‘Once Upon a Time’ season 3 spoilers: Rebecca Mader on Zelena’s ‘different’ backstory

Sunday night’s “Once Upon a Time” episode “It’s Not Easy Being Green” is going to be quite informative, at least when it comes to answering a question that has been at the center of this show since it came back on the air in March: What in the world is happening to the Wicked Witch to make her this … wicked?

When you think about it, her motivations are questionable right now, at best. She’s not a woman who has a real reason to destroy Regina, save for the fact that she is related to her. As far as we know for now, Rumpelstiltskin is also the only other character out there with a history with her. Rebecca Mader cannot say too much about what else you are going to find out, but she tells TV Guide that like a certain other member of her family, she wasn’t always a terrible person out to hurt others:

“You’re going to get Zelena’s backstory … You’re going to see when she wasn’t wicked and when she wasn’t green. It’s more of a case of feeling wronged: Why she’s so pissed off and why she’s become so wicked and what she really wants and how she wants it to go down. There’s going to be a lot of stuff revealed, including a lot of different aspects of her personality and her heart.”

Mader also teases that the Oz set up by the show’s producers is a far and away different version of the world than the one popularized by the L. Frank Baum story and the movies that are out there. While there are some similarities, it has its own flair that should allow it to have its own “Once Upon a Time” identity.

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Photo: ABC