Lana Parrilla reflects on lasting impact of her ‘Once Upon a Time’ role

Lana Parrilla opened about how her character from Once Upon a Time helped her find growth in her own personal life.

Parrilla played Regina Mills who was initially known as the Evil Queen looking forward to destroy Snow White's happiness.

Once her curse succeeds, she and all the fairy tale characters get transported to the real world where they forget who they were and Regina Mills becomes mayor of the Storybrooke town.

In a recent podcast episode of Tommy DiDario's, I've Never Said This Before, the actress said that Regina was a "special character" and "an inspiration to so many people".

"She started off as this really cold-hearted and hardened woman who was so vengeful," she explained.

"She wanted to hurt people because she was so deeply wounded and to see her come out at the end as this hero and her journey to get there over the course of seven years was just so admirable."

Talking how it impacted her life, Parrilla said, "Her journey healed relationships in my personal life. Just by her choices. So it's beautiful when you can learn something from a character you're portraying."

Also starring, Jennifer Morrison, Josh Dallas, Robert Carlyle and Jared S. Gilmore, The Once Upon a Time spanned over seven season airing from October 2011 to May 2018.