horror fantasy series Supernatural, Eric Brady in Days of Our Lives, which earned him several Daytime Emmy Award nominations, Alec/X5-494 in Dark Angel and Jason Teague in Smallville. He also starred as the lead in the box office success My Bloody Valentine 3D and provided the voice of Jason Todd in the popular animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood.
Ackles was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of Donna Joan (née Shaffer) and Alan Roger Ackles, an actor. He has a brother, Josh, and a sister, Mackenzie. Ackles had planned to study sports medicine at Texas Tech University and to become a physical therapist, but instead moved to Los Angeles to start his acting career. He has English, Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry.
After modelling on and off since the age of four, 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.