Jorge Garcia’s first appearance on “Once Upon a Time” as the Giant of “Jack and the Beanstalk” fame probably won’t be his last.
“I got word last week that they’re looking to bring me back in about a month,” Garcia tells Zap2it. “So it looks like there will be at least another one.”
In Sunday’s episode (Nov. 4), Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Capt. Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) climb the beanstalk in search of a magical compass that may help get Emma back to Storybrooke. The Giant, as you might expect, is less than happy to have visitors — ABC even describes the character as “murderous.” Playing mean was something Garcia, best known as super-nice guy Hurley on “Lost,” has been itching to do.
“It was a joy,” he says. “It was exactly the kind of stuff I was looking forward to getting to do after having played the nicest guy on the island for so long. To get to then go, all right, let’s play guys who aren’t so happy to see you and can be dangerous was a lot of fun.”
As with many of the characters on “Once Upon a Time,” the Giant may not be exactly as you remember him from the fairy tale. “‘Once Upon a Time’ has got that kind of thing where they take something you think you’re familiar with and kind of skew it a bit. … It’s where they go in this one as well. It’s not exactly as you expect the giant story to be.
“If you’re using, like, ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’ as a comparison, there’s definitely a different angle for this giant,” he adds. “But it’s pretty good — I think they’ll dig it.”
Garcia’s scenes were all done with green-screen backdrops, which he says was an exercise in trust with episode director Dave Barrett to make sure his performance fits in the finished show. He also got some help from his fellow actors.
“Jennifer Morrison was a great trouper and even went as far as to lie down on the ground so her face would be next to the camera and the eye line would work,” Garcia says. It was definitely a good supporting cast to help me through it.”
The episode — and whatever he may do on “Once Upon a Time” in the future — also was a mini-”Lost” reunion for Garcia and creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who wrote several Hurley-centric episodes of “Lost.”
“It was fantastic. We had been talking for a while, and they’ve always been saying they wanted to find a way to get me on ‘Once Upon a Time,’” Garcia says. “It was [a matter of] looking for when the right opportunity would show up. This giant storyline came up and they pitched it to me, and it seemed like an inspired fit. It just all came together really well.”
source: zap2it.com
