In the fairytale world, good typically triumphs over evil and lives happily ever after. On the upcoming ABC drama “Once Upon a Time,” however, there’s a strong possibility that no one, good or evil, is going to have a happy ending.
At the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, actress Lana Parrilla sat down with reporters to talk about playing the Evil Queen and Regina, a wife and mother who lives in a New England called Storybrooke. “Once I started working on it (the show), I discovered more about both characters and really tried to show a contrast between the two, which I thought was necessary,” Parrilla said.
Shifting between the fantasy world of Storybook Lane and Storybrooke, “Once Upon a Time” follows Snow White, Prince Charming and dozens of other fairytale characters as they are exiled to the real world. For reasons not yet explained, the Evil Queen curses everyone and transports them to Storybrooke, wiping their memories clean and freezing time. No one ages in Storybrooke and no one can escape without terrible things happening to them.
The Evil Queen herself joins everyone in New England and is now known as Regina, a stylishly-dressed woman who wields some authority in town. Parrilla said that for Regina, her motivation is the love for her step-son Henry and the fear of losing him. “When you love someone and you are holding them with your fists clenched tight and then they are resisting you, you are asking ‘Why is this happening?’,” she said.
While playing the Evil Queen, Parrilla said that the character is partially how everyone knows her from the story of Snow White. “But there also is something deeper that I don’t think any other fairytale has touched upon, which is her pain. I think there is a deep-rooted pain there, and that fuels her anger and revenge,” Parrilla said.
Joining Parrilla at the table was Robert Carlyle, the actor who plays the dual roles of Rumplestiltskin and Mr. Gold. Carlyle said that Mr. Gold and Regina are kind of peas in a pod. “He’s certainly got some kind of control (in Storybrooke),” Carlyle said. “We’re going to focus on Gold for a while, but we are going to go back and focus on his (Rumplestiltskin’s) backstory to see where his pain lies.”
After doing research into his fairytale character, Carlyle said it made him wonder who was really wrong in the tale of Rumplestiltskin. “You’ve got this miller who sells his daughter off to the king. Rumplestiltskin comes along and for three days, he spins straw into gold. Then he comes back and says I need for you to tell me my name,” he said.
Carlyle points out that Rumplestiltskin gives the miller’s daughter a chance to be free of him if she can guess his name. “She teases him a bit and eventually says his name. But who is actually wrong here? That what I see is the potential of this show. You can flip this and show the other side of the characters. Maybe it isn’t what you thought it was,” he said.
“Once Upon a Time” debuts on ABC on Sunday, October 23 at 8 p.m. ET.