‘Once Upon a Time’s’ Meghan Ory Talks Red Riding Hood’s Big Reveal

For the most part, Meghan Ory’s dual characters — Ruby and Red Riding Hood – didn’t have much of a storyline on ABC’s Once Upon a Time. We’ve seen her pop up here and there both in Storybrooke and the Fairytale world, but there wasn’t much explanation as to what she was about. But, that changed on the last episode, “Red-Handed.”

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“It was a little bit like ‘Where’s Waldo?’ for a while there,” Ory, 29, jokes with The Hollywood Reporter. “I was so excited. I was just like this is genius. I was pretty happy that the payoff was so good.”

Viewers found out that Red Riding Hood is actually the wolf. And when you look at Ruby’s ‘devil may care’ attitude, the edgy styling – the provocative clothes and red streaks in her hair  — it makes total sense that there’s something “bad” there.

“Red is part wolf and I think it’s definitely going to be a blessing and a curse,” the actress says. “Well it’s obviously a curse for her, because of what happened with Peter. But, I think she’s going to try to make amends for that by using it for good.”

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THR spoke to Ory about how her character’s reveal affects her storyline and what else to expect on the ABC series.

How does the reveal affect Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Red’s relationship?
Meghan Ory: There is the scene that you see when Red brings Snow the food in the woods — that’s in the future. So, that’s after what’s happened. You definitely will see them together for sure and you see how their friendship has grown. And I think that’s one of my favorite parts about that episode was the scene of the two girls in the bedroom talking about boys and the giggling was pretty great.

After last episode’s grim discovery of a human heart, does Ruby have much more to do with the mystery of Kathryn’s (Anastasia Griffith) disappearance?
Ory: Kathryn’s disappearance is a big deal and we’re going to have to get to the bottom of it for sure. And I think that Ruby might be around for that a little bit.

In Sunday’s episode, “Heart of Darkness,” there’s going to be a surprising alliance between Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) and Mary Margaret. How does that work out?
Ory: The next episode is going to be a pretty interesting one, because there’s a whole lot of crazy stuff going on and I think Mr. Gold is maybe representing Mary Margaret in this little tragic event that we have going on in Storybrooke. Mr. Gold is always the wildcard, isn’t he? He just never really knows what’s going on with him.

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Fans love to dissect the show for hidden meanings, Lost references, stuff like that. Are you always aware of those things?
Ory: They don’t tell us everything for sure. There’s lots of stuff that we don’t know that we find out about later. And, we’re like, ‘Oh that’s really cool.’ But yeah, the thing that I think is so great about the show, though, is that there is stuff to find if you have the time and you are really excited and you want to like delve into the meaning behind all these things. It’s there to find and I’ve definitely done it and I think a lot of us have. So, things that we haven’t been told about we’ll try to figure out and it’s pretty exciting. Even the crew gets into it, too.

What can you tell us as far as what to expect going into the end of the season, what you’re excited for?
Ory: After [last week’s episode], things kind of change a little bit. So, definitely the show intensifies for sure. And I think we start moving pretty quickly towards the end. in this season, we’re going to see what happened between Snow and the Queen [Lana Parrilla]. And to find out what caused the Queen to hate Snow, which I always think is pretty great when you have a villain that you all of a sudden understand. That’s going to be pretty exciting.

Do you hope that your character gets a love interest soon or at least going into season two?
Ory: Well, I think maybe not soon, but I hope that some point you know Ruby and Red both get their happy ending because they definitely have not had it yet.

But that’s the curse. They can’t have one.
Ory: Yes, I know. But, I’m hoping they do. I have to hope the best for them.

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

Email: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter: @TheRealJethro