Is the Snow Queen the most evil of evil on Once Upon a Time Season 4?

On Once Upon A Time Season 4 Episode 7, we may have learned the origins of Ingrid (aka The Snow Queen) but, as actress Elizabeth Mitchell told me this morning, that doesn't mean we should necessarily sympathize with her.

However, what fun The Snow Queen is having as she turns Emma against her own family and works her plan with the aid of Rumple himself.

So ... what's next as we move into next week's two-hour episode? Let's see what Mitchell had to say...

TV Fanatic: You play evil really well, I have to say!

Elizabeth Mitchell: I’ve had such a great time. That’s really funny. We have this Monday morning thing with my son and his friend turns to me and said the exact same thing. He’s nine and he said ‘You’re really good at being evil!’ And I said ‘Thank you, Trey!’ [laughs]

TVF: It’s a good thing for sure.

EM: Good!

TVF: When you first started playing Ingrid, how did you navigate just how villainous you’d play her? You could do really over the top like twirling the mustache, so to speak.

EM: Well, that’s so interesting and a great question. I started with the fact that she’d been kept captive for 20 years in a vase and then I started with the question ‘what does that mean?’ She was put away from society when she was 10 and then she was in a vase most of the time when we learn who we are so I started to play her like a pre-teen girl who has never been in the world and someone who doesn’t really know.

That was my thought. What if you have someone who looks a little like Mae West…she’s really very innocent on the inside so what happens when that happens?  I didn’t think about being calm or being still. It was more along the lines of how do you get what you need and she wants love. So she watches and waits and tries to figure it out. But maybe there is a little bit of mustache twirling but it’s under the radar. [laughs]  It was genuinely fun but that was my thing the whole time. How do you take such a fractured person and try to make her whole again? That was my intention but I had a great time with it. I really did.

TVF: We got a lot of Ingrid’s backstory but do you think we should sympathize with her at this point? I mean, she’s still doing really bad things to the people we love in Storybrooke!

EM: At this point and time? No! She’s doing horrible things to everyone. You can have sympathy for her but still try to stop her. That would be my mentality. I think in this particular circumstance, what choices do you make and she made a lot of not great, really selfish choices but hopefully she’ll figure it out. But should we be rooting for her? No! We’ve got to take her down but feel sympathy for her, too, but I wouldn’t want her to hurt the people they love!

TVF: Moving forward, will we find out what she whispered to Gold at the end of the episode?

EM: Yes! We will find it out. I mean, I had it figured it out and I kind of have to put it all together and I got it right so it’s very possible that all the thoughts that people are putting together are fairly accurate. But, yes, we will find that out for sure.

Watch Once Upon a Time Season 4 Episode 7 Online

TVF: Do you think she should trust Gold or should Gold trust her? They’re cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways.

EM: Well, no, I don’t think that they should. I mean, there’s a scene in the next episode that one of the characters says to my character ‘You walk in the way of darkness’ like you walk the dark path and I found how telling that is because she is corrupted. She’s a corrupted person and she’s been turned, basically, so a lot of her powers, like his which come from being the dark one, but she had her natural power but she walks on the dark side so I think they have that in common. You can feel for them all you want but nevertheless that is the path they walk on so, yes, I think that’s what they genuinely have in common.

But should they trust each other? I think they’re both scorpions and if that follows the old fable, they probably should not. They’re both capable of love, which is nice, and I think they like each other. Well, they feel something for each other but I don’t know what it is. It’s something.  

TVF: So far, Ingrid’s plans have gone the way she wants them to go. Will that continue or will she hit some bumps in these next episodes?

EM: Well, she’s clever, which is what I have found. Her motivations are mostly simple but her mind is clever and she’s devoted all resources to this task. So, when she says [to Emma] ‘Oh, you got me!’ It was what she wanted, ya know? So there’s more to come definitely…it’s really kind of terrifying. Throughout history, anyone who’s done that, who’s decided some people just don’t matter, it hasn’t gone well. It’s not wise and it’s certainly not humane.

TVF: I want to ask you about the dress. Is it comfortable? How is it to wear that dress?

EM: You know, I didn’t think it was comfortable. I thought it was kind of uncomfortable until I put on the ones with the built-in corsets, which you’ll see in the next episode. Then I said ‘Oh, wait a minute! This is actually comfortable.’ But you get used to it and what I really liked about it…I’d love to say I’m a gazelle in galoshes but I think gazelle would be a really nice way of putting it but I just walk in a clunky fashion and I found with that gown on you just can’t. You have to really hold yourself up and walk with some precision so I’ve been really grateful for it. It actually holds your shoulders back and it’s build absolutely beautifully. I found the way I walked and moved had to do with that dress. I was super grateful to have it. It made a huge difference. 

Once Upon a Time Season 4 airs Sundays at 8/7c on ABC.

Here is your first look at Once Upon a Time Season 8:

Jim Halterman is the West Coast Editor of TV Fanatic and the owner of JimHalterman.com. Follow him on Twitter.