'Once Upon a Time's' Raphael Sbarge: 'Consciousness always comes with a price'

"Once Upon a Time" is back Sunday (Nov. 27) with an episode that centers around Jiminy Cricket/Archie Hopper, played by Raphael Sbarge. The episode description says that Cricket is looking to get away from the family business in Fairytale Land. So what is this family business and what is Jiminy looking to do instead?

"I'm not actually allowed to divulge that information," laughs Sbarge.

"What we get to see in the episode essentially is the person who is Jiminy Cricket. Essentially how he evolved," says Sbarge. "Jiminy Cricket is ultimately an icon of doing the right thing, 'let your concience be your guide.' What we get to see is the struggle, the fire that he has to walk through in order to have a sense of what the right thing is. Consciousness always comes with a price."

We wondered if Jiminy's real-world counterpart Archie being a therapist has anything to do with Jiminy's desire to strike out on his own.

Sbarge says, "I think it's so clever that they made him a therapist. In the world we live in now, it's so complex, with so many gray areas, so many perceptions of right and wrong. There is genuine right and wrong, but there is a big whole world."

"The focus on helping people find their way through and to effectively do the right thing, it's such a wonderful metaphor for the modern world. Someone who helps you find your conscience," says Sbarge.


"Once Upon a Time" airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. Watch below for a sneak peek of Sunday's episode, titled "That Still Small Voice."