Interview: Sera Gamble from Supernatural

We had a chance to interview Supernatural writer and producer Sera Gamble at the 2009 Comic Con. She talked with us about the new seasons, returning characters, and why Sam Winchester just can’t seem to take care of himself. Check it out below!

Are you still the only female writer on the staff?

Sera Gamble: No, we have another female writer, Julie Siege.

How is the writing process with show being such a male oriented show?

Sera Gamble: It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s commensurate with the statistics in the industry as a whole. I could be wrong about that. I’m used to being in work environments full of men. It’s good. If I say, as a chick, this is what I think. Then they usually just take my word on it. I don’t play that card very often.

So it’s not a hostile environment to work in?

Sera Gamble: Oh no, no, no. In fact, it’s a really raunchy slightly pornographic room. I like it that way. We’re kind of immature and we have Dean’s sense of humor in the room. I’m very much included in that. I have the sense of humor of a twelve year old boy, that’s why I work on the show.

What is Dean going to be working on internally next season?

Sera Gamble: Well, he has a lot of anger towards his brother for one thing. One interesting thing that we were watching with Dean in the first set of episodes is that he has always been so about his family and so about his brother, and we have put him in these situations where he is directly responsible for the wellbeing of these groups of people and it’s like, “Save them, or go after your brother.” One thing that I loved about what was happening to Dean this season is that we are seeing him man up and be a leader in this way that we have never seen before. Not because he didn’t necessarily have it in him, but because he hasn’t been in these situations before. It’s the apocalypse, and there will be many of these situations that are town wide. It will be a town under siege or many people hiding in a basement. You kind of get to see Dean at full maturity. It’s kind of like this flavor of Dean that we – and he’s uncomfortable with it. All Dean ever wants to do is just grab the shotgun, go after his brother, and save him. As we know, every now and then Sam gets kidnapped, then Dean is like, “I have to go after Sam.” Now we’re putting him in situations where he can’t just necessarily run off and do that right away. That’s kind of what adulthood and responsibility are about. Whether or not he can even look Sam in the eyes after what he’s done is also a big part.

Can’t Sam take care of himself by now?

Sera Gamble: I think whether or not he can, it’s if he should have to. That’s always been my point of view about it. That was my point of view about it last season as well. That’s what he always wanted, that’s what he asked for. Part of his perspective about going down the road he did with Ruby, wanting to take on Lilith on his own which kind of manifested in drinking demon blood. He thought, I’m a grown up and this is what I’m going to do and you don’t have to agree with my plan. It’s classic sort of sibling tension stuff played out.

What more can you do to Sam?

Sera Gamble: We have more to do to Sam and Dean. There’s limits to what you can do their physical selves. You know we’ve killed them, put them in hell, and all that sort of things – psychological torture, there’s no end. Supernatural, our bread and butter is the psychological torture of the Winchester boys. Now we have Castiel on a regular basis. He is present in the boys life enough that we see a little bit of a humanizing of him. When an angel becomes more emotional and more human they become easier to psychologically torture.

How do you keep up the humor in these apocalypse episodes?

Sera Gamble: It’s actually been surprisingly easy. Last season was so dark, it was suicidal in many places. Especially Sam went into a very dark place. The apocalypse has been surprisingly amusing. We’re having a great time with it. We’ve just been going bonkers. We’re going into the future, the horsemen have a sense of humor, and Lucifer is a nice guy in many ways. He’s very dangerous, everything’s dangerous, people are dying by the thousands. Everyone on planet earth could die. Maybe the stakes are so high even creatures so hugely powerful that they’ve never had to have their point of view before, say the Trickster, would have to weigh in. Gods with the lower case g would have to weigh in. They’re funny. It’s going to be scary, and gory, and freaky. I actually think it’s a lot funnier season than last season.

Will we see Lucifer throughout the whole season?

Sera Gamble: He’s definitely the big bad of the season. I would compare it to Lilith. You saw her sometimes, you heard about her a lot, you met her minions, you met her right hand man. You might actually see Lucifer more than you saw Lilith in the last couple of seasons. We have a great actor cast, Mark Pellegrino, and I don’t think he wants to go back to hell. He’s walking the earth and causing trouble this season.

Are there any other recurring characters coming back this season to help in the final fight?

Sera Gamble: Jessica, Sam’s girlfriend has a role in an upcoming episode. Were bringing back all the hunters we can: Ellen, Joe, and Rufus. We had this run of good luck where all the actors were available.

Interview By: Emma Loggins

– Supernatural Series

– Comic Con Gallery