Once Upon a Time: Hook's past will come back to haunt him | EW.com 

Nick Jonas, Janelle Monae, James Corden and more at EW\'s ultimate pop culture festival.

'Once Upon a Time': Sean Maguire returning as Robin Hood — exclusive

'Once Upon a Time' bosses preview perilous times ahead in season 6

Now that the Land of Untold Stories has been unleashed on Storybrooke, everyone’s pasts will be coming back to haunt them on

— and that’s especially prevalent for Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) as he grapples with trying to be a hero this season.

During Sunday’s episode, Hook will take a step a step in a heroic direction by protecting Belle (Emilie de Ravin) from Rumple (Robert Carlyle), even if he has his own motives for doing so. Little does Hook know, however, that there’s an even greater threat roaming Storybrooke who may be responsible for Emma’s (Jennifer Morrison) demise. How will Hook feel when he finds out about the prophecy? EW turned to O’Donoghue to find out:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start off with Sunday’s episode. Belle will be turning to Hook for help in hiding from Rumple. What can you tease?

COLIN O’DONOGHUE: She obviously wants to shield Rumple from being in her life or her unborn child’s life, and who better to hide something than a pirate, you know what I mean? He helps her escape and hide, but I can’t tell you where yet.

Does Hook still desire to kill Rumple?

That’s a very complicated and complex relationship. We haven’t really explored it so far this season, but I think deep down that will always be there. It’s been a part of Hook for hundreds of years, so I think it’s whether or not he decides to act on it or how he would go about doing that. In a way, even trying to hide Belle — even though he’s doing it for the right reasons, he’s doing it to help her — there’s a slight little one-upmanship going on there with Rumple and trying to get one over on him. But this season, Rumple, or Mr. Gold, he’s particularly dark. He’s as dark as probably any Dark One can get. So I guess maybe it will always be in the background.

Hook already suspects that Emma is hiding something from him — will that only intensify in the coming episode?

Yeah, she hasn’t told him the truth about her hand, and she hasn’t said anything about the vision that she had. Hook knows her so well that he can tell something is not right. The one thing that they’ve always had in their relationship is honesty — at times, they’ve even been brutally honest with each other. In hiding things from each other, they can tell when something is not right, so it will definitely play a big part in the coming episodes.

How do you think that’s going to start to affect their relationship, especially when he does find out about the prophecy?

Obviously I’d imagine that he wouldn’t be too happy that she’s been keeping something from him, something that is such a big thing. He probably just hasn’t been able to know her and be able to help her in whatever way she needs. I think he would probably find that as some sort of betrayal. I mean he loves her, so he’ll be annoyed I would think, but he’d probably forgive her.

What lengths do you think he will go to, as well as her family, to try and prevent her death?

He’d sacrifice himself for her if he had to. When he has to help her or if she ever needs anything from him, I mean, you saw even with getting her to kill him to go to the Underworld, he saved everybody, he’s willing to die for her. So he’d go to the ends of the Earth.

We are going to learn much more about Hook’s past this season. What can you tease in that regard?

We see a little bit, I think it’s episode 6 or something and there’s quite a bit we see in Hook’s past. We might learn a little bit more about his family, his father’s side of the family that Hook didn’t know about. We learn a little bit more about that and see some of the characters that he’s encountered in his past. We get to see a bit more of Hook’s past and I was delighted to get to do that.

How is he struggling this year with trying to be a hero?

I think he’s accepted it, that that’s who he is at the minute. He’s not really struggling that much at the minute with the idea of being that, because he’s enjoying being a part of Emma’s life and trying to make a life with her. Now that he’s found love again, he’s happy to go back to being an honorable person. Obviously, there’s so many things that he’s done in his past that are bound to bubble up and affect his relationship with others in Storybrooke. At the minute, he’s enjoying being a part of Emma’s life.

There’s a lot of people coming in from the Land of Untold Stories. What connections will Hook have to these people?

Yeah, you definitely see that in this upcoming hour, not in this episode, but the one that I was just talking about with Hook’s backstory. We’ll meet a couple of characters there who Hook had encountered in his past and they managed to find a way to the Land of Untold Stories. They come back and haunt him a little bit and, in some ways, affect his relationships with some of the people that he’s very, very close with. He has to find a way to deal with that and put his past in the past.

What kind of dynamic does he have with Captain Nemo?

He definitely knows Captain Nemo and he has spent time with him. I think he has a healthy respect, if you want to call it that, for Nemo and we’ll get to see a little bit of their relationship and how they’ve interacted with each other.

How does Hook feel about the Evil Queen being alive? What threat does she pose to him in particular?

The problem with the Evil Queen is she’s the real threat to everybody this season, because she doesn’t have any of the restrictions that Regina would have had, even though she was evil. The Evil Queen is now pure evil. Hook doesn’t particularly like her, because she wants to basically kill everybody, so he will try to stop that and try to find a way to get rid of the Evil Queen.

Intense trailer for \'Evolution\' features a disturbing discovery

Inside the strange storytelling factory of Tahereh Mafi and Ransom Riggs

\'Once Upon a Time\': Hook\'s past will come back to haunt him

Stephen Colbert calls Donald Trump \'a coward\' for not coming on his show

John Legend to play Frederick Douglass on \'Underground\'

\'Madam Secretary\' boss previews twist-filled election storyline

\'Outlander\' Season 3 First Look: Clash of the Tartans