ABC’s hit series Once Upon A Time has drawn influence from many Disney movies over the course of its four-year run. The show has used Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, Frozen and OZ as inspiration for its storylines, and now they can add Little Mermaid to this list.
It has been announced that none other than Little Mermaid’s sea-witch Ursula will be a villain on the show for the second half of its current season.
The actress who will be playing the Little Mermaid villain is Merrin Dungey, who is known best for her role on the ABC drama Alias, and more recently Castle and Shameless.
Dungey will play Ursula for the upcoming shows, but this is not the first time the villain has appeared in the show.
Fans of the show will remember a season three episode in which Ursula was used as part of a scheme by the evil queen Regina, played by Lana Parilla. At the episode’s cliffhanger Ursula, voiced by Yvette Nicole Brown, warned the evil queen to never associate with her again.
It is unclear how the show-writers will plan to use Ursula in the show, but with Ariel, played by Joanna Garcia Swisher, already an established character in the series, we can expect to see some parallels between the movie and Once Upon A Time.
In addition to the casting of Dungey, the show recently announced the casting of Victoria Smurfit as the malicious Cruela De Vil, who will show up sometime during the second half of the season.