Success with the Brazilian public for her work as the Evil Queen in the series Once Upon a Time (2011-2018), actress Lana Grill sought inspiration from the famous fairytale character to compose the femme fatale Rita Castillo, which she plays in the second season of the drama Why Women Kill –premiere this Monday (21) on the paid channel Lifetime.

“I understand that there is always a light in the darkness. I’ve played characters like that in the past, especially the Evil Queen, which was a very sassy role, but sometimes showed a more loving side,” Lana tells TV News.

As the actress had never done anything like the acid humor of Why Women Kill, she looked for as many references as possible in different works from the past to support herself. “But in the end, it was a new process for me, so I was really excited to be able to participate in this series and learn such a different language.”

“To work with Marc Cherry [criador de Desperate Housewives e Why Women Kill]I had to understand how his writing is rhythmic, musical. There is a cadence to your scripts. And he helped me a lot to understand when to be honest and when to be more comical”, says the interpreter.

Not that it’s difficult for Lana to find tragicomic moments outside of fiction. “I am a woman who has roots in Puerto Rico and Sicily, comedy and drama mix in my life every day. In my house, everyone screams all the time. My family is like an episode of Seinfeld [1989-1998]whoever sees that laughs. I think this mix of laughing and crying is in my DNA.”

Marc Cherry agrees with his star and says that everyday life is really made up of dramatic and comical moments. “Life is like that, sad and happy, tragic and fun. Sometimes we are experiencing something very dramatic, but something funny happens and everyone laughs”, he explains.

“When I’m writing, I need to think about this. The character may be going through something intense, but something bizarre happens to him that changes everything. Or he may have a moment of comedy and then receive sad news. These are things that coexist in the same universe, it’s It’s impossible to just be happy or sad all the time. And I don’t want to go so far that I can’t go back,” he says.

The Lifetime channel shows Why Women Kill in a soap opera style: the episodes air from Monday to Friday, always at 10:50 pm.