Colin O'Donoghue Teases Collaboration With a 'Once Upon a Time' Star and a Country Icon for a New Album [Exclusive]

Image via Jack Rowand/©ABC/courtesy Everett Collection Published Sep 1, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account During its seven-season run, ABC's Once Upon a Time was known for bringing fairytales to the real world in a story that mixed fantasy, romance, drama, and more around a small town in Maine. What it's less known for, however, is the sneakily talented singers featured among its cast of storybook characters. The actors got a chance to show off their pipes with a musical episode in Season 6, "The Song in Your Heart," which saw Jennifer Morrison's Emma Swan, Lana Parilla's Evil Queen, and everyone in between take part in a series of seven catchy original numbers. Among those who sang along was the show's Captain Hook, Colin O'Donoghue, who brought real experience as a former member of a small Irish band with an album. Eight years after leaving Storybrooke behind, he's now getting back into making music and, better yet, he's joined by one of his old co-stars who counts "overseas pop star" among her other job titles. O'Donoghue recently came to Fan Expo Canada for a series of panels hosted by Collider's Maggie Lovitt, where he opened up about reuniting with Karen David for an album that combines their talents in a new way. "I just recorded an album this year with Karen David, who played Jasmine, so it's going to come out hopefully around November, or whatever," he shared. "So we have like 13 songs we wrote on it." David rose to fame for her singing well before she became one half of one of Once Upon a Time's greatest romances. In 2003, "It's Me (You're Talking To)," her first single, took to the airwaves and rose as a top 10 airplay hit in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, becoming BMG's fourth-highest airplay hit for a debut artist at the time. She followed that initial success just a few years later with her first EPs, The Live Sessions EP and Magic Carpet Ride, followed by the album The Girl in the Pink Glasses in 2010. While she remains better known for her on-screen career, her musical accomplishments are still impressive and made her the perfect partner for O'Donoghue to jump back into the scene himself alongside David's producer husband, Carl Ryden, who has worked with Calvin Harris, Ricky Martin, Kylie Minogue, Cher, and more. Should all go well, he told Lovitt he hopes they can take their new album on tour. Adding to his confidence is that he confirmed that they received both approval and a contribution from a country music icon — Brad Paisley. "Hopefully, yeah! Hopefully. So, Karen's husband, Carl, is a big producer, and he's Swedish, and he does all these hits. He's one of those. But I went and stayed with Carl for a few weeks, and I just basically vomited guitar ideas over him. And I got — I'm not supposed to say — Brad Paisley to play some guitar last week on it. He liked them, yeah. So they might be okay if he thought it was okay to play." Collider Exclusive · Universe Personality Quiz Which Iconic Universe Do You Belong in the Most? Star Wars · Lord of the Rings · Harry Potter · Game of Thrones · Star Trek Five legendary universes. Five completely different visions of what the world could be — or already was. One of them is the world your instincts, your values, and your particular way of existing were built for. Eight questions will tell you which one. 🚀Star Wars 💍Lord of the Rings 🧙Harry Potter 👑Game of Thrones 🖖Star Trek FIND YOUR UNIVERSE → 01 What gives your life its deepest sense of meaning? Every universe is built around a different answer to this question. ABeing part of something larger than myself — a cause, a rebellion, a fight for freedom that outlasts me. BThe journey itself — the places I'll go, the companions beside me, the world I'll discover on the way. CLearning — unlocking what I'm capable of, understanding the world's hidden mechanics, growing into something more. DLegacy — the name I leave behind, the power I build, the mark I make before the world moves on without me. EUnderstanding — exploring what exists beyond the horizon and asking what it means to be alive in a universe this vast. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Which kind of world do you most want to inhabit? The environment shapes who you become. Choose carefully. AA galaxy of planets, each with its own culture — connected by conflict, trade, and the Force. BAncient lands of breathtaking beauty, deep history, and a creeping darkness at the edges. CA world hidden inside our own — full of wonder, community, and magic waiting to be learned. DA brutal, beautiful continent where power is everything and every alliance is a calculation. EA future where humanity has reached the stars — and must decide what kind of species it wants to be. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How do you prefer your conflicts resolved? The shape of a world's conflicts tells you everything about its soul. AThrough sacrifice and courage — someone has to make the impossible choice so others don't have to. BThrough fellowship — the impossible becomes possible when the right people walk the same road. CThrough growth — confronting what you fear, understanding what you lack, and becoming equal to the challenge. DThrough strategy — outthinking, outmaneuvering, positioning yourself so the outcome was never in doubt. EThrough dialogue — finding the third option, the peaceful resolution, the answer that doesn't require a body count. NEXT QUESTION → 04 Who do you want beside you when things get difficult? Your ideal companions reveal the world you were made for. AA small crew — a pilot, a rogue, a warrior — each broken in their own way, unbeatable together. BA fellowship of different kinds of people, bound by purpose and deepened by the long road. CFriends who grew up alongside me — who knew me before I knew myself, and stayed anyway. DAllies whose loyalty I've earned — and tested — and whose ambitions align with mine, for now. EA crew of brilliant, curious, principled people from every corner of known space. