TVA Plus: Once Upon A Time takes a very different look at fairytales and fantasy TV. How long has this idea been in gestating? Adam: It’s been a long time. Eddie and I actually had this idea together about eight years ago. We were fairly new at the time so was probably not readily accessible for a couple of young writers. We love fairy stories and we always thought it would be fun to do a show that attacked them from a different angle and kind of used that as a jumping off point for something else. Edward: When we were on Lost, it started to kind of click how we wanted to tell these fairy stories. We weren’t interested in retelling Snow White. Let’s start at the end of Snow White for instance. We will tell you what you’ve never seen before. We don’t want to retell Pinocchio; we want to tell you how Jiminy Cricket became homeless and sneaked into Gepetto’s workshop. Also something else we picked up on, if you look around the world, no matter what country you’re in, no matter where you are, everyone is kind of grasping for hope right now. The reason I personally love fairytales, is the same reason why you buy a lottery ticket. It’s the belief that one thing can change your life. The way that Lost is about redemption, this show is about hope. Storybrook kind of represents every town, represents everybody. We say it’s a town full of cursed people looking for hope, looking for their happy endings but that could be anywhere. If it’s Singapore, Hong Kong or Minneapolis, everybody feels like maybe I’m not where I want to be. And I feel like that’s kind of what our show is about. Adam: Yea and these characters are trying to find their happy endings. Edward: But of course one person’s happy ending is another’s unhappy ending. Snow White getting married is very very distressing to the evil Queen and the evil Queen’s happy ending is distressing to everybody! TVA Plus: But how about the idea about matching the fairytale world with this modern parallel in Storybrook. Was it always going to be to worlds, or did you explore even having everything set in just the Fairytale world? Adam: For us the big decisions we made with writing the show, was how do we access both worlds and how do we use them both in each episode. It’s about finding this kind of thematic connection between both places and these emotional stories that can kind of cross boundaries in these worlds. Edward: So for instance, in the pilot, Gepetto is very close to his son, Pinocchio, who is a real boy. Then you see in Storybrook, he doesn’t have a child. He was a man who never got one. And so is he really Gepetto, or is he just a lonely man? What we say is that we’re taking these icons and making them real people in the real world. TVA Plus: What about the audience? Who do you want watching the series – there’s a lot of fantasy, but also a lot of blood and violence – death even! Edward: To me it’s no different than say a movie like Pirates or Transformers or a show like Lost. I can watch it with my 10-year old nephew and he’ll get it on one level, I’m getting it at another and my father can get it at another. I feel like this is the kind of show that no matter what age you are, you’re going to get something out of it. And for people that love to watch things really intently and closely, there’s some Easter Eggs in there. I think the good thing about this world is that it’s so relatable, thematically. Sometimes it’s going to be darker and scarier and sometimes it’s going to be lighter. Adam: When you look at fairytales, a lot of them are terrifyingly dark stories. But when you look at them in terms of the context of which many of them were for, which were to teach children how to deal with the world and how to deal with their fears, those kinds of scary moments are the undercurrents of hopefulness and also paired with humour also. TV ASIA Plus: The show is almost cinematic in a way. The production value is great, was this also how you envisaged the series to be like each week? Edward: It’s all part of the ride, part of the fun, part of the spectacle. For us, it’s very important from the first episode, to establish that feel and a look – blending the fantasy world and everyday world together. TV ASIA Plus: You were also very involved with the casting of these characters too? Edward: We literally wrote a part for Robert Carlyle. Adam and I wanted to get him on Lost forever, he was never available and when we sat down to think who could play Rumpelstilskin, we were like, Robert Carlyle! And when we actually sent him the script and we Skyped, he was in Glasgow, he immediately loved it and came in. Jennifer Goodwin read it, loved it and came in…We were really lucky in that all our first choices said yes. Adam: We are interested in doing something new and fresh and fun, that’s what appeals to us. With Lost, we were doing everything we were told not to do. In your first pilot you are not supposed to have dogs and children and night work and elves but we had it all! TV ASIA Plus: And like Lost, the environment could be anywhere. It’s non-specific. So that’s also a different way of accessing a very strong, international audience. Edward: A lot of the stories we like to tell are for an international audience. Our main characters last name is Swan and the ugly duckling is by Hans Christian Anderson who is Swedish. Some stories could come from Germany, some could come from Japan. There are a lot of Asian folktales. For us, we have a world where we can pull from all of that. I feel that because these stories have been passed around from country to country, from village to village, from city to city, everybody understands them. So everybody comes in with a working knowledge of what we’re trying to do. And we’re saying now that you think that way, here’s what really happened. What really happened to Pinocchio? TV ASIA Plus: Talking about the different characters. How do we extend into another season? There’s so much going on but it also seems like it could be stitched up. Adam: There’s this stuff that we’re starting to do that you’ll see more of in subsequent episodes that we hope will allow the audience to start to wonder just where we will go in a good way and its more than what we have seen in the pilot and we would not be a surprise if we told you what that is right now. Edward: No (laughs). We can tell you but it could go for many seasons!