‘Once Upon A Time’ Q&A: Amy Manson On Merida

The odds may be against her, but “Once Upon a Time’s” Merida is one “Brave” character who will do what it takes to save her family.

Scottish actress Amy Manson has brought a passion and fire to the redheaded Pixar lass, who in Sunday’s episode, will be fighting to get out of a cell in Camelot to rescue her brothers in DunBroch.

A Storybrooke story line continues too. With the Dark Swan in control of Merida’s heart, the curly haired Scot will be forced to take aim at Belle in an attempt to turn Rumple into the hero Emma needs him to be.

WATCH: ‘Once Upon A Time’ Sneak Peek: Merida Goes After Belle!

And it appears both of Merida’s plot lines involve Belle, as Amy hinted when we spoke to her about playing the Scottish princess.

AccessHollywood.com: It’s so much fun to watch you. Had you even seen the movie, because obviously as adults we don’t always see things like ‘Brave’?
Amy Manson: No, I hadn’t seen the movie, actually. I mean obviously, I heard about it and it was such a huge success… but I hadn’t actually [seen it], and when the sides came in for the role Merida, the vein was obviously different, the reason why she was coming into the show was different. The blurb was that she was Rumplestiltskin’s mother, so nothing clicked for me, so I kind of cold read and put my spin on the scenes without knowing it was actually Merida. So I did a really kind of dark, pained couple of scenes, which is the way I read them, with her and her mother and then, when I went to the second recall as we call it, they said, ‘Can you do the scenes lighter? Put some fun into it and this into it?’ And then, that’s when it started to click and then I realized, ‘Ah! What an idiot, I should’ve just clicked sooner and then I would’ve been on the path to maybe getting the job sooner,’ type thing.

Access: [Emma has Merida’s heart.] Do you think Merida is clever enough, in Storybrooke, to basically not hurt anyone, but still get what she needs to get done without her heart?
Amy: No, I think she could be tested, and you might see that in upcoming episodes — of the goodness in Merida being, yeah, tested. I hope that she does come out good in the end and I think she’s strong enough as a person and she does the right thing and she makes the right choices for her not to go down the Dark Swan path, a kind of Dark Merida path, just because she doesn’t have her heart. But in that instance, she’ll do whatever it takes to get her heart back in order to carry on with her mission to save her brothers from the other clans in DunBroch who have kidnapped them.

Access: It looks like we’re going to get to meet your brothers and some of the other characters this week. I’ve seen men in great kilts in the promo photos. So, how much of Merida’s world are we going to get to explore this week?
Amy: All of it! You’ll see DunBroch, you’ll find out why she needs Belle and specifically Belle over any other character from Storybrooke. … She ends up kidnapping Belle and taking her to DunBroch and forcing her to help her and you’ll find out why it’s Belle, what she needs from Belle. And then, they go on a journey together and she’s quite surprised that Belle agrees quite quickly to help her on this journey. … In the episode, Belle tells Merida why she’s willing to help her, even though Merida kidnapped her.

Access: What was it like to film with the boys in your storyline – [Paul Telfer, Josh Hallem and Marco D’Angelo] — in their ‘Brave’ costumes? They look magnificent. That must have been really fun.
Amy: Yeah! Do you know what? The three of them together are like hilarious – the banter. They struck up quite a close friendship, the three of them. … There was one scene… oh God, the three of them, they end up like fighting between them, not strongly, or nobody dies or anything, and Merida’s just, ‘Oh God, you guys are going to be no help!’ So Merida goes off on her own type thing. It’s really funny.

Access: What did you think of their kilts and their kilt wearing, you being a Scot?
Amy: Well, first day on set… there must have been about 100 extras and I said, ‘Who’s a true Scotsman?’ and everybody kind of looked at me — [a true Scotsman] in the sense of not wearing any underwear. But no, it was good and I think that galvanized me as a character, and so in the character I’m playing… having that rich Scotland [heritage], that kind of coming from nothing and making a life for yourself — that’s the parallel I kind of held on to throughout Merida’s journey.

WATCH: ‘Once Upon A Time’: Colin O’Donoghue’s Comic-Con Surprise For Jennifer Morrison

Access: I’ve got to ask what that was like for you working with [fellow Scot] Robert Carlyle, because he’s so well respected — especially in Scotland — and to meet up with him in Vancouver and you have a bunch of scenes together… what [has] that experience has been like?
Amy: I don’t know how that guy does it. One minute he’s Rumple, this larger than life, this evil [character] and then all of a sudden… [in Storybrooke,] he’s got that pained heart I think, which is what I’ve been talking about — that Scots patriotism. [His character has] come from nothing and he’s lost so much in his life, and he’s trying to do good, but he just can’t and he keeps failing. And those scenes that we’ve had together, even the scenes that were on the past episode — they’re so rich and colored with Robert. … It’s never the same experience acting opposite that man, it really isn’t. And I’m so proud that he’s Scottish in that sense too. And [he is] a lot of fun. Actually, on set, there’s so [many] Scottish jokes. They were flying left, right and center. So yeah, it was great. It felt like I was home in Scotland throughout this whole Merida journey.

“Once Upon a Time” continues Sunday at 8/7c on ABC.

— Jolie Lash