Misha Collins


Dmitri "Misha" Collins is an American actor and author best known for his role as the angel Castiel on the CW television series Supernatural.

Personal life

Misha Collins was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard Krushnic and Rebecca Tippens. He was raised in an irreligious family. Growing up, his family was poor and often homeless. He has said that his surname, Krushnic, "goes back six generations in Canada, and we're not sure where they came from." His stage name, Collins, is his great-grandmother's maiden name. He is of partial Jewish descent.
Before acting, he interned for four months at the White House during the Clinton Administration in the Office of Presidential Personnel. Collins attended Greenfield Center School, Northfield Mount Hermon School and the University of Chicago, where he studied social theory.
On October 6, 2001, Collins married Victoria Vantoch, in Maine. They have a son, West Anaximander Collins, and a daughter, Maison Marie Collins.
Collins is a published poet. His poems, including "Baby Pants" and "Old Bones", can be found in the 2008 edition of Columbia Poetry Review #21.
Collins has also co-written a cookbook with wife, Vicki Collins. It is reported that much of the book's sales will go to charitable organizations who specialize in food nutrition.

Charity work

Collins is the co-founder and board president of Random Acts, a non-profit organization dedicated to funding and inspiring acts of kindness around the world. Collins founded the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen in 2011. Entrance fees for the international competition go towards Random Acts, and in 2012, GISHWHES broke the world record for most pledges to perform an act of kindness.

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

Computer Science Research

Collins and Kathryn Leonard, together with several other collaborators, are authors of "The 2D shape structure dataset", an article on a crowd-sourced database on the structure of shapes.