Goodbye to Bobby: Jim Beaver

Bobby Singer's death in season seven of Supernatural was one of the show's saddest ever moments. Jim Beaver tells us what it was like in a revealing interview in the latest issue of Supernatural Magazine. Here's a taster of what he told us...

Death is a way of life in the Winchesters' world. Everybody dies sooner or later, one way or another. And while the dead often return, once a character's killed off there's no guarantee they'll be back, even on Supernatural. Except for the Winchester brothers, of course. And Bobby... or so we thought until episode 710, Death's Door.

And so Jim Beaver thought as well.

"I began to feel that I was pretty safe around season five," he recalls. "And in season six, I really felt like, 'Okay, well, I don't know everything that's coming up, but I'm not too worried if I have a job or not.' I was always more concerned about whether we got picked up for the next season as having the real influence on whether I kept playing Bobby. I guess maybe I got a little complacent, but life has a way of shaking you out of that stuff.

"I don't have a lot of conversations with anybody on the show related to their behind-the-scenes attitudes or hopes or plans or any of that, so this is just kind of a sense I've picked up. It's not something [where] I can say, 'Well on such and such a date, somebody told me this,' so take what I say with a grain of salt - but then, that's pretty accurate for everything I say."

So, like us and, we imagine, most of the fans, Beaver was surprised when he found out Bobby was being killed off. "Yeah, I was surprised," he confirms. "And I was surprised considerably earlier than the fans. One of the difficult things about getting killed off on a series is that you have to keep your mouth shut for a long time. I knew what was going to happen probably back in late August, and the fans didn't find out until December, so that was a long time to sit on it. But, yeah, when Bob Singer and Sera Gamble called to tell me what they had in mind, they caught me by surprise. I'm very fond of the status quo, so any time somebody comes along and shakes it up I get a little nervous. But, you know, they promised me when they first told me that I would get a terrific send-off, and boy, they didn't let me down."

You can read the full interview with Jim Beaver in Supernatural Magazine #32 (US numbering).

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