‘Once Upon A Time’: Sean Maguire On Robin Hood Twist

(Spoiler alert! This story contains major plot details from Sunday’s “Once Upon a Time.”)

“Once Upon a Time” lost a beloved Storybrooke resident on Sunday night, when Robin Hood was killed by Hades while trying to save his true love, Regina. 

The death of Sean Maguire’s character hit many fans hard, and they took to social media to share their grief. The actor told Access Hollywood about the responses he saw online after the episode aired.

“There’s lots of tears and lots of ‘I’m not gonna watch the show anymore,’ and various different reactions, but overwhelming supportive [responses] and kind of a lot of people saying that they’re with me for life and they will continue to be a fan, which is incredibly touching and I really appreciate that because I really appreciate them and know how passionate people feel about this show, more so than almost any other show I’ve ever worked on,” Sean told Access Hollywood on Monday. “There’s just a real fever for this and I think that a lot of people believed that Robin and Regina — because of what had been written, were going to be — maybe have a happy ending, and that hope would stay alive. But alas, it’s not to be.” 

WATCH: ‘Once Upon A Time’: Sean Maguire On Robin’s Tricky Situation With Zelena (2015)

Rumors started earlier this year that Robin was not going to make it through the season. Days before the show’s latest episode aired, photos of Robin’s death scene leaked online.

“I just tried to make a light joke of it because it seemed so overwhelming. And they showed every aspect of it – that and then the funeral, the kid putting the arrow on the coffin and I was like, ‘Well, there’s no surprise left now for anybody,'” he said. “It’s fine. I mean, a lot of the viewers aren’t on Twitter or Instagram, but for the hundreds of thousands that are, yeah, that kind of — the cat was out of the bag.”

The death of Sean’s character was heartbreaking, but Robin will live on in the memories of the Storybrooke characters, and through his daughter. In a touching tribute at the end of the show, his baby daughter with Zelena was given his name.

“It was sweet,” Sean said of seeing his character’s daughter being named Robin. “It was nice. They’ve done that before. They did that with Neal — with Michael Raymond James’ character — so I think a lot of people actually suspected that once they thought that my death was going to happen. So again, in tipping the surprise about the death, you also tip a lot of other surprises as well. So yeah, it’s sort of – again, it’s sort of a little [disappointing] we couldn’t maintain the secret.”

Asked if there were any dinners or events before he said goodbye, Sean said he enjoyed some time with Colin O’Donoghue, who plays Hook. He also noted he’ll be seeing many of his castmates in the coming months. 

“Myself and Colin [O’Donoghue] made a beer together that we put on sale to raise funds for the Vancouver Women’s Shelter, and so we had a tasting night of that before we released it because I was going to be gone by the release of that. But yeah, we did a bunch of stuff and I’m going to see Colin and his family in a couple of weeks. We’re going to Paris to do a convention together. I’ve seen a lot of the cast — especially Rebecca [Mader, who plays Zelena]. I see Rebecca a lot and her fiancé Mark, because we travel a lot to conventions and so it’s not a goodbye to a lot of the cast members. I will continue to see them for a while. But, you know, it’s just not the same as living around the corner and working with them every day.”

WATCH: ‘Once Upon A Time’ 100th Episode Celebration

The character Robin leaves behind two children and his love, Regina. With Robin now gone, Access asked Sean what impact his character had on Regina.

“I don’t know. I mean, obviously I think he gave her hope,” Sean replied. “He gave what the show is supposedly, you know, [what it] strives for — to give that sense of hope and redemption in her case and I think [they both] redeemed each other. Where the character goes from now, I wouldn’t speculate. I’ll leave that to the writers and to the fans. But yeah, I think Robin had a big impact on her, but she certainly did on him.”

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

— Jolie Lash