#casting_news

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Once Upon a Time Adds The Originals Alum Nathan Parsons in Charismatic Recurring Role

Once Upon a Time is about to get a little more charming. (That's charming, not Charming. Sorry for everyone holding out hope for a Josh Dallas cameo!)

E! News has learned that the ABC fantasy has tapped The Originalsalum Nathan Parsons for a recurring arc in the show's current seventh season. Parsons will appear in a handful of episode as Nick, a confident and charismatic slacker-turned-successful lawyer. Polished, but never stuffy or smarmy, and a natural guy's guy, Nick has an instant likability and always says the right thing.

Could be be joining the Hyperion Heights resistance in their fight against Victoria Belfrey (Gabrielle Anwar)? Coming to someone's legal aid? We'll find out when he makes his first appearance in the season's eighth episode, airing Friday, Nov. 17.

Parsons' addition to the cast marks the second piece of OUATcasting news in as many days, with Riverdale alum Tiera Skovebyeset to recur as Robin, the grown version of Zelena's (Rebecca Mader's) with Robin Hood (Sean Maguire). Making her debut in the winter finale, Robin is described as a strong-willed good girl turned rebel who is struggling to define her identity. As the daughter of powerful parents, she can never seem to escape their shadows, which drives her crazy. Tired of towing the line, Robin is ready to break out into the world and find her own adventure. She'll also be a love interest for someone. Nick maybe? Or perhaps Alice, whom showrunners Adam Hororwitz and Edward Kitsis promised TVLinewill be in the middle of an epic love story, beginning in the winter finale.

Now it's time to theorize: If Parsons is playing Nick in Hyperion Heights, who is he in the Enchanted Forest? Because you know he's got to have a fairy-tale counterpart. Sound off with your best guesses in the comments below!

Once Upon a Time airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on ABC.

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ONCE UPON A TIME: MEET THE NEW CAST

Tiana (Mekia Cox)

The Princess and the Frog heroine will take center stage in episode 5 when viewers get to see her origin story, but it doesn't necessarily follow the film. "We're not redoing the movie," Horowitz says. "We're taking it as a jumping off point. We want to honor the character and make sure we're true to it, but we have a Once Upon a Time spin." In Seattle, Tiana's counterpart Sabine will play a vital role. "Her relationship with Cinderella is like Snow and Red's," Kitsis says. "They're roommates, they're good friends."

Cinderella (Dania Ramirez)

We'll meet this new iteration of the glass-slippered princess — who is Henry's wife and Lucy's mom — in the midst of her iconic fairy tale story, but there's a twist. "We'll find out she's not necessarily looking for her prince," Kitsis says. Her cursed Hyperion Heights counterpart, meanwhile, is named Jacinda. "We see a single mother who is struggling to keep her family together, keep her life together and keep her head up against many obstacles. So she's finding herself once again being Cinderella to the world where she feels like she is constantly cleaning up her mess, but yet she can never get ahead."

Once Upon a Time's New and Returning Faces

The ABC fairy tale drama is undergoing a major reboot heading into its seventh season. To keep track of the new and returning characters, EW turned to executive producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis to get the scoop.

Cinderella (Dania Ramirez)

We'll meet this new iteration of the glass-slippered princess — who is Henry's wife and Lucy's mom — in the midst of her iconic fairy tale story, but there's a twist. "We'll find out she's not necessarily looking for her prince," Kitsis says. Her cursed Hyperion Heights counterpart, meanwhile, is named Jacinda. "We see a single mother who is struggling to keep her family together, keep her life together and keep her head up against many obstacles. So she's finding herself once again being Cinderella to the world where she feels like she is constantly cleaning up her mess, but yet she can never get ahead."

Lady Tremaine (Gabrielle Anwar)

The new big bad is Cinderella's evil stepmother, "who wants to get to the top and will use any means necessary," says Kitsis, teasing that her Hyperion Heights counterpart takes the form of a developer named Victoria trying to gentrify the neighborhood and push out the fairy tale characters. But there's more to Lady Tremaine than we may yet realize. “Lady Tremaine doesn’t like Cinderella very much and she’s got an agenda," Horowitz says. "But there is something broiling beneath that’s personal and painful that is driving all of this."

Drizella (Adelaide Kane)

Cinderella's step-sister is "deliciously evil," says Kitsis. "She presents herself to be as evil as the evil stepsisters promise to be, but like everything in Once Upon a Time, you never know what's underneath it." Viewer, beware: She may even rival her mother, Lady Tremaine. "She takes a lot of abuse from her mom," Kitsis says, "but I wonder how long that will last." Horowitz adds: "There's a lot going on inside of Drizella, and she earned the evil moniker."

Alice (Rose Reynolds)

Another new iteration of a familiar face, Alice from Wonderland fame "is a character in the vein of Rumplestiltskin in that you don’t really quite know what she’s up to, where she’s going or where she’s been," Kitsis says — a fact Rumple, in particular, will find curious.

