Misha Collins (born August 20, 1974) is an American actor and producer. He is notable for his part as Paul Bernardo in the 2006 film Karla, and currently as the angel Castiel on the CW television series Supernatural. Collins was born Misha Dmitri Tippens Krushnic. The name "Misha" came about from a boyfriend his mother had during a trip to Russia she made in her college years. The name of her boyfriend was Mitya, however, Collins' mother misunderstood her boyfriend's nickname and mistakenly named her son Misha, much to his father's chagrin. "Krushnic" goes back six generations in Canada, although the family was not sure where it came from: Russia, Ukraine or Poland. Misha's mother, Rebecca Tippens, was a storyteller and now runs The Center for Cultural Evolution, AKA The Round House. Misha also has a brother named Sasha, two years younger, and two sisters, Danielle, and Elizabeth eleven and thirteen years younger.

When he was growing up, his family was very poor and was often evicted. He was in a new school at least once a year. However, after attending the Greenfield Center School, Collins graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon in 1992. During high school, his house burned down. In the following year, Collins pursued a wide variety of interests, including a six-month job at NPR headquarters, National Public Radio, in 1995. He worked as a producer and copywriter on a show called Weekly Edition. It was a job he loved.

Collins also had a White House internship in the Office of Presidential Personnel in charge of selecting nominees for presidential appointments. In the 1990s, there were 3,500 jobs given out by appointment ranging from the Secretary of Agriculture and Ambassadors to low-level jobs. He also worked in construction, and did an EMT certification course.

Collins then went on to the University of Chicago for undergrad, where he studied social theory and spent four years there. He took a year off from college and went to Nepal and Tibet, spending several months in seclusion at a monastery. It is something he continues to this day, but now he simply goes to a monastic retreat "where it's just silence," he says. "I go and sit and meditate in silence for 10 days. Don't talk to anyone, don't talk about anything – I'm just with myself. It always restores me a little bit. You always learn something about yourself when you spend 10 days alone with yourself." One thing he's learned? "I now feel like we have a purpose on the planet, which is kind of a nice feeling to have."

In Washington, DC, Collins began an internet start-up company that was making educational software, a non-profit summer program for urban teens.

Info from Wikipedia