Exclusive: Creator Marshall Herskovitz on Once and Again, 10 Years Later

Casting Billy Campbell as architect and single dad Rick Sammler was easy for Herskovitz. “I had worked with Billy on a pilot and just loved him,” he shares. “He’s such a wonderful person. But we had never seen him do anything that emotionally available—because of that jaw, his face and size, he had been pushed into certain roles. So we asked him if he was interested in this role, in going deeper.” Again, Zwick and Herskovitz struck gold with Campbell. “It turned out that the real Billy Campbell is so emotional and emotionally available that he was right for the part.”

Campbell, who was nominated for a Golden Globes for his work on Once and Again, continued to work in both film and TV. He has appeared on shows such as The O.C. and The 4400. Today, Campbell is a regular on AMC’s The Killing as suspicious politician Darren Richmond.

Perhaps the biggest breakout star from Once and Again was Evan Rachel Wood. Her character Jessie's stories dealt with some groundbreaking issues at the time—including her eating disorder and her realization she might be a lesbian. When asked about Wood, Herskovitz is quick to praise the young actress. “Evan was one of those people who is an utter natural and reminded us of Claire Danes. They both just came out of the box with everything you needed to become an actor. They were geniuses who had it all.” So what was it about Wood that made Herskovitz and Zwick cast her as sensitive Jessie Sammler? As Herskovitz tells it, “Evan had this fragility in her character that is not in her person. In the way she played that child, she just broke your heart. Evan is the only actor who has ever made me cry while I was directing her—during a scene where she reveals to her father (Billy Campbell) just how painful her parents’ divorce had been for her.”

Today, Wood continues to wow audiences. In 2003, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in Thirteen. She went on to appear in films such as The Missing (2003), The Upside of Anger (2005), and The Wrestler (2008) and the HBO series True Blood and Mildred Pierce (2011). We will next see Wood in 2013’s A Case of You.

Whelan played teenager Grace Manning, who was all insecure, relatable anxiety. Most of all, Whelan made Grace incredibly real. Herskovitz reveals just how grateful they were for the outstanding child actors who appeared on Once and Again and is careful not to play favorites. As he shares, “We were so pleased on the show. All the kids were great and we loved them all—they all had incredible talents.”

After Once and Again, Whelan appeared in the television movie The Secret Life of Zoey (2002) and the series Dr. Vegas (2004). In 2004, Whelan left Hollywood to enroll at Middlebury College in Vermont, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2008. Since then, she has returned to Tinseltown for roles on both NCIS: Los Angeles (2011) and Castle (2012).

Hinkle was a child of the Peace Corps who was born to two parents serving in Tanzania. She trained at a young age to be a ballerina but decided to pursue acting instead at age 16. Hinkle shined in the role of Judy, the free-spirited younger sister of Lily.

Hinkle has worked consistently since Once and Again. She went on to appear in ER (2004) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2005) and as a regular on Brothers & Sisters (2009) and Two and a Half Men (2003-2011). Today, you can catch Hinkle in Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23.

Deane played Zoe, the youngest of the Manning children, offering up a wide-eyed, innocent portrayal. Zoe personifies a level of heartfelt television that is missing today. Simply, they don’t make them like Once and Again anymore—or for that matter, Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life. As Herskovitz shares, “I feel that programming decisions today are based on a cynical view of the audience. That the audience has ADD and is incredibly fickle and not interested in a deep emotional experience. I don’t think there’s any evidence that is true, but it’s their assumption.”

Deane went on to appear in Law & Order in 2006, but has since spent the past years focusing on her studies—first at Boston University in 2007 and now at the University of Southern California. But what’s next for Herskovitz and Zwick? “We have a deal at Fox Studios to work on things together,” Herskovitz reveals. “We’re excited to see if we can figure out how to do TV in this world.” And we are just as excited to see what’s next for these power producers.

Ward played Lily Manning, the suburban soccer mom recently separated from her philandering husband. Casting the Mississippi-born beauty was a no-brainer for Herskovitz, who shares that she was always the first choice for Lily. “Before our show, Sela always seemed to play the removed ice queen, and Lily was anything but that. So the first conversation we had with her was to see if she would even be interested,” he tells us. “But then we found that Lily was actually much closer to [Sela’s] personality anyway. She had always been cast as the remote object but was actually incredibly warm and funny. It was an easy decision to go with her.”

Ward has kept busy in the ten years since Once and Again. Appearing in films such as The Day After Tomorrow, she has most recently played Detective Jo Danville on CSI: New York. Ward is also the mother of two children with husband Howard Sherman.

West starred as Eli Sammler, the learning-disabled basketball star son of Rick and Karen. While Once and Again dealt with the difficulties experienced by children of divorced families, Herskovitz shares that he would have taken this conflict much farther today. “When we did Once and Again, I was divorced,” he shares. “But I hadn’t come into contact between too many problems between parents and stepchildren. Were I to do Once and Again again, I would have created a more conflicted relationship between one of the stepparents and one of the friends. It would have been more fun to show open warfare.”

West got his first break into show business with Once and Again, but he’s gone on to build a respectable career on television. From 2004 to 2009, he appeared as Dr. Ray Barnett on ER. Today, the Baton Rouge native plays Michael on Nikita for the CW.

When casting the exes of Once and Again, Herskovitz was careful not to demonize any of the characters to keep in the spirit of the show. “It’s funny, Ed used to say that the underpinning of [Once and Again] is the reality that once people have children together, they are married for life—whether they are divorced or not. We were mindful of that in every single story. The ties that bind are messy and unpredictable.” The show’s philosophy led to the casting of Thompson as Rick’s uptight ex-wife. As Herskovitz tells us, it was Thompson who made Karen so real. “Susanna was just magnetized to her character. That’s why we did the episode in the final season where she gets hits by the car and deals with her depression. There was so much to tell about this character, and it was all because of Susanna.”

Like her castmates, Thompson has worked steadily since Once and Again. She has appeared in TV series such as NCIS (2006-2007) and Kings (2009). Thompson is slated to appear in the CW show Arrow as Moira Queen, the mother of the Green Arrow.