Back in the days when Lost aired on ABC, the scripts were peppered with dialogue that would be unutterable on a network station. F-bombs abounded in the scripts, but ultimately, none of it ever reached the air. Now, Lost writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz have continued the tradition by adding their own curses to the scripts for the otherwise family-friendly Once Upon a Time.
The two co-creators obviously don’t add the word “fuck” to the dialogue, but adding it to the liner notes explaining the action can be key to getting the right reaction from the actors in the series. Kitsis and Horowitz recently told EW a story about how the two were able to understand this concept.
When we were on Lost, [Damon Lindelof] once said, ‘You can either be running through the jungle or you can be fucking running through the jungle — What’s more intense?’ We carried that on because it helps the actors.”
It’s really funny to think that a show the whole family can watch together has a bunch of secret F-bombs woven throughout each script. Occasionally, these curses will even say something about a character’s character. For instance, one script had a description about some action Prince Charming was getting into, followed by the note, ““Because he’s Prince fucking Charming.” I wish I could get my hands on one of these, because they sound simultaneously hilarious and awesome, but just knowing this exists sort of made my day.
You can catch Once Upon a Time on ABC Sundays at 8 p.m. ET.
