Reinventing Fairy Tales: An Interview with Once Upon a Time’s Jane Espenson

Posted on the 17 December 2011 by Bittersweet1975 @onceupon_fans

This is another interesting interview from writer Jane Esperson (she wrote also episode 1×11 about which Ginny and Josh are so excited!). Read an excerpt below:

Jane Espenson is well known to fans of the science fiction and fantasy television genre. A 20-year veteran television writer and producer, she has written for some of the best, including Buffy the Vampire SlayerBattlestar GalacticaGame of ThronesTorchwood. She is also the co-creator and executive producer of Husbands, viewable at http://husbandstheseries.com. Currently Ms. Espenson is a writer/producer for the new hit series Once Upon a Time, which airs Sunday nights on ABC.

She wrote the recently aired, “A Still Small Voice,” which explores Jiminy Cricket’s (Raphael Sbarge) backstory, and she’s also written the upcoming “Desperate Souls.” I last interviewed Ms. Espenson just before the series premiered back in October, and she was kind enough to chat with me again, in advance of her latest episode, airing just after the show comes out of its brief winter hiatus.

I’m really excited to see your next episode, which, I understand reveals more about Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle).

Episode 8 is called “Desperate Souls,” and it does reveal more about Rumple.  Lots more.  You’ll learn about where he comes from and what drives him.  It’s also got a fun Storybrooke story where we see more of how Emma is going to fit into this wonderful insular strange little town.

In “That Still, Small Voice” we got a glimpse of Rumpelstiltskin (I have to find an easier-to-spell nickname for him) in his home. I think you learn an awful lot about a character by his (or her artifacts) and I love that the character is surrounded by shelves and shelves of books. What sorts of books are on those shelves, I wonder?

Try “Rumple.” And yes, he has lots of books.  Full of spells and secrets, and, I would guess, a lot of names.  This is man to whom names are very important.  Even more than to Santa.

In “Still Small Voice,” Geppetto’s parents (rather, the carved puppets they became) are sitting in Mr. Gold’s pawn shop. There are, in fact, lots of interesting looking items in there, do most of those items have potential significance in future stories? Is the pawn shop a hotbed of clues?

Read the whole interview @: http://blogcritics.org/video/article/reinventing-fairy-tales-an-interview-with/#ixzz1gkKdBtDe