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| (L-R): Lana Parrilla (Regina) and
Andrew J. West (Henry) Photo: ABC |
Are you wondering what’s ahead for the characters of “Once Upon A Time?” The show has rebooted, making major cast changes, including a location change to Seattle and Henry has been SORASED from a teenager to a grown man with a child of his own.
Cast members Lana Parilla, Colin O’Donoghue, Andrew J. West, Dania Ramirez, Gabrielle Anwar and executive producers Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis and David H. Goodman met with reporters Sunday at the Television Critics Association’s press tour.
The show is starting over again with Henry (Adam J.West), now an adult and living in Seattle, meeting his daughter Lucy for the first time and embarking on a new mission with her. The reboot which saw the departure of cast members Gennifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas and Jennifer Morrison, came as a surprise to “Oncers” but Horwitz and Kitsis had plans to reset all along.
“I would say around Season 4 we initially thought – we were coming from “Lost,” so we thought of a six-year plan,” Kitsis said. “Around Season 4 we started to realize that, you know, we wanted to start writing towards our own end point, and if the show was successful enough, or the network had interest enough to go on, that we would reboot it and creatively begin a new chapter.”
Viewers of beloved character Emma, Mary Margaret and David, those questions will be answered early in the season.
“We are telling new stories with some of the characters from the first six seasons and with the new characters, but what came before,” Horowitz said. “We were all very cognizant, as we write the show and as we perform the show, and we are always thinking of the fans. But we hope that people check it out and will see that we are thinking about that. It is an emotional thing. When people attach to characters for six years, it’s a big deal.”
For new cast member Andrew J. West, the idea of telling the next chapter of Henry’s story was a surreal and exciting opportunity.
“You’ll get a chance to see various time periods, too, in these characters’ lives,” West said of the show. “You see where we leave young Henry at the end of Season 6, then going into Season 7, you see him a little bit older, even older still living in Seattle in the real world, and we’ll fill in different periods in these characters’ lives… Through some of the flashbacks that we’re going to see in the beginning of Season 7, it really retains the spirit of what they’ve always done so well with the show for six years, and you see a continuation of this Henry character that feels very much like the Henry that we’ve all watched for six years. We get to see him a little bit later in life, and all of that just feels so new and different in a really exciting, interesting way. And I think that’s what is so appealing, at least to me, about this new season of the show.”
Viewers will also get to see Regina’s relationship with an adult Henry which has been such an important part of the show from the beginning. The pair meets after many years apart in a flashback.
“Regina has not seen this grown man ever before,” Parrilla said. “…She’s taken back by that and is sort of finding their relationship now that he’s no longer this little boy. He’s grown up. He’s a man now and how does she deal with him as a man.”
“That element of strangeness or …two strangers having to interact. It is kind of cool and exciting, even though obviously that relationship still exists,” adds West. “I’ve …taken Lana’s lead in that in terms of how these two characters kind of interact together and who they are for each other now.”
Catch “Once Upon a Time’s” Season 7 on Friday, October 6 at 8: 00 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
