Meghan Ory’s fairy tale
Victoria native Meghan Ory is living a fairy tale as a star of ABC’S Once Upon a Time
You have to believe Meghan Ory when she says she sometimes has to pinch herself on the job. The Victoria native has literally been living a fairytale existence since being cast as Ruby/red Hiding Hood on Once Upon a Time, ABC’S hit drama about cursed fairy tale characters and their modern alter egos in Storybrooke, a fictional town in Maine.
It’s not everyone, after all, who can say that bumping into the Seven Dwarfs on set as they actually whistle and sing “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go!” offcamera is all in a day’s work.
“It’s just kind of surreal sometimes,” says Ory, referring to the “call sheets” that list who’ll be on set that day.
“It’s hilarious when you see Prince Charming, Snow White, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful and Grumpy.”
Ory’s profile rose last month with the airing of the Red-handed episode, when her character literally devours her boyfriend as it’s revealed that Red is actually the Big Bad Wolf.
“My jaw just hit the floor,” said Ory, recalling her reaction when writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz gave her a headsup about the big reveal. “I think, mostly, no one saw that coming. It’s a great twist.”
Keeping it a secret wasn’t easy, admits the former Claremont Secondary School student.
“Omigosh, I was dying,” recalls Ory, whose mother, Bonnie — a popular local drama teacher — said she didn’t want to know.
Her father, Nathan, a psychologist, did.
“Then he had this giant secret he wanted to tell [Bonnie] so badly, and she wouldn’t let him,” she said. “It was really funny.”
Is creating Red and her Storybrooke counterpart Ruby, the free-spirited waitress at Granny’s diner who favours provocative outfits and too much makeup, as much of a blast as the show, which puts a dark, grownup spin on classic bedtime stories?
“Absolutely. Probably more than you think,” said Ory, 29. “We’re playing ultimate dress-up. It’s an actor’s dream job.”
She said it helps that the scripts are great and that, until they filmed the season finale last Friday, she got to work with such an “amazing crew and phenomenal actors.”
They include Jennifer Morrison as bail bondsman Emma Swan; Ginnifer Goodwin as Mary Margaret/snow White; Lana Parrilla as mayor Regina Mills/evil Queen; and Robert Carlyle as pawnbroker Mr. Gold/rumpelstiltskin.
“We were shooting at the top of Mount Seymour with our capes flowing, and it was just so beautiful,” she said, recalling a scene she just did with Goodwin. The show is filmed at Burnaby’s Bridge Studios, Steveston, Fort Langley and other Lower Mainland locations.
Ory’s dream gig didn’t happen overnight. She says she caught the acting bug after doing her first play as a Grade 1 French-immersion student at Campus View elementary. She also attended Lochside and Hillcrest, where her mother taught, and made her stage debut as a lead in her “amazing” teacher April Sneddon’s Royal Oak Middle School production of The Secret Garden.
She also credits her Claremont musical-theatre teacher, Sylvia Hosie, and drama teacher Matthew Howe with inspiring her.
“The shows they put on were amazing,” recalled Ory, who moved at age 16 to Vancouver, appearing with Martin Sheen in the Fox TV movie The Darklings before landing guest roles in shows such as Dark Angel and The Crow. She graduated to leads in the teen series Higher Ground and Vampire High and appeared in National Lampoon’s Holiday Reunion as a spoiled Beverly Hills brat opposite Bryan Cranston and Calum Worthy, who also went to Claremont and coincidentally knows her younger brother Jessie.
“It’s a small world,” says Ory. “Victoria’s such a great city to grow up in. It’s a wonderfully supportive community for the arts. I was in choir and musical theatre and dance and everything, and that absolutely affects your drive to go on.”
Hosie remembers Ory as “quite shy — a gentle, lovely and talented young girl” who she felt was ideal for TV and film.
“She had a lovely honesty about her, and that gentle thing you need to do for the camera she has in spades. She never overplays,” Hosie said. “She plays Red like a gentle soul. She manages with her eyes to give [Red] an edge.”
Ironically, Ory’s screen career brought her home a decade ago to shoot the TV movie Lucky 7, and her close friend A.J. Cook ( Criminal Minds) came two years earlier to shoot the horror flick Ripper, one of the first films Ted Bauman produced here.
Cook returned in 2009 to be maid-of-honour when Ory married her own Prince Charming — actor John Reardon ( Arctic Air).
“He’s a good Halifax boy,” said Ory, who eagerly shared the news that both were accepted for a Shakespeare study program this summer at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Meanwhile, the actress is shopping around Chronicles of the Girl Wars, a series of teen books she is writing that she describes as “Mean Girls meets Ugly Betty,” which she hopes will help young women “to be themselves” and navigate high school issues.
“Female advocacy is very important to me, and self-esteem in young girls and having confidence in yourself,” she said.