Once Upon a Time is launching a creative reboot with its upcoming seventh season. Jumping into the future with a new story following an adult Henry Mills (Andrew J. West), a new "story book" and a new evil curse, Season 7's premiere is in many ways a new pilot.
Several notable actors made the jump from Season 6 to Season 7, including Lana Parilla and Colin O'Donoghue, but they will be playing new twists on familiar characters. The two stars joined West, Dania Ramirez, Gabrielle Anwar and showrunners Adam Horowitz and Eddie Kitsis at the 2017 summer TV Critics' Association press tour to talk about how the show is changing heading into the new season -- and what very, very important element stays the same.
Check out some new photos from Season 7:
One of the biggest concerns from fans of Once Upon a Time is that the new season will undercut the happy endings characters like Hook and Regina experienced at the end of Season 7. Kitsis and Horowitz were very adamant that those happy endings will remain in tact, saying episode 2 deals with what Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Hook are up to, and episode 4 will check in on Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) and Belle (Emilie de Ravin)'s relationship.
"We are not looking to get rid of any of the happy endings... but we are moving forward, and we think we have a way to achieve both things," said Kitsis. Added Horowitz, "We're telling new stories with some of the characters from the first six seasons. ... We are always thinking of the fans. We hope that people check it out and see that we are still thinking about that."
The initial idea to relaunch Once Upon a Time first came to the showrunners in Season 4, which was when they realized they wanted to start writing to "our own end." They knew they wanted to wind down Emma's story in Season 6, but it was up to whether ABC had interest to determine whether they would get to "start a new chapter."
Season 7 picks up from the Season 6 finale cliffhanger with adult Henry in a "new book with new characters. He's called on some of his friends... to come join him. We're going to have a new curse in a new town with new characters, but still see some old faces," said Kitsis.
"This new creative direction allows us to ... bring in new characters and be able to tell new origin stories," added Horowitz. "It's like we started again," said O'Donoghue.
From Storybrooke to Hyperion Heights, Once heads from a small town in Maine to a neighborhood in Seattle, where Parilla and O'Donoghue will be playing very different versions of their characters. In fact, Parilla's character won't even be named "Regina." Kitsis jokingly said to call her "The Queen Formerly Known as Regina." As Henry, Regina and Hook never had cursed alter egos in Storybrooke, Kitsis and Horowitz felt this was a fun way to offer a new twist.
"When we meet Hook this season, he is a uniformed cop in Seattle. He's different from any of the other 10 different Hooks I've played," said O'Donoghue. "There's a sense of loss there in the guy, and I think that he just doesn't know what it is that's missing. He's striving in some way to find who he is still. The Hook that we meet is trying to be the best uniformed cop he can be. ... The episodes of this season that I've read are honestly the best that I've read in any season so far."
Not-Regina, meanwhile, is a bar owner in Hyperion Heights who wears rock T-shirts instead of power pantsuits. She's no longer in charge and more rough around the edges, which will lead to some fun interactions with West's cursed version of Henry.
"You see these two characters interact in a way that you certainly have never seen," said West. "It's cool to see these characters interact in a completely new way." Added Kitsis, "It's very similar to Season 1 to Emma and Mary Margaret, [when Emma] didn't know it was her mom."
For fans excited for Henry and Regina to reunite when they actually do know each other, Parilla teased that the pair reunites in a fairy tale flashback after being apart for many years. "Regina has not seen this grown man ever before. so she's taken back by that, and is sort of finding their relationship now that he is no longer this little boy," said Parilla.
"I think that's what's so cool about it too, enough time has passed ... there is an element of, 'Who is this person?'" said West. "That element of two strangers having to interact is cool and exciting even though obviously that relationship does exist. I have sort of taken Lana's lead in that."
This new clean slate allows Once to not be "beholden to old mythology," which means new origin stories for characters like Cinderella. Ramirez plays the mother of Henry's daughter, and exploring their relationship is a key part of the new season. The showrunners liken Henry and Cinderella's "epic romance" to the Snow/Charming pairing in Season 1.
Of the actors, characters and stories left behind, Kitsis said, "Some people wanted to leave the show, some people had stories ended. The tough thing about this business is it isn't just professional, it's also personal in that we became really close with a lot of these people ... That doesn't mean that I don't have a day when I don't miss writing Snow and Charming scenes."
Once Upon a Time: Season 7 premieres Friday, October 6th at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Terri Schwartz is Editorial Producer at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
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