Jensen Ross Ackles (born March 1, 1978, Dallas, Texas) is an American television actor and former male fashion model.

Ackles was born in Dallas, Texas to Roger Alan Ackles, an actor, and Donna Joan Shaffer. Ackles has an older brother, Joshua, and a younger sister, Mackenzie. His parents named him Jensen because it was uncommon. He graduated from Dartmouth Elementary School in 1990, Apollo Junior High School in 1993, and Lloyd V. Berkner High School in Richardson, Texas in 1996. Ackles played baseball and lacrosse in high school. He planned to study sports medicine at Texas Tech University and become a physical therapist before moving to Los Angeles to become an actor.

Career
After modeling off and on as a young child, Ackles began to concentrate on an acting career in 1996. He appeared in several guest roles before joining the cast of the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives as Eric Brady in 1997, for which he won a 1998 Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Male Newcomer.

After leaving Days of Our Lives in 2000, Ackles appeared in the mini-series Blonde about the life of Marilyn Monroe and tried out for the part of Clark Kent on Smallville. After failing to land the part, he went to Vancouver to join the cast of the James Cameron television series Dark Angel. His first appearance on the show was in 2001 as Max's (played by Jessica Alba) disturbed brother Ben/X5-493. After Ben died, Ackles returned to the series in the second season as Ben's clone, Alec/X5-494, who became a series regular until the show's cancellation in 2002.

In 2003, he made several guest appearances as C.J. on the hit WB show, Dawson's Creek. In 2004, Ackles returned to Vancouver to become a regular on Smallville, though not as Clark Kent. His character, Jason Teague, was an assistant coach for the high school football team and a love interest of Kent's ex-girlfriend, Lana Lang, played by Kristin Kreuk.

Ackles returned to television in 2005 in the new WB horror series Supernatural as Dean Winchester, who teams with his brother Sam (Jared Padalecki) to road-trip across the country investigating the paranormal. The second season will air on The CW in 2006.