The beans have been spilled on ABC’s Once Upon a Time, and this Sunday at 8/7c, Regina — upon gleaning that Snow White, Emma et al have no intention of bringing her along on their trip back to The Enchanted Forest — harvests her own plan to make use of the magical legumes and in doing so, secure a place in son Henry’s life.
Lana Parrilla, who is always so, so good at being so, so bad, shared with TVLine not only a peek at her alter ego’s wicked TripTik and the Season 2 finale, but also related a touching story of a TV mother’s love.
TVLINE | I get the feeling that this Sunday, Regina is about to make a very aggressive play.
Yeah, well, it’s no different than all the other Sundays! There’s always something up her sleeve, isn’t there? But this time, Regina is kind of in a desperate situation, so it is slightly different. She senses there is a love that Henry does have for her and because of that, she’s going to fight for that relationship even stronger now. She’s looking for ways to take him away and go elsewhere. Now that she has discovered the magic beans, Regina – in her twisted mind — is conjuring up a plan where she can now use one of these beans to take her and Henry back to The Enchanted Forest.
TVLINE | But just her and Henry, right?
Well, she can’t do it alone — she needs help, and who other than Mr. Captain Hook could be a better partner? So, she’s teaming up with him to try to steal these beans, open a portal and take all three of them back to The Enchanted Forest.
TVLINE | Oh, so she gets a handsome companion as part of the deal. That works out well.
Like I said, some things never change with her.
TVLINE | Last month during our PaleyFest Q&A, you were hankering for more Evil Queen scenes. What can you say about what’s coming up?
Playing Young Regina is always a breath of fresh air, but playing the Evil Queen is just pure fun and excitement for me. There is a lot happening in Fairytale Land [this Sunday], where, once again, Regina is finding ways to kill Snow White — and she‘s quite confused why it’s so difficult. It pretty much takes place right after “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” Season 1, Episode 7. She had sent the Huntsman to kill Snow White, but he comes back with the heart of a stag, not Snow White’s heart, and she doesn’t understand whyit’s so difficult to kill this little princess that’s out running around in the forest. So, she meets with the peasants in a village where she knows Snow White is hiding and she offers them a lot of money and gold, opportunities for better lives… and no one budges. No one rats out Snow White. She doesn’t understand why everyone is protecting Snow White and why they don’t love her. She’s the queen, and yet they hate her so much. So, she asks Rumpelstiltskin to disguise her as a villager, and she ends up walking amongst these people and asking about their feelings about the queen. And what she discovers is a very sad thing, how much she is hated. I think that really hurts her. It’s actually a really cool episode; I feel like I got to play a different part, since I’m “in disguise.”
TVLINE | But we see you, while everybody else sees a peasant.
Everyone else sees a peasant… although youdo see me looking pretty ratty. I look like a little ragamuffin. My hair couldn’t have been frizzier; my Puerto Rican side of the family is going to kill me. This is pure kink and weird dreadlocks…. like “Rasta Regina.”
TVLINE | How does seeing how she’s viewed by the villagers affect Regina moving forward? Does she say, “You know what? Maybe I should lighten up a bit”? Or is she like, “You ungrateful bastards…”
She’s more like, “You ungrateful bastards.” [Laughs] Let’s face it, she can do no wrong in her eyes. She’s not as self-aware as you at times would like her to be, or as Regina in Storybrooke is. It’s a journey for this woman. That’s what’s so beautiful, and therein lies the contrast between these two worlds as we go back in time. We’re seeing how she becomes more self-aware and learns how to take responsibility for things. Although, again in Storybrooke, she’s making some dangerous decisions in opening this portal and taking Henry away…. There is this “trigger” that she needs to get her hands on, and I guess you could say “pushing the button” would wipe out all of Storybrooke and kill all the inhabitants.
TVLINE | Decisions, decisions!
Yeah. It’s a clock-ticking episode — kind of what happens in every episode!
TVLINE | [Series creators] Eddy [Kitsis] and Adam [Horowitz] said Regina will be front and center in the Tamara and Greg story, too.
Regina has her suspicions with Greg to begin with. She knows who he is, though she doesn’t really know why he’s here. She suspects that it’s about his father, but there has to be an ulterior motive. Regina has her “Spidey senses” — she’s so intuitive — so I think she’s very suspicious of them. She doesn’t trust them and she knows that there is something else going on.
TVLINE | Do you have a favorite moment from Season 2? You and Barbara Hershey sold the hell out of the brief moment when Regina and Cora looked at each other with such love.
Yeah, some of my favorite moments are with Barbara. In that episode where she dies… at one point, Cora and Regina go flying over the counter and the glass breaks and we end up on the floor…. This was Barbra’s last episode and there were a lot of emotions around it, one being that she is extremely loved and we were going to miss her. I adore her and I miss her still very much, and she had the same feelings. [Once] became a home for her, and she knew that she was going to miss everyone. So after the stunt girls throw themselves over the counter and we pick up with me and Barbara lying on the floor, at one moment she just put her hand on my foot, around my ankle, and said, “I really love you, Lana. I really, really love you.”
TVLINE | Oh my gosh….
It was just like…I could tell it came from a place of a “mother” to her “daughter.” I give Barbara credit for that, because it shows how committed she is to her work and her character. I am very much the same; I think she and I share a very similar instrument, we have the same approach to how we work and I felt like I really had a partner there, and I loved that. And then she said, “Look on the floor….” There was a book that was opened and inside it said, This Is for Love. These are signs and symbols that come to us when we’re working that so many overlook or miss because they’re not in the moment or they just don’t work in that way or they’re not in touch in that way. But I always look for these little signs and symbols that I think are very magical. It was a huge validation and a confirmation that we couldn’t have been paired up better.
That was honestly one of my favorite, most touching moments this season. Another one was the scene with Mary Margaret — Ginny [Goodwin] and myself at the doorstep when Regina rips her heart out. That scene overall I think is extremely powerful on so many levels. I think it was a moment that everyone had been waiting for, and I loved that Regina chose not to kill her.
Then there’s another one coming up which I’m really excited about, in this Sunday’s episode, with Rumpelstiltskin. It’s comedy. Robert [Carlyle] and I have so much fun working together and there’s one scene where it’s just… he looked at me and was like, “I could do this all day!” And I was like, “I could do this forever.” The scene was a ton of fun. I don’t know how it’s going to play out, but I can tell you, in the moment, you had two theatrical actors on a green stage just eating it up, feeling like we were back in the theater again. Those are the moments that we just love. So, those are my three favorite moments.
TVLINE | How would you tease the season finale? What sort of emotions will fans go through in the final moments?
This is always hard… I’m not very good at teasing finales. I think people are going to be very surprised to see the two sides come together and work together for the greater good, light and dark coming together and having to make a decision that is best for everyone included. We’re always separating, it’s always light against dark and dark against light, you know. Good against evil or evil against good. So it’s a very sobering moment in the finale where the audience is going to be very surprised to see some characters have to come together, to work together, to save one another.
