THERE was a time movie stars did not do TV. To work on the small screen, the theory went, was the career equivalent of entering God’s waiting room.
Then Rob Lowe produced career-best form in The West Wing and Kiefer Sutherland had our hearts racing in espionage drama 24.While script-writing and production standards in TV soared, the same could not be said for filmmaking.
“I recently saw a statistic – of the top 10 box office films last year, five were sequels and five were based on comic books,” Once Upon a Time’s Ginnifer Goodwin says.
“I feel all the risks are being taken in television and there is money being given to the risk-takers in television.
“I’m reading movies for our summer hiatus and I am super frustrated, annoyed and angry at the poor quality of the scripts I am reading – and for big movies.
“It is such a waste of my time. There are these empty, empty vapid girlfriend roles or you’re the character who comes in every couple of scenes as a plot device with a clipboard to give facts to the male lead.”
Goodwin spent five years on television playing wife No.3, Margene Heffman, in the acclaimed Big Love.
After such a long stint on TV she decided to again try her hand at movies.
But, as with many of life’s plans, it didn’t turn out the way she expected.
“I wasn’t even looking at TV, I had just wrapped the final season of Big Love and, honestly, that experience was so perfect, that instead of not wanting to continue in the world of television because I didn’t love it, I decided to step away for a while because I wanted to leave with that perfect impression and wonderful memories,” she says.
“The problem was, as we were coming to the close of that season, I was reading every movie under the sun that was being made in 2011 – I was horrified.
“I didn’t realize that the landscape in movie making was really that bleak, so I decided to read a few pilot scripts, so my reps let the networks know I was wanting to read some things.”
Then came Once Upon a Time. From childhood, her dream had been to play a Disney princess.
“I received a phone call one day and my reps said they’d found something interesting. They said I was being offered the role of Snow White and I said I was in before even reading the script,” she says.
“For years I talked about how my biggest dream was to be a Disney princess. I never actually thought that it would happen and if it did, it would be in an animated form.
“I was also in shock that at 33 I was cast as a Disney princess – and one that was so iconic as opposed to being something new.
“I would rather play Snow White over and above any other Disney princess. I actually dressed up as Snow White two years ago for Halloween.”
A ratings hit in the US, Once Upon a Time has launched strongly on Channel 7.
The series follows a bail bond agent and her son who discover a New England town, aptly titled Storybrooke, Maine, which is a remnant of a parallel world that was cursed by the Evil Queen from the fairytale Snow White.
The curse has left all the characters from the fairytales with no memory of who they are, includingSnow White and Prince Charming.
Each episode jumps between the real life of Storybrooke and the parallel fairytale world.
The story introduces us to the fairytale characters and gives us a snapshot of their lives before they become the characters we know so well.
As a result we see a more assertive Snow White than the traditional one.
“Playing the character is so challenging. Our version of Snow White is very strong, very relatable to the modern woman. She lives in more of a medieval time in our version,” Goodwin says.
“We have definitely given her faults. She certainly battles vanity and entitlement, and that is great fun to play.”
The telling of fairytales on the big and small screens is all the rage.
Once Upon a Time is joined by two movies based on the story of Snow White.
Julia Roberts plays the evil Queen in Mirror Mirror, while Charlize Theron takes over the role in the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman, directed by Rupert Sanders.
Add to that TV show Grimm and fairytales seem to be back in vogue.
Goodwin believes that in tough times people turn to things they know, stories that are comforting.
“I am not well versed in world politics, but in America we’ve been through some tough economic times and I think people are looking for iconic escapism – being able to imagine a place where everyone gets a happy ending,” Goodwin says.
“There is a monolog my character gives in the pilot where she says that ‘hope is the most powerful of magic’, that everyone needs hope, and I think that is what fairytales give us.”
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