‘Once Upon a Time’ season 5: Jennifer Morrison discusses Dark Swan
When Once Upon a Time returns for its fifth season, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) is struggling with what it now means to be the Dark One and Morrison talked with Entertainment Weekly about the transformation, beginning with where the story begins.
“We pick up right where we leave off in terms of everyone in Storybrooke standing over the dagger and realizing that Emma sacrificed herself to save Regina’s happy ending, and save the town, and save everyone. We pick up with them banding together and trying to figure out how they’re going to find her, and what to do about it, and who’s going to hold the dagger, because, obviously, that’s a powerful position as well, and then we find Emma reborn as the Dark One somewhere.”
Emma is “quite” the Dark One when the season starts and Morrison points out that “When we saw Rumple (Robert Carlyle) take on the Dark One, he obviously had good reason for it. He wanted to be able to save his son, and be a hero, and have power in a way that he thought was positive. He had good intentions in the decision to do it, and then we watched him through flashbacks struggle with the good and the bad inside of him once he took that on…”
“There’s a similar journey for Emma, which is that once you’ve agreed to surrender to the Darkness and be the Dark One, that doesn’t mean that you’re consumed with it immediately. It means that it’s within you, and now there is the struggle between what was once you and how to reconcile that with the Darkness that’s also within you at this point. We’re going to see her go through that struggle and that journey to fight within herself to make that decision.”
She talks about elements of Rumple and Zoso in the Dark Swan, her “surrender” to the darkness and Hook.
“It’s interesting because, so far, what you’ll see is that Henry (Jared Gilmore) is Emma’s kryptonite as Dark Swan, because that love is so pure and so strong and similar to how Baelfire (Michael Raymond-James) was kryptonite to Rumple’s Darkness. There was something about that bond that makes it hard to completely lean into the Darkness, and so I would say Henry has the most powerful effect on keeping her from wanting to lean into the Darkness. And then Hook is the next most powerful force after that in the sense that she does truly love him, and she doesn’t stop loving him just because she’s now the Dark One, similar to how Rumple continued to love Belle (Emilie de Ravin) even though he was the Dark One. She does still have genuine love for him, but that’s mixed in with her new capacity for manipulation and for selfishness…”
It’s always a complicated thing between Dark Swan and Hook because it’s a mixture of her true feelings with her new capacity for these darker deeds. It’s a complicated dance whenever Emma’s dealing as the Dark Swan with Hook because her feelings are true, but her decision making is based in a bad place now…”
Just a great interview over at EW, check it out HERE
Once 5 also stars Josh Dallas, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Carlyle, Lana Parrilla and Colin O’Donoghue.
Once Upon a Time returns Sunday, Sept. 27, at 8 p.m. on ABC
