Jared Padalecki Gets Brutally Honest About The CW’s Radical Changes Following Walker Cancellation: “They Can’t Fire Me”

Actor Jared Padalecki opens up about Walker’s cancellation and the recent changes to the CW network’s strategy. Padalecki plays the titular character on the CW series, which began its run in 2021. Last month, it was announced that Walker was cancelled and would be ending its run after season 4. Walker aired its season 4 finale episode earlier this week on June 26, 2024.

Speaking with Variety, Padalecki discusses his reaction to Walker’s cancellation and the CW’s resultant changes. Check out the full quote from Padalecki below:

Yeah. I talked with the head of CBS and the head of Nexstar/CW, I talked with the other [executive producers] on “Walker,” and I think it was a multivariate kind of issue. My understanding is — and again, this is just what I’m told — that Nexstar is going in a different direction with The CW. I mean, they have an hour of “Trivial Pursuit” and an hour of “Scrabble” coming up. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just download the app or grab a board game and play with your friends, but they’re clearly just — what’s that great quote? It’s like, “If somebody tells you who they are, ask questions. If somebody shows you who they are, believe them.”

I feel like The CW that I was a part of last year is not The CW that I was a part of under [former chairman and CEO] Mark Pedowitz for that entire, almost 20-year stretch. They’re just changing the network around, where it’s not really going to be a TV network as much as it’s going to be, “Here’s something fun for an hour that you’ll never watch again, but hopefully you watch it. And it’s cheap!” And I hate to say that, but I’m just being honest. I mean, fuck it. They can’t fire me again. I’m just being brutally honest. I think it felt to me like they were looking for really easy, cheap content that they could fill up time with.

More to come…

Source: Variety