Jensen Ross Ackles (born March 1, 1978) is an American television actor. He is notable for his television roles as Eric Brady in Days of Our Lives, Alec/X5-494 in Dark Angel, and Jason Teague in Smallville. He currently plays Dean Winchester on the CW series Supernatural.

Jensen Ackles was born in Dallas, Texas, to Roger Alan Ackles and Donna Joan Shaffer. After modeling as a young child, he began to concentrate on a acting career in 1996 upon his graduation from Lloyd V. Berkner High School in Richardson, Texas. In 1997, he received a role on the NBC soap opera "Days of Our Lives" (1965) as Eric Brady, for which he won a 1998 Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Male Newcomer. After leaving "Days of Our Lives" (1965) in 2000, Ackles went to Vancouver, joining the cast of the James Cameron (I) television series "Dark Angel" (2000). His first appearance on the show was in 2001 as Max's (played by Jessica Alba) disturbed brother Ben/X5-493. After Ben died, Ackles returned to the series in the second season as Ben's clone, Alec/X5-494, who eventually teamed up with Max and stayed until the show's demise in 2002. In 2003, he made several guest appearances as C.J. on the hit WB Network show, "Dawson's Creek" (1998). In 2004, Ackles returned to Vancouver and became a regular on the popular WB Network series "Smallville" (2001), which revolves around the life of the teen aged Clark Kent/Superman. His character, Jason Teague, was an assistant coach for the high school football team and a love interest of Clark Kent's ex-girlfriend, Lana Lang, played by Kristin Kreuk. Ackles returned to television in 2005 in the new WB horror series "Supernatural" (2005) in the role of Dean Winchester, who teams with his brother Sam (Jared Padalecki) to road-trip across the country investigating the paranormal.