Mark Sheppard Gushes About Walker Independence, Katie Findlay, And The Supernatural Family - Exclusive Interview

Did you write the [Looper] piece? Kat McNamara comes up to me in the middle of a street and goes, "I did an interview with Looper, and this is the takeaway. Kat McNamara says, "I need more Mark Sheppard in my life."

[Laughs.] Oh yes, that one. I was so excited to write that piece.

"I gave a whole interview, and that's the takeaway?"

I wrote eight pieces from that interview. That was one of eight takeaways. [Laughs.]

Yeah, that one is running around the world. That's being reposted by every single news outlet. I was cracking up laughing.

I don't think fans expected to say goodbye to Hagan so soon. Did you know about his departure when you signed on, and if not, how did you react to the script?

I'm lucky enough to be great friends with Larry Teng, Seamus Kevin Fahey, Anna Frick, and a multitude of wonderful people at The CW who I've worked with on and off for many years. Eight years of "Supernatural" makes me a little biased toward The CW family, and there's a certain really tall person that's involved in this that I was like, "I'm definitely going to get into this. [It will be] fun."

I got a call during the making of the pilot, and it was like, "Call me." I called Larry, and I'm like, "I'm in." He goes, "You don't even know what it is." And I said, "I don't care. It's going to be great." He said, "I'm doing 'Walker Independence."' I'm like, "I know what this is. This is great." And he goes, "And we have this character, we have this centralized character and it's one line in the pilot." I'm like, "Great." He goes, "But we've got this little plan. We're going to tell you what this plan is, and this is how we're going to do it."

I got all excited, and I texted Jared, and he goes, "I'm so happy to have you there." We got all really clever, and I took my name off the pilot. I didn't want anyone waiting 38 minutes for me to show up and go, "Right, he gives us one line, and that's it." As much as I love CW in all their wisdom, [they] put me in the trailer. At the Upfronts, all three of the boys were there, and then my voice [shows up in the trailer], and I appear, and Jerry's like, "Yeah, Sheppard's in the pilot." That was that. The surprise was blown, but in a very good way.

I'll tell you a little story [about this episode] with Kate and Hagan. Hagan decides to sell to the Davidsons because they're going to kill Kate. Hagan has been there for 35 years, and he built this town with the founding fathers, and it's the central post. It's what he believes in. It's the core of Independence to him. While Teresa Davidson's poisoning me, Kate is doing this incredible dance number. The show [with Kate] in drag as Tom Davidson, the new Sheriff, is incredible. Shel did an amazing job shooting that. 

Kate [had] enthusiasm to come upstairs and share that moment with me, and there's Tom Davidson with feet on the desk. "He's sold. He's done. He's gone." Kate's betrayed, and we could not rehearse that scene. It was impossible to rehearse. Sheelin [Choksey], the wonderful director, is a brilliant man. He said, "Do you want to shoot your close-up first?" I could barely get the words out. I was in buckets of tears. It was like getting stabbed in the heart. 

We shot the close-up first, and we did three passes. The first two passes, I couldn't breathe. I genuinely couldn't breathe. It was huge to have somebody who loves [Hagan] and cares about [him] feel that betrayed, and [he's] lying, and cannot tell the truth. If [he tells] the truth, [he] can't protect her. The lie is the most painful, awful, tragic thing I ever had to do. It's both one of the highest and lowest spots in what I'd like to call my career. It was devastating to do. On one of the takes, he turned and looked at me and says, "May you die on a bed of white feathers."

Was that scripted?

It's a version of what's scripted. I was looking at the crew, [and] everybody was in tears. We were done. We could not do more. [There's] this incredible piece of the end where Kate goes into the room and the hat is on the end of the bed with the note. There [are] some great Western series: "Justified" and "Deadwood," and this is a very different thing — not because it's on The CW, but because of who created and who's done it.

Now that you've done a new project with Jared Padalecki, would you be game to appear in [Jensen Ackles'] "The Winchesters" or Misha [Collins'] upcoming show, "Gotham Knights"? What would you most like to see from Crowley, and is there a "Batman" villain you'd love to play?

