JARED PADALECKI
Jared Tristan Padalecki (born July 19, 1982) is an American actor. He grew up in Texas and rose to fame in the early 2000s after appearing on the television series Gilmore Girls as well as such films as New York Minute and House of Wax. Padalecki is best known for his role as Sam Winchester on Supernatural.
Padalecki was born in San Antonio, Texas to Gerald and Sherri Padalecki. His father is of Polish descent, while his mother has German, Scottish, French, and English ancestry.
He was a 2000 candidate for the Presidential Scholars Program. In 1998, Padalecki and his partner Chris Cardenas won the National Forensic League national championship in Duo Interpretation. Padalecki won Fox Broadcasting's 1999 "Claim to Fame Contest"; he subsequently appeared at the Teen Choice Awards, where he met an agent. After graduating from high school in 2000, he moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career, although he had originally planned to attend the University of Texas.
Padalecki's first role was a minor role in the 1999 film A Little Inside. In 2000, he was cast as Dean Forester on the television series Gilmore Girls, a role he played until 2005. Throughout the early 2000s, he appeared in several made-for-television films, including Silent Witness, Close to Home, and the Disney Channel Original Movie A Ring of Endless Light.
Padalecki had an uncredited role as a high school bully in 2003's comedy Cheaper by the Dozen, which he played after being asked by fellow actor and friend Tom Welling, who played Charlie Baker, and the director of the movie, who wanted someone larger than Charlie to pick on him. Padalecki originally auditioned for Welling's role, but gave it up in order to film a pilot titled Young MacGyver which was never picked up.
In 2004, he appeared in the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen comedy, New York Minute as Trey Lipton, a cute boy to whom the Olsens' characters are attracted. He also landed a short role in the thriller Flight of the Phoenix alongside Dennis Quaid and Hugh Laurie. In 2005, Padalecki starred opposite Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray and Paris Hilton in House of Wax as Wade. In 2005, he appeared in Cry Wolf, another horror film, as Tom.
The same year, Padalecki was cast as Sam Winchester on the CW series. He served as the host of MTV's horror reality series, Room 401, which was discontinued after only eight episodes due to poor ratings.He had the lead role in 2008's The Christmas Cottage as Thomas Kinkade. He had the lead role in a remake of Friday the 13th as Clay Miller, a character who heads out to Camp Crystal Lake in search of his sister who has gone missing.
Padalecki married his former Supernatural co-star Genevieve Cortese on February 27, 2010 in Sun Valley, Idaho. The couple reside in Vancouver, British Columbiawith their two children.