EW 9/28 – Once Upon a Time's Andrew J. West on taking up Henry Mills' mantle

[MatthewPaul]

Once Upon a Time has a new hero.

In the season 6 finale, the ABC fairy tale drama shocked and awed by revealing that the character Andrew J. West was playing was an older version of Henry Mills, the heart of the truest believer formerly played by Jared Gilmore since the show’s 2011 debut. However, Henry is no longer the wide-eyed optimist, but rather a cynical former author-turned-Uber driver. Yes, seriously. How did he end up so far away from home?

Here’s what you need to know: Henry leaves Storybrooke in search of his own tale, finding an epic romance with a different iteration of Cinderella (Dania Ramirez), with whom he has a precocious daughter, Lucy (Alison Fernandez). But the family is torn apart when a new, yet familiar, curse traps them and a trio of returning characters — former Evil Queen Regina (Lana Parrilla), one-handed pirate Hook (Colin O’Donoghue), and the Dark One Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) — as well as a quintet of new characters (see the full character rundown here) in the Seattle neighborhood of Hyperion Heights. But just how different has this new Henry become after years of traveling? EW turned to West to get the scoop.

Read more here: http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/28/once-upon-time-andrew-j-west-henry-mills-season-7/

[Slurpeez]

Andrew West: “There’s been a substantial passage of time. It is, in a lot of ways, a brand new character. It’s a man as opposed to this boy that we knew for six years.”

I’m really looking forward to meeting this new, grown-up version of Henry.

West: “Now when we pick him up in Hyperion Heights, there’s very much that essence in there. For the first time, we see this guy dealing with some real trauma and that has effects on the person who he is, how he behaves, and how he sees the world. That’s going to be really cool for fans, too, to see this character that’s always been the optimist, always been the one who believes — there’s been moments of darkness here and there in the third season with Peter Pan and different things, but he’s always been the bright shining beacon of hope and light. We see him really being challenged for the first time in a serious way in Hyperion Heights.”

While no one really wants to see Henry suffer loss and heartache, I think that it will give his character a lot of mature, meaty substance that kid Henry never had, and I’m sure Andrew will do well with the material he’s given.

Did you go back and watch Jared’s performance and see what he did?
I went back and watched it. It was very important for me to watch it. I don’t want to mimic what Jared did, but it’s very important to understand the essences of those relationships. Really what Jen did with Emma Swan, and what Lana did, and what Josh Dallas did with Prince Charming, who are all members of obviously his immediate family, was a big inspiration for who this person becomes, too. Having those figures in his life that have influenced him so heavily. It’s more about capturing the essence of that than it is mimicking him, because he’s a different person, he’s older now, he’s grown up. But it was important to understand the essence of those relationships.

While I’m glad that Andrew West isn’t simply going to mimic what Jared Gilmore did, I’m impressed and thankful that he did his homework and reviewed seasons 1-6. I think that will inform his portrayal of Henry, help him to be faithful to core character, and let us see the influence that Henry’s parents and grandparents have had on him and the man he has become. I’m also glad that Andrew is going to bring a fresh, mature take on adult Henry. I think I’m going to enjoy West’s take on playing Henry.

Let’s talk about that Hyperion Heights version of Henry. What kind of dynamic does he have with some of these returning characters, like Roni, Gold, and Rogers?
When we meet him in Hyperion Heights, frankly, he’s a little bit of a recluse. He’s not a guy who’s got his stuff together. He lives alone. He’s lonely, frankly. He was a published author, but the writing career is not going well at all for him. He’s a Swyft driver in order to make ends meet and he’s not in a good place. Now, he’s not even really part of the Hyperion Heights community initially, but he gets drawn into this world because this child, Lucy, comes into his life and kind of forces him to venture out into this world of Hyperion Heights.

Adult Henry’s dynamic with Lucy sounds very much like Emma’s dynamic with Henry in S1. I’m looking forward to seeing the bond between Henry and Lucy and seeing Henry embrace fatherhood the way Emma really embraced motherhood and learned how to love her son in season one. I’ve already got a soft spot for Henry and Lucy.

What does that dynamic between Henry and Jacinda look like in Hyperion Heights?
There’s a real connection that he has to this woman and this little girl, and he just wants to help them. There’s a lot to unpack because first you have a guy who, again, is deep down just a truly nice, caring guy. On top of that, there’s this connection that almost feels — I don’t know what the word is, it’s a connection that goes much deeper than just, “Oh, I like this girl,” or “She’s pretty,” or “I want to help her.” It’s something that reaches further back for him. So, a lot of what we see of Henry in Hyperion Heights is him working toward helping Jacinda and helping Lucy maintain the best quality of life that they can have, and that opens an entire can of worms. It just creates all these complications in his life that he’s happy to take on, not at first, but it’s something that he quickly accepts as being very important for reasons that are maybe even beyond his initial understanding.

I think I’m seriously going to love this little trio. I’m already looking forward to seeing Adult Henry interact with Cinderella and Lucy in EF 2.0 but then especially in Hyperion Heights. Even though we all know that they’ll eventually break the curse and remember each other, it just sounds like such a sweet call-back to Henry’s grandparents and his parents that it’s going to be really lovely to see when Henry finally has his own family.

So, when he first comes in contact with some of these characters, with Roni, he essentially needs her to help him gather some information so that he can help this child that he feels for. He doesn’t really know why this child came into his life, but he can tell that she’s in trouble and he wants to give her any assistance that he can. He also wants to get her out of his life a little bit because she really throws a wrench into this little cocoon existence that he creates for himself. But he quickly forms a bond with Roni and it’s unclear to him, and I think Roni also, why they have this connection or why they developed this friendship so quickly because they’re strangers.

I’m especially looking forward to seeing Adult Henry and Roni’s interactions. It has a lot of call back to Emma Swan and Mary Margaret in season one, except this time both adults are cursed instead of just the mother. Plus, Andrew West seems like a true professional and gifted actor who can probably hold his own against actors like Lana Parrilla, a fantastic actress.

"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

[Author]

Posts