Tiana (Mekia Cox)

The Princess and the Frog heroine will take center stage in episode 5 when viewers get to see her origin story, but it doesn't necessarily follow the film. "We're not redoing the movie," Horowitz says. "We're taking it as a jumping off point. We want to honor the character and make sure we're true to it, but we have a Once Upon a Time spin." In Seattle, Tiana's counterpart Sabine will play a vital role. "Her relationship with Cinderella is like Snow and Red's," Kitsis says. "They're roommates, they're good friends."

Lucy (Alison Fernandez)

The daughter of Henry and Cinderella has the unenviable task that her father also faced as a child. "Lucy, right now, has to bear the burden of the truest believer because her father no longer does," Kitsis says. "It is up to her to get people to remain hopeful. You’ll see a lot of Henry in her, and I think you’ll see a lot of her grandma, Snow, in her."

Henry Mills (Andrew J. West)

After leaving home to find his own story, Henry finds an epic romance with Cinderella, but eventually ends up cursed in Hyperion Heights. No longer a wide-eyed believer, Henry is now a cynical author-turned-Uber driver. "Henry had the heart of the true believer and when we meet him he no longer believes, and it’s up to his daughter — who he doesn’t even realize is his daughter — to help him find his belief again," Kitsis says. "He is a Uber driver. He wrote one book called Once Upon a Time that we’ll realize has all the stories from the first six seasons, but it did not do well, no one bought it, and he’s a guy that’s down on his luck looking for his place in the world."

Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle)

Details about the trio of returning stars are being kept under wraps, particularly when it comes to Rumplestiltskin — his Hyperion Heights counterpart has been described as "menacing," but we won't find out his name until the premiere. "We warned you season 1 he was a difficult man to love, but at the same time, he did find true love last year and chose love over power, so we don’t know what we’ll be looking at," Kitsis says coyly. "I would hope that the growth and everything he fought for wouldn’t be erased. But as we know, that’s the day-to-day fight." To note: Both Emilie de Ravin and Giles Matthey will return as Belle and their son Gideon, respectively, in the Rumple-centric fourth episode.

Regina (Lana Parrilla)

When Henry finds himself in trouble, he calls out to his family for help and Regina comes running. But that's also why she ends up in a cursed Hyperion Heights as a denim-clad bartender named Roni. "Roni is Regina with the wisdom of six years of the show," Horowitz says. "She is a tough character, she’s a bartender, she is sticking up for the little people in the neighborhood against the bully who we’ll realize is Lady Tremaine. At the same respect, all the experiences she’s had going from Evil Queen to Queen [have led to] a mature character."

Captain Hook (Colin O'Donoghue)

The one-armed pirate also comes running to help Henry, though we'll find a very different Hook in Hyperion Heights, a despondent cop named Rogers — no, his name is not Polly Rogers, as some internet rumors have indicated. "He is a cop with a very specific mission and a case that has haunted him that he has not solved, and that will be what we’ll be teasing out in the first couple episodes," Horowitz says. However, Kitsis adds: "He’s a good cop [with] a plate filled with temptation." Plus: There's this

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ONCE UPON A TIME’S COLIN O'DONOGHUE ON SEEING DIFFERENT SIDE OF HOOK

It’s the episode fans of Once Upon a Time have been waiting for basically since the reboot was announced.

As previously revealed, Friday’s Hook-centric hour features the return of Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan for what the producers are calling “an emotional curtain call.” The question that’s been plaguing fans is what Colin O’Donoghue’s continued presence on the show means for the fate of Emma Swan. Well, fans will definitely get an answer this week when Emma, Regina (Lana Parrilla), and Hook answer Henry’s (Andrew J. West) call for help, landing them in this different version of the Enchanted Forest.

“We’ll get to see what has happened with Hook and Emma up to that point, and how their relationship has progressed,” O’Donoghue tells EW. “We also see Hook interact with older Henry, but we might see him interact with him in a different kind of way. We’ll see a different side of Hook, which I think will be interesting to people and they won’t expect.”

O’Donoghue is coy to offer more details on the hour, again stressing he doesn’t want fans to be spoiled on the finer points of the hour. But he does address whether his Hyperion Heights counterpart Rogers actually recognized Emma from the storybook in the premiere: “It’s a false memory that’s being jogged more than anything,” O’Donoghue teases. “It’s more of a spark of recognition. I think that he’s not entirely sure who it is, but there’s something there that he can’t shake.”

For now, Rogers will have a very different hurdle to face after being promoted to detective and being partnered with Weaver (Robert Carlyle), a.k.a Hook’s frenemy Rumplestiltskin. However, they might find common ground since both men are searching for someone, though whether it’s the same person remains to be seen. “Their relationship throughout the whole history of the show has been very, very complicated and there’s been a lot of anger and hatred there,” O’Donoghue says. “What you will see is two people trying to work together with a level of mistrust, and they probably shouldn’t be working together, but they have to. Rogers has a very, very clear-cut agenda and something that he wants to achieve or figure out in much the same way Weaver does. Neither really discuss it with each other at all. They’re withholding things from each other yet trying to work as closely together as they possibly can.”

