The angel Castiel might have rusty people skills, a stoic demeanor, and deadpan sarcasm, but Misha Collins, the human actor behind Supernatural‘s forever third wheel, is charming and full of stories. It’s a natural fit, then, that Collins has created a one-man show, It Seemed Like A GOOD IDEA at the Time, which he tours around the country separate from the SPN conventions he does with costars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.
Stops this year for A GOOD IDEA include Oklahoma City, Austin, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and Nashville. The 90-minute, alcohol-friendly evening is described as having “topics more suited to a therapist’s sofa than a public stage.” A warning: There might be more than a few d–k jokes.
“I love telling these very personal stories that bring the audience into some real difficult, emotional terrain, while also having them belly laugh — and they laugh a lot, if I do say so myself,” admits Collins, who shares tales of his financially fraught childhood, including how his mother taught him to steal peaches when he was 4 and how they hopped freight trains and lived as nomads in tents. “This added up to a childhood ripe for storytelling,” Collins notes.
Maarten de Boer
His laugh-out-loud material ranges from the deeply intimate to the riotously inappropriate. “It’s nice to see that the hard parts can be funny, and the funny parts can be hard,” he continues. “I also love exposing myself to a live audience — both literally and figuratively — and not just a camera crew.”
Collins, who introduced the world of angels to Supernatural viewers during the show’s fourth season back in 2008, remained a fan favorite on the series until the end. Now, after his own challenging upbringing, he’s a proud family man with a wife and two kids — and his life is much more settled. Still, Collins says A GOOD IDEA was “long percolating.”
And though this show is 100 percent Collins, he credits Padalecki with the title. “One day on set, after telling yet another story about how I had barely escaped with my life, smuggling myself into Tibet in the back of a vegetable truck, Jared had a flash of insight,” Collins recalls. “He said, ‘I’ve got it — the title of your memoir. The cover of the book has the words ‘A GOOD IDEA’ in the center in large font. Preceding that text, in much smaller, hard-to-read font, ‘It Seemed Like a…’ and at the end, ‘…at the Time.’ So the cover would read, It Seemed Like A GOOD IDEA at the Time.
Well, hey, it really was!
Tickets available on mishasgoodidea.com
For a deep-dive into 20 years of Supernatural, from behind-the-scenes scoop to exclusive cast interviews, photos, and fan stories, pick up a copy of TV Guide Magazine’s Supernatural Afterlife: 20th Anniversary Special issue, available on newsstands and for order online at Supernatural.TVGM2025.com.
