‘OUAT’ Exclusive Interview: Emilie de Ravin on ‘Lacey’ and Rumplebelle

On Once Upon a Time, Belle finally found her place in the world as a librarian in the post-Cursed Storybrooke after being a bit lost in Fairy Tale Land and locked up in the Cursed Storybrooke. Her happiness was short-lived though when she was shot by Hook and forced over the town’s border, which caused her to lose her memories, including her love for Rumple. 

In this Sunday’s “Lacey,” Belle’s life takes another turn when Regina decides to use the innocent woman in her plot to get revenge against Rumple. 

Emilie de Ravin spoke with BuddyTV this week about her character’s new mysterious personality and Rumplebelle. Below is an edited except of the interview.

What happens to Belle?

de Ravin: She’s ready to get discharged and of course lovely friend Regina comes and she wants to get back at Gold again and the best way to do that in her view is to give Belle her memory back. But, she doesn’t give her memory as Belle or of who she is, she gives her a memory like she gives everyone in season 1. 

Who is Lacey?

de Ravin: She gives me a different memory. That memory is that I’m this girl, Lacey, who dresses quite scantily, she hangs out most of the time at the Rabbit Hole playing pool and doing shots with her friends. She’s a very free-spirited girl. She’s a nice person. There’s nothing mean or cruel about her. Neither is there any sort of — she’s not an unpure person. Even though she dresses the way she does, she does that just because that’s how she feels comfortable. She’s not the kind of person who cares what other people think in a good way.

Why is Regina doing this?

de Ravin: The whole reason that Regina did that is because how is Lacey going to fall in love with Mr. Gold. Regina’s like “Ha Ha, she’s never going to fall in love with you.” So, obviously, that’s a new adventure so to speak to get Lacey to fall in love with him and then he can bring her back hopefully to Belle.

Is Belle able to see the good in Rumple and pull it out of him?

de Ravin: Completely. And, you actually see the first inclining in the “Lacey” episode. We have a decent amount of Fairy Tale Land flashback of Rumple and Belle and there’s a moment.  … She doesn’t really want to be there.  He’s taking her on a trip to kill a certain thief named Robin Hood. 

She’s completely against it and he forces her to go along and at the end of it all there’s this moment where you’re like “Ah, she’s starting to see these little inklings of good in him.” This is all takes place after he kicks me out of the castle in “Skin Deep.”

[The flashback] basically fills in some puzzle pieces and gets the audience to understand a little more about Rumple and Belle’s relationship in Fairy Tale Land. And, how it has very interestingly parallels with Lacey and Mr Gold’s interactions in Storybrooke in a quite diverse manner. Belle fell in love with love with him because she could see the good in him and it’s not fair to him because he believes he’s this horrible person when he’s not. 

… when we’re back in Storybrooke, it’s just flipped on its head because he needs Belle because he needs the good in him, but Lacey is pretty obsessed with how bad he is — the bad boy mentality. For him, that brings up questions of she accepts me for who I am, but Belle made me such a better person. So that’s all quite interesting.

On Rumple’s “Undoing”

de Ravin wouldn’t spill the beans on how Belle would help Rumble through his “undoing” by Henry, but she did tease, “Obviously she’s involved with the situation but what sort of transpires from that I think I’d like people to be more surprised.”

Once Upon a Time airs on Sundays at 8pm ET on ABC.

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(Image courtesy of the ABC.)