Wonderland’s Genie: Interview With Peter Gadiot (“Cyrus”)

A new installment of Once Upon A Time In Wonderland airs tonight at 8PM (ET) on ABC, and to get everyone prepped for that, we have another interview to share with you — this time with Peter Gadiot, who plays Wonderland’s genie, Cyrus.

“Episode 2 focuses a lot on flashbacks, and Alice and Cyrus, their romance, and the kind of things that they did,” he tells us about tonight’s episode. “There’s swordfighting going on, which is fun. I think the general backstory of their romance, really, that’s mainly episode 2,” he says, adding that he has met with the producers, who have intimated that apparently the second episode is even better than the first. One thing we won’t get, yet at least, is a meeting between Cyrus and Jafar. “It’s going to be quite a while,” Gadiot says of how long it will be before they get to that story. “In fact, we haven’t filmed it yet. I know it’s coming, but I haven’t read the script for it.” The show has already shot backstory episodes for the Red Queen, The Knave, and Jafar; fans of Cyrus will be waiting for the second half of Season 1 before finding out his origin tale.

What we do know is that Cyrus is a genie. What does that mean for Peter Gadiot’s character?  “In the context of the show, it means that I have been, essentially, a slave to other peoples’ desires for a while; a servant who seemingly has no powers to help himself, but has unlimited powers to fulfill the desires of others. More specifically, it means that all of the other protagonists want me. So, Alice wants me for love, for genuine reasons; but all of the other characters want me so I can fulfill their own selfish wishes. So, you’re going to see that in various ways and different strands of the narrative. Each of those characters are in their own way pursuing Cyrus,” he says.

As for the one whose intentions for Cyrus seem genuine, Peter says that the Alice-Cyrus relationship is something that “clicks immediately.”

“I think we can all relate in certain examples, where you just meet someone and there’s a vibe, an electricity, and it just works. So, it’s not that much of a challenge. They’re just different people from different worlds, literally. They’re learning about each other, but it just feels very comfortable, like in some way they’re destined to be together,” he says.

A new episode of Once Upon A Time In Wonderland airs tonight at 8PM (ET) on ABC! Come by our forum to talk about it or chat live while it airs!