The WALKER Team on the Timely Reboot

Just months after SUPERNATURAL wrapped, Jared Padalecki is back on The CW with the new series WALKER, which follows Cordell Walker, a Texas Ranger, who is struggling to balance his job with his complicated family life.

“I did grow up watching the [original] show and certainly after shooting SUPERNATURAL for 15 and a half years, it was a change,” Padalecki said during the show’s TCA panel. “To give a shout-out to [creator] Anna [Fricke] and our writers, the character they wrote for this version of WALKER is so crystal clear and different than Sam Winchester, that I’d have to try really hard to kind of bleed the two together. And so it was a lot of work, but it was a seamless change from 15 years on SUPERNATURAL as Sam Winchester to the next [hopeful] 15 years on WALKER as Cordell Walker. But we’re pretty excited about it.”

For Padalecki, his initial interest in the show’s subject matter actually came before SUPERNATURAL ended. “I read a story about a law enforcement agent who couldn’t bring themselves simply put to put a three-year-old in the cage and take them away from their parents,” he recalled. “And they said something to the effect of, ‘I have a three-year-old, I couldn’t bring myself to do that.’ And that empathy and that emotion struck me as [being] caught between the inevitable rock and a hard place where you’re bound by duty, but you still have moral code and you see people as human beings, not as perpetrators or heroes.”

But, of course, they’re also now tasked with telling the story at a time when police reform has been at the forefront of the national conversation.

“I will say, I actually feel very fortunate that we are being forced to have these conversations, and it’s been a very provocative and educational year,” Fricke said. “And given all the events that have been happening in the world, me, the writers, our cast, I think initially were wary of the position we were in telling the story. And now I feel very grateful because I think we actually have a platform to explore the story correctly, and to be thoughtful. And we have really been given a chance to examine things and hopefully [tell] the story in a responsible way. We, as a show, are really trying to lean into these topics and learn from these topics and explore the lives of these characters in a very deep way.”

Added Lindsey Morgan, who plays Micki Ramirez, one of the first women in Texas Rangers’ history, “In a way, it became this unsuspected blessing, because suddenly a show about law enforcement in a very divided state such as Texas means so much more now in our world today than it would have pre-2020. So just from my position and, and the character I play, a big obstacle and learning challenge that I face daily is, where do I fit as a Mexican woman in a majority Caucasian law enforcement team in a state that [has been], for the history of it, majorly conservative and not caring too much about marginalized communities and… immigrants?”

“I love that my character is placed in a position of these two worlds and these two kind of warring communities,” she continued. “[She’s] hoping to be a liaison and hoping that we can tell a story of tolerance and a story from two perspectives. And also not a story saying which side is right, but this is where we are, this is who we are, and what are we going to do about it next? And hopefully our story that we’re portraying on television can inspire others in their lives and bring more tolerance and more understanding to both sides of the coin.”

WALKER, Series Premiere, Thursday, January 21, 8/7c, The CW

RELATED:

• WALKER Series Premiere Photos
• WALKER: Genevieve Padalecki to Recur
• The CW Orders SUPERMAN & LOIS, Jared Padalecki-Led WALKER to Series

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