At home on the range: Jared Padalecki is ‘Walker’
Jared Padalecki is not your father’s “Walker, Texas Ranger,” nor is he trying to be.
Padalecki, 38, stars in and produces “Walker,” a reimagining of the Lone Star lawman made famous by Chuck Norris in the ’90s. The new CW show, which premieres Thursday at 8 p.m., is more of a family drama than a cops-and-robbers rehash.
“There’s a reason we called it ‘Walker,’ not ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ because it refers to the whole Walker family,” Padalecki told the Daily News from the set in Austin, Texas.
“It’s more a show about how people in these times can deal with very human issues as opposed to ‘good guy beats up bad guy.’ ”
Good versus evil is something Padalecki knows a bit about, after 15 years playing monster hunter Sam Winchester in the hit CW show, “Supernatural.”
Instead of taking down werewolves, vampires and demons, as Walker, Padalecki is tackling issues surrounding immigration, police tactics and grief.
The 2021 version of Cordell Walker is a widower with two teenage children. Having thrown himself into his work after his wife’s murder, he comes home from a long undercover assignment to find his kids struggling and his department changing.
He’s paired up with a Mexican-American woman, played by Lindsey Morgan, who starred in another CW show, “The 100.” A trailblazer with a lot to lose, her character, Ranger Micki Ramirez, keeps Walker in line.
Padalecki fans will recognize a familiar face as the law enforcer’s lost love, shown in flashbacks. Emily Walker is brought to life by Genevieve Padalecki, Jared’s wife.
“For the last almost nine years, it’s been Gen as a mother so often, that to see her again across the set from me, playing a character is just awesome,” Padalecki said. “It’s really fun to work with her and watch her flex her acting chops.”
An NYU Tisch School of the Arts grad, Genevieve did a whole lot more than just parent while her husband was off fighting mythical creatures. She writes a blog called Now & Gen, has a book club, is on the board for the charity Random Acts, is working on a new project promoting sustainability and had a clothing line at Kohl’s.
“She’s an inspiration to me and everybody around her,” said her doting husband.
The couple met and fell in love on the set of “Supernatural” during the show’s fourth season. Now, 13 plus years later, they are raising three kids and a slew of animals in Austin.
Like so many Americans, the family’s life was turned upside down at the start of the pandemic in March. Jared spent much of the last 15 years filming in Vancouver, B.C., flying home for long weekends and hiatus.
“It was almost like a honeymoon in a way, because you don’t really delve into all the nitty-gritty daily monotonous stuff,” Genevieve, 40, recalled.
“We went from seeing each other on average four to eight days a month, to living in the same house and not leaving the house, not working, not seeing anybody else because we didn’t know how dangerous this pandemic was going to be,” Jared explained.
“Actually having ... most people’s reality of having their spouses live with them and then go to work and come home — that’s honestly what we’ve been waiting for, for the last 13 years now,” Genevieve explained.
“I get to go home at night and sleep in the same bed as my wife, as opposed to sleeping in an apartment in a foreign country,” Jared echoed.
The comforts of home, the kids, the animals — among them chickens, dogs, bunnies, bees and a hedgehog — are all part of the Padalecki puzzle these days.
For now, they’ll stay in Austin, managing their chaos and putting their spin on a beloved television show.
“I want to do it justice,” Jared said of the original “Walker, Texas Ranger,” while “also doing more justice to the world we find ourselves in now, so if we can find some way to marry the two then that sounds great.”
