D23: Interview with A&E

[Slurpeez]

A Wicked Witch, More Disney Characters, and a Special Shout Out to D23 Coming to Once Upon a Time
It’s Wicked versus Evil as ABC’s Once Upon A Time returns this Sunday, March 9. As fans saw in the show’s mid-season finale, all of Storybrook’s storybook characters were transported back to the Enchanted Forest, while Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Henry (Jared Gimore) set off for New York City, their memories of the spellbinding events of the past two years wiped clean and replaced with new, happy memories of a life together. The episode featured two cliffhanger moments: Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) finds Emma in Manhattan and tells her that her family is in danger. And in the teaser for the show’s return we learned that “Wicked Is Coming” in the form of a notorious green witch, in the Once-iverse called Zelena and played by Rebecca Mader.

D23 sat down with series creators Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz for an exclusive interview and to get the scoop on the mid-season premiere. Enjoy this first look—with behind-the-scenes photos.

There have been so many tellings of The Wizard of Oz story. How did you decide what to pick from?
Eddy: We’re going back to the actual book. Truly what we’re doing is what we usually do, which is create our own mythology and our own Wicked Witch. So this one is going to have a specific relationship with a couple of our characters.
Adam: And for us, “Wicked” is an attitude, it’s a style…
Eddy: It’s a way of life.
Adam: It’s a way of life. It’s a deliciousness that Rebecca Mader brings to this character. We think it injects a new color—literally—into the show. But there will be no easing on down the road.
Eddy: Believe me, no one is more upset than I am. [Laughs] And we wanted to see what happens when Wicked [Witch] fights Evil [Queen].

Well, according to your new slogan “Wicked Always Wins.”
Eddy: It depends upon who you ask. If you ask the Evil Queen, she thinks it’s the opposite.
Adam: We delve into the history of the Wicked Witch. You’ll see how she became wicked, and you’ll see how she turned green.

So why is Zelena showing up now?
Adam: If you go back to the pilot, it’s in there. When Emma crashes the car and the book is flipping pages, you’ll see flying monkeys. And you see it again in, I believe, the third episode of the series. We put the Oz mythology into the show at an early stage.
Eddy: We even talked about the silver slippers.
Adam: We talked about them in episode 205 when Rumpel[stiltskin] is making a deal with Jefferson [the Mad Hatter]. We’ve dipped our toe. We’ve put little clues in for fans who have looked closer. This is something we’ve wanted to do for a while, and now we finally have the opportunity to go there.

Christopher Gorham shows up in the first episode back. How did you decide on him for the role?
Adam: Chris Gorham is an old dear friend of ours—we worked with him on the show Popular, one of our first jobs. It was a juicy part that had Chris written all over it. We called him up and he told us he was a fan of the show, which we choose to believe.
Eddy: And we think people will be surprised by his role—there are a few twists to it.

Last summer you said there was no denying the connection between Hook and Emma, and this fall they kissed. Will the romance continue?
Adam: It’s not as simple as it might seem on the surface. And I suppose it’s never simple when your memories have been taken and magically replaced. For Emma, she’s a person who has huge issues in her life to deal with beyond the romance. And when she does get her memories back, how is she going to deal with that? Is she going to be ready to jump into a romance? Probably not. There are a lot of hoops that need to be jumped through and a lot of things that need to be dealt with first. Primarily, what’s going to happen to her son?

Recently you said that you had ideas for Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan). Any way those could be revealed?
Adam: It’s really only the kind of idea we can talk about after you’ve seen the finale because it would give away stuff. But it wasn’t like the season hinged around him.
Eddy: We just love Jamie and we love writing for him.
Adam: As we’re doing the show we always think, “Is there a place we can bring him back?” So if there’s ever an opportunity, we’d love to have him back. The story we’re telling is still the story we’re telling. There just would have been more of a “Graham twist” to it.
Eddy: It will be obvious.

You’ve alluded to some darkness with the Rapunzel (Alexandra Metz) story. So it sounds like we are veering away from Tangled?
Adam: We love Tangled, but it’s a twist on the original story. To do the twist on the twist… We felt [we should] let Tangled be the brilliant thing it is and go back the original story and try to find our own twist.
Eddy: We went back to the original and are going more in the vein of a horror story. A witch locks you in a tower, so that’s not a pleasant thing.
Adam: The dilemma our Rapunzel finds herself in is a pretty twisted one.

Will we see more of Mulan and perhaps her interest in a certain princess?
Eddy: We would love to see more of Mulan, but she is on Believe right now so that has prevented us from bringing her back this season. But we love Jamie Chung, we love the character and we’d love to explore more of her adventures next year.

Oz is a huge world to tackle. Why take it on right after Never Land, which was also a huge world?
Adam: I think when you see the approach we take to Oz, hopefully you’ll understand why. We’re approaching the second half of season three differently than we did the first. We’re not planning to go to Oz and spend 11 episodes in Oz and live in that universe. What we want to do is spend time with this Wicked Witch character who is an antagonist to all these characters we’ve spent years with, and dip our toe into Oz in a few select places.

The Wicked Witch, Glinda (Sunny Mebrey), and flying monkeys are appearing on the show. Will we see other Ozians?
Eddy: Absolutely. We will see a few other iconic Oz characters throughout the season.

Where does their story fit into the timeline of the traditional Wizard of Oz story we are familiar with—pre- or post-Dorothy?
Adam: It will become very clear. Everything you wonder about where it exists in relation to Dorothy and the story you know—or you think you know—we will explain.

