'Supernatural's Jensen Ackles: Colin Ford will return as Young Sam

We're excited to learn that fan favorite Colin Ford will be returning to The CW's "Supernatural" before the end of this season as the younger version of Sam Winchester (usually played by Jared Padalecki).

Just don't expect another flashback episode, like Season 4's "After School Special."  This time, 10-year-old Sam will be interacting with present-day Dean (Jensen Ackles).

"I was doing a scene in a field with young Sam," Ackles revealed Sunday (March 28) at Creation Entertainment's Salute to Supernatural event. He's careful not to give too much away about the story line, but he did explain some of the limitations of working with child actors like 13-year-old Colin.

"Children can't work past a certain number of hours. Production can make us work 20 hours if they want," Ackles says, "but with kids, it caps at 10 hours."

While shooting the upcoming episode, they ran out of time, and Ford was legally required to stop working. "Colin hit his cut-off, and he was visibly upset. He wanted to continue to work."

The show must go on, though. "They weren't done shooting young Sam so they had to bring in someone who was of age to shoot the scenes, but they still had to be small enough to look like a young boy. They couldn't find a guy who looked like Colin [from the back], so they got this 18-year-old girl to play 10-year-old Sam. She wasn't the most masculine, exactly."

Padalecki cracks up at the idea. "We weren't shooting her face, obviously, but she wore young Sam's clothes, and she moved like an 18-year-old girl."

"Everybody on the crew was like 'I can't WAIT for Jared to see this'," Jensen laughs. "But we ended up having to re-shoot it. She was just too feminine."

Both actors have nothing but love for Ford. "Colin's awesome; he's been doing this for years. We love it," Padalecki says.

Ackles agrees. "Colin is absolutely great. Talk about someone who has an excitement for what he does and a passion for being on set and doing this!"

We can't wait to find out what brings 31-year-old Dean and 10-year-old Sam together. On "Supernatural," anything's possible.

Keep checking in with Zap2it for more exclusive "Supernatural" content from Creation Entertainment's Salute to Supernatural.

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Photo Credit: The CW