ONCE UPON A TIME: Ginnifer Goodwin on Shooting the Emotional Snow/Emma Scene in ‘Lost Girl’

ONCE UPON A TIME’s Snow and Charming have known that Emma is their (now-grown) daughter for a season, but while they have slipped into the parental roles fairly easily (especially considering the trio is around the same age), it has been a much tougher adjustment for Emma…who spent her life thinking her parents abandoned her.

The topic had been mostly danced around until last night’s episode, “Lost Girl,” when Pan gave Emma a blank sheet of paper, and told her the map that would lead her to find Henry in Neverland would only reveal itself when she was honest with herself about what she truly was. Emma tried everything confession she could think of to make the map work correctly, but it wasn’t until Snow forced the topic that Emma admitted that Neverland had taken her back to how she had always felt: like an orphan. And while the scene was absolutely heartbreaking to watch, it was equally difficult for the actors to film.

“I kept losing it when we were filming,” Ginnifer Goodwin (Snow) told reporters last week on the show’s Vancouver set. “Jen [Morrison (Emma)] and I both did. And I kept having to check myself and say, ‘Wait, am I losing it as Snow, or am I losing it as an audience member who sympathizes? In which case it’s not appropriate to necessarily be losing it while filming this scene.'”

“You know, and it’s also a matter of characters in the moment aren’t really analyzing themselves psychologically, while we’re analyzing them psychologically [as we’re watching],” she continued. “And so because you know we had been waiting for this moment for so long, and then it comes up in such a surprising way, it’s really…just heartbreaking.”

What did you think of Emma finally telling her mother how she felt? Was it what you hoped it would be?

ONCE UPON A TIME airs Sundays at 8 PM on ABC.

Related:

ONCE UPON A TIME: Josh Dallas, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Jennifer Morrison Preview Charming Family Drama in ‘Lost Girl’
ONCE UPON A TIME: ‘Lost Girl’ Photos
ONCE UPON A TIME: What You Missed on Your Summer Vacation

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