Their working dynamic is made more complicated when they’re tasked by Victoria (Gabrielle Anwar) to push Henry out of Hyperion Heights — another clue Weaver may be in the pocket of the big bad. “Rogers doesn’t like it, but understands it,” O’Donoghue says. “That’s the pirate element of who he was — without him knowing it. The lines get blurred a little bit for Rogers at times. If there’s something that he needs to achieve, he won’t intentionally do the wrong thing, but he can dance on either side of that line. He knows that Weaver is the more senior detective. Rogers very much wants to find this person that he’s seeking. He’s hoping that by working with Weaver, he can do that, so he’s willing to bite the bullet and go along for the ride.”

Once Upon a Time airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Robin Givens has been tapped to play Tiana’s mother on Once Upon a Time, EW has learned exclusively.

As previously announced, Mekia Cox joins the ABC fairy tale drama as Princess and the Frog heroine Tiana, who’s among a quintet of new faces appearing in the show’s rebooted seventh season.

Givens, who currently costars on Riverdale, will pop up in at least one episode as Eudora, a loving mother to Tiana and benevolent noblewoman. Formerly wealthy, now facing financial disaster, she handles the transition with grace and inner moral strength.

Weeks prior to Givens’ casting, Cox actually met her TV mom-to-be in the elevator at their hotel in Vancouver, where the Head of the Class alum is currently shooting Riverdale. “I had come from the grocery store, and there was this woman waiting for the elevator, but I didn’t really see her,” Cox says. “We got on the elevator and I turned and said, ‘Oh, hi! I know you.’ She was like, ‘Oh?’ I know I probably scared her. I was like, ‘I think you’re great.’ ‘Oh, thank you,’ and she looked at my grocery bags and she was like, ‘That’s normally me.’ I was like, ‘I need my own groceries, I can’t eat out every day.’ We had a fun little moment with each other and that was that. Then I came to set and found out she was going to be playing my mother, so when I re-met her, she was like, ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ and I was like, ‘Well, it’s re-meeting because I’m the girl from the elevator.’ She was as excited as I was at that time. She’s the sweetest woman, she’s very down to earth and it’s really awesome getting to work with her and play her daughter.”

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ONCE UPON A TIME FIRST LOOK: TIANA IS A PRINCESS WITH A MISSION (AND ENEMIES!)

ABC’s Once Upon a Time adds a new princess to its royal ranks when Chicago Med‘s Mekia Cox makes her debut as Tiana — and TVLine has a first look at her arrival.

In Season 7’s third episode, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Cox first appears as the Princess and the Frog heroine, but the circumstances under which she makes the acquaintance of Henry Mills (played by Andrew J. West), the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) and Captain Hook (Colon O’Donoghue) could probably be better.

“We meet Tiana in a fairy tale realm in turmoil,” Once creators Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis tell TVLine. “She’s a princess with a mission — to restore freedom to her people.”

Judging by the photo above, however, Tiana and this season’s new version of Cinderella (Devious Maids‘ Dania Ramirez) are already allies.

“Tiana’s most defining characteristic is her strength,” say the Once creators. “She’s been through a lot when we meet her, but she never wavers even when doubting oneself would seem to be the most logical, and safe, course of action.

“She has her share of enemies,” they add, “but that goes with the territory when one is fighting for a just cause.”

Cast in July amid a flurry of Season 7 additions (including Ramirez, Burn Notice‘s Gabrielle Anwar and Reign‘s Adelaide Kane), Cox was recently promoted from recurring to series regular. Additionally, Riverdale‘s Robin Givens is set to guest-star as Tiana’s mother Eudora, a benevolent noblewoman now facing financial disaster.

Once Upon a Time christens its new time slot, Fridays at 8/7c, on Oct. 6.

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SEASON PREMIERE ONCE UPON A TIME FRIDAY OCT6 PROMO PT 3 MEME

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Regina finally get her happy ending this season?

Once Upon a Time's Lana Parrilla Describes Regina's Perfect Match

 Regina (Lana Parrilla) has had a rough time when it comes to romantic soulmates on Once Upon a Time, but Lana Parrilla hasn't given up hope for the formerly Evil Queen finding her match."I don't know, maybe someone that doesn't die!" Parrilla teased when TV Guide asked her what she'd like to see in Regina's next romantic partner. "I just want to see her happy. She's had a lot of happiness and a lot of tragedy. I would like to see consistent happiness for her. I think that she will meet the right person. The other two were right in a different way, but they were taken away from her. I think she'll meet someone that is a good match for her."While Parrilla can't say if Regina is cozying up to someone at the beginning of Season 7, she has put some thoughts into what qualities her next fictional love should have -- so producers take note!

Once Upon a Time: Giles Matthey Is Back for Season 7 

"Someone really strong. I don't just mean physically strong. They have to have a strong heart," she said. "I don't want her to control anyone. I want someone to be a really good match for her. Maybe she's challenged by him in ways -- a mature relationship. I feel like she's matured so much...I don't know who he is yet. I don't think [the producers] know yet."We've got our fingers crossed her dreams come true.