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 was born in Dallas, Texas, to Alan Roger Ackles, an actor, and Donna Joan Shaffer. Ackles has an older brother, Joshua, and a younger sister, Mackenzie, and is of Irish, British and German ancestry. He had planned to study sports medicine at Texas Tech University and become a physical therapist but instead moved to Los Angeles to start his acting career.

After modeling on and off since the age of 4, Ackles began to concentrate on an acting career in 1996. He appeared in several guest roles on Mr. Rhodes, Sweet Valley High, and Cybill before joining the cast of the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives as Eric Brady in 1997. He won a 1998 Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Male Newcomer and went on to