At the risk of running out of Disney characters, you did once mention you’d like to get Tiana in there. Any others you’d like to work in?
Adam: We love some of the newer ones.
Eddy: Obviously we’d be dying to do Frozen. We would love to [incorporate] Merida.
Adam: Whether we get to them or not, characters like Anna, Elsa and Merida feel like they could be slotted in.
Eddy: And then there’s favorites of ours like Mr. Toad. We haven’t figured it out yet but we love Mr. Toad. We still haven’t done Aladdin and Jasmine.
Adam: We mentioned before that we love Cruella De Vil. Pongo has appeared on the show.

Elsa’s freezing gift could be a really, well, cool thing to play out on the show.
Eddy: Elsa would be fantastic for us.

I hope it’s not a big spoiler alert to say Henry is playing a video game on which he is thrilled to reach level 23. Coincidence?
Eddy: Not at all. It is absolutely a shout-out to our faithful at D23.

Last season Tinker Bell showed Regina that she did have a true love—Robin Hood (Sean Maguire). Now that she’s back in the Enchanted Forest, any chance she could find that romance with Robin?
Eddy: I would be disappointed if we set that up and didn’t at least explore it. But the question for me is, if Regina does come across Robin Hood again, will she open her heart or will she remain closed? That’s a story we’re going to explore this season.

With Once Upon A Time in Wonderland wrapping up, would you consider incorporating some of those characters into Once Upon A Time?
Adam: We love that show and we love the characters. Looking down the field, if there’s the opportunity to bring one or more of them onto the Once mothership, it could happen.

Any other characters from the past we may see returning this spring?
Eddy: Absolutely. There will be people from season one who reappear. And having been away from Storybrook for so long, it will be good to see Archie and Ruby.

You’d said Ginnifer Goodwin’s pregnancy would be addressed in the show. Will we have a royal baby this season?
Eddy: If you believe in love, we’ll find out…

What else will we learn this season?
Eddy: I would say… There’s no place like home.

[lisas]

No Mention of Neal or Rumple or Belle why am I not surprised

Keeper of Neal/BaelFire's Blood Magic, Neverland Crossbow, FTL Clothes,Room at Granny’s, Charming & Emma’s Father/Daughter Hugs, Henry's Neverland Crossbow, Rumplestlitskin/Mr.Gold's FTL Walking Stick

[RumplesGirl]

Eddy: And we think people will be surprised by his role—there are a few twists to it.

He’s a flying monkey. We know.

Nothing much else there. Except…do Disney all you want but there are so many other stories out there..

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Slurpeez]

Recently you said that you had ideas for Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan). Any way those could be revealed?
Adam: It’s really only the kind of idea we can talk about after you’ve seen the finale because it would give away stuff. But it wasn’t like the season hinged around him.
Eddy: We just love Jamie and we love writing for him.
Adam: As we’re doing the show we always think, “Is there a place we can bring him back?” So if there’s ever an opportunity, we’d love to have him back. The story we’re telling is still the story we’re telling. There just would have been more of a “Graham twist” to it.
Eddy: It will be obvious.

Well, this one has me scratching my head. Bring Graham back? Can’t tell us what that means until after the S3 finale? What?

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[RumplesGirl]

Recently you said that you had ideas for Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan). Any way those could be revealed?
Adam: It’s really only the kind of idea we can talk about after you’ve seen the finale because it would give away stuff. But it wasn’t like the season hinged around him.
Eddy: We just love Jamie and we love writing for him.
Adam: As we’re doing the show we always think, “Is there a place we can bring him back?” So if there’s ever an opportunity, we’d love to have him back. The story we’re telling is still the story we’re telling. There just would have been more of a “Graham twist” to it.
Eddy: It will be obvious.

Well, this one has me scratching my head. Bring Graham back? Can’t tell us what that means until after the S3 finale? What?

Tin Man? No heart.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[kfchimera]

The stuff with Graham sounds like they are going to do some “magical loophole” thing to bring back someone–and probably it is Rumple as they’re very much trying to hint he’s just “Dark One” and Rumple the man is dead.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[Slurpeez]

Here are a few photos of Zelena and Regina form that article.  #WickedSisters

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Jenna_B]

Um…I’m excited about the WW but EVIL is way worse than Wicked!  I’m looking forward to some good old diabolical Regina kicking Wicked hiney!!  🙂

Not much we didn’t know but really, what else are they going to tell us at this point…?

[Hook’s Girl]

“Any other characters from the past we may see returning this spring?
Eddy: Absolutely. There will be people from season one who reappear. And having been away from Storybrook for so long, it will be good to see Archie and Ruby.”

So who haven’t we seen since Season 1? 1. Cinderella & Prince Thomas & Alexandra. 2. Archie’s parents. 3. King Midas. 4. Graham. 5. Zoso. 6. Hordor, the Duke’s soldier (Kiss my Boot!). 7. Hansel & Gretel & their dad. 8. Mr K. 9. The Blind Witch. 10. Malificent. 11. Stealthy. 12. Sydney Glass. 13. Gaston. 14. Abigail & Frederick. 15. Peter. 16. Morrain. Anybody else?

Nothing is impossible on OUAT. Everything has a way of repeating itself. Keeper of the Keeper tread: https://oncepodcast.com/forums/topic/official-keeper-thread-3/#post-217924

[RumplesGirl]

1. Cinderella

This might be a technicality, but we saw Cinderella in WL 101

4. Graham

We saw him in S2’s Welcome to Storybrooke

10. Malificent

Ths might be a technicality again, but we did see Mal in S2’s The Evil Queen

12. Sydney Glass

Sooooo many technicalities but we did see him in S3’s Lost Girl and heard him in Save Henry

 

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Author]

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