There are so many I would love to do. Let's put it this way: We had a wonderful weekend [in] Vancouver for a "Supernatural" convention. Jared was sick, so I went up to go take care of that. We had a meeting. We never had a wrap party for the end of "Supernatural." [It was] another opportunity to see everybody and come together. We realized I only did eight years on the show, but I knew the boys before they had kids. I knew [them] before marriage, before all these things. It's a phenomenal thing.

We talked about possibilities of doing stuff, and nothing pleases us more than making the "Supernatural" family happy, genuinely — but without always having to be about that story. There's a lot of trusts and a lot of love between these actors and these writers and people. We've worked together over many years, so why shouldn't we work together again? Why shouldn't we try? Why shouldn't we feed this wonderful machine of [the] worldwide "Supernatural" family?

I hate the word "fan." That's why we came up with "'Supernatural' family." Fan is [short for] fanatic, [which] implies something wrong with being passionate about, caring about something. It's awful to us. This incredible group of people, we all have causes — Jared, Jensen, our families — we all have these things that we really believe in. This "Supernatural" family [stands] behind what we do and makes it a thousand times bigger. 

They support us in the most wonderful ways. They support each other in the most wonderful ways. It's a shining light for how we should [behave]. It never ceases to amaze me, the power [this] little show [that started]on The WB. I came into it on The CW. It's a beautiful phenomenon, and I'm very proud to be part of [it.] ... They call me, I'll come.

["Supernatural" was supposed to end about ten episodes after they brought me into it for one episode (in Season 5)]. Eight years later, here I am. It is a wonderful thing. I've always been fascinated [by] the fact that The CW, under its various tutelages, has always managed to find something that is very audience-centric, and that's why I've always liked the network.

There's almost a World's Fair and circus component to this episode. Did any characters or historical figures help inspire your take on Hagan's showmanship qualities?

Seamus gave me a great note. Seamus Fahey and I worked together on "Battlestar [Galactica]" back in the day. He's a wonderful writer, and I love him dearly. He's [an] amazingly smart man. He said, "It's pretty much P.T. Barnum meets Sir Richard Burton." I'm like, "Whoa, that's a hell of a ... " Aim a little high there, son. The truth is, Hagan is a founding father of the town of Independence, and Independence is nothing. It's nowhere. It's post-Alamo — [the] early foundation of Texas' independence.

He's building this brick-and-mortar thing. He's a man who loves theater, and he's a man who loves art. The thing about Kate and Hagan is that Kate is very much Hagan's conscience and constantly helps steer Hagan into not doing the wrong thing. The railroad's coming, all these things are changing, all these people's stories are starting to converge in this little town.

I really like [the show]. I'm glad you like it. That makes me happy.

I do. I love the show so much.

What do you like about it?

I love that it's a refreshing, modern take on the story we've seen a million times. It's really lovely to see.

I think it is. There are so many stories. My family being Irish, we have that same issue when telling our history. There are so many stories. You can't have one definitive story about anything. The greatest way to tell these stories is you find these small pieces that shine a light on a particular area that means something to us. I hope we get to continue to do that. As they say, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

There [are] a lot of reasons to be uncomfortable and angry about a lot of things in the world. It's nice to be part of something that's trying to find the love and the positives [of] the journey and honoring the journeys that people have taken, which is fantastic.

I love that despite Hagan's clear intelligence, he's still swindled by elixirs and grifters. What do you think makes him, and people as a whole, susceptible to those kinds of snake oil scams?

We're never tall enough, pretty enough, thin enough, happy enough. That's the human condition. The human condition is when we start looking for things outside ourselves to fix us. I'm sober a long time, 32 years. While I giggle, or you may giggle at the Hagan drinking elixirs, to which Kate is like, "You're out of your mind. Why are you doing this? You're an idiot." He also buys a lot of hats [but] never wears them. It's the human condition. We're wired that way. It's what we are — the fragility of the human condition. Hagan wouldn't be interesting if he was a winner. He's been a winner in his time, but he also understands the nature of loss.

Do you think that there might be a chance that we'll see Hagan again?

I don't know. That's a question for Seamus more than anyone else. If they ever asked me to do it, that'd be there.

If this ends up being his swan song, how do you feel about his redemption and heroic moment where he lets Kate think the worst of him in order to protect her from the Davidsons?

That's what love's all about.

New episodes of "Walker Independence" air Thursdays on The CW, with episodes streaming for free on the The CW website and app.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.