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What is your relationship with power? How you seek, wield, or resist power is the map of who you are. AI want to use it to protect — and I'm terrified of what I might become if I'm not careful. BI distrust it. The most important power in this story is the courage to give it up. CI want to earn it — through knowledge, through effort, through becoming someone worthy of it. DI want to wield it. Preferably before someone else decides to wield it against me. EI want to understand it — its structures, its limits, its ethical dimensions. Power without accountability is the real threat. 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Star TrekYou believe the future is worth building — that curiosity, cooperation, and the expansion of understanding are not just ideals but the most practical path forward for any civilisation. Star Trek is a universe where the questions matter as much as the answers, and where encountering something utterly alien is cause for wonder rather than fear. You would belong here because you are fundamentally optimistic about what intelligence and decency can achieve — while being honest about how hard that achievement is. The Federation is the universe's most ambitious thought experiment: what if we actually got better? You don't just hope that's possible. You think it's the only thing worth working toward. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ Colin O'Donoghue Relished the Chance to Return to Music With Karen David The idea for the album was born from David and Ryden, but O'Donoghue was quick to come aboard as soon as he was asked. While he's been a bit busier of late, between the Civil War drama series The Gray House and his casting for Season 2 of MGM+'s Robin Hood this summer, he had little trouble making time to reunite with his old co-star to record. He recounted the entire experience with real confidence for the music being made, though he's still looking for suggestions for a potential band name. "So, they just asked me, they said, 'You want to do an album?' We recorded a song a couple of years ago. I called over, and they had a studio at the back of the house, and it was a great experience. So, I had the time earlier this year. I was in LA, so we recorded 12 or 13 songs, I think. And we're gonna hopefully release them later this year, and I think some of them are very good! We're trying to figure out a name for the band, if we call ourselves something. So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. And if you don't like the music when it comes out, you can just tell me that you did, and that would be good. I'm not really much of a singer, but it's good, I think.” Performing with David had O'Donoghue reminiscing on his time playing guitar and providing back-up vocals for The Enemies. "It’s so weird talking about that band," he told the crowd when asked about his past in music. "So, for people who don't know, I was in a band; I played in a band for 10-11 years back home in Ireland, and we used to gig like 5 nights a week, 6 nights a week. So, I was a working musician. Doesn't mean I was any good, but it was amazing." Making another album brought him back to his loves as an artist, only with something more, as he also got to help write songs, making this a true partnership between himself, David, and Ryden. It also gave him a chance to get a lot of ideas off his chest that had been building up since leaving his band behind in 2013. "It was just really nice. I love playing the guitar. I love guitars. I love music. I feel like all that stuff comes from the same place, and so to get to do that and then write with Carl and Karen... I felt a bit sorry for Carl because Carl was away filming. And I was staying in their house, and I literally had like 30-something years of guitar ideas that I basically vomited all over him for two weeks. But we ended up with some good stuff, I think." O'Donoghue and David's new album is expected to be released around November. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the Once Upon a Time stars' new collaboration. Release Date 2011 - 2018-00-00 Network ABC Showrunner Adam Horowitz Cast Andrew Kavadas Baron Danglars Mr. Gold / Rumplestiltskin / Weaver Directors Ralph Hemecker, Ron Underwood, Dean White, Romeo Tirone, Billy Gierhart, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Alrick Riley, David Solomon, Eagle Egilsson, Milan Cheylov, David Barrett, Geofrey Hildrew, Guy Ferland, Mario Van Peebles, Paul A. Edwards, Jon Amiel, Mick Garris, Sharat Raju, Morgan Beggs, Adam Horowitz, Alex Zakrzewski, Andy Goddard, Anthony Hemingway, Antonio Negret Writers Jerome Schwartz, Dana Horgan, Kalinda Vazquez, Ian B. Goldberg, Brigitte Hales, Robert Hull, Leah Fong, Daniel T. Thomsen, Christine Boylan, Tze Chun, Scott Nimerfro, Adam J. Karp, Christopher Hollier, Liz Tigelaar, Bill Wolkoff, Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, Andrew Chambliss, David H. Goodman, Jane Espenson Creator(s) Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz