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Major spoilers ahead for the season-four finale ofJane the Virgin.
Ive been flipping out all day thinking about this twist![Laughing.]
End of season three.
Really?Thats when it all came together.
Ill try not to.
Okay, so you told Gina at the end of season three.I told Gina after we wrapped last year.
Then I had lunch with Brett [Dier] about a year ago as well.
When he died, he was dead!
I discussed it at length with the writers.
There was always a possibility, and we did jump time.
I mean, I knew it could.
I had to prep it as though he was dead, dead, dead.
I wasnt quite sure what I was going to be doing.
I always feel we were saving up a few telenovela tropes.
One of them is returning from the dead.
Whether its him [Michael] or not, that is the trope were playing with.
And then theres another [trope] that is out there that well be looking at.
And its that crazy what if this other person that you loved came back idea.
The fallout of this, having gone through all the grief and all the heartache.
But then we love to deal with the grounded implications of these big, huge things.
It clicked for me that this was the way I wanted the story to go.
I wanted it on a level for Rafael, too.
Hes done this hugely heroic and selfless thing, bringing back Michael, which is his greatest fear.
I think for me it makes the most sense if itisactually him.
I feel like it would make more sense for how upset Rafael is.Certainly.
[Rafael] certainly believes that its him.
It would seem compelling to me as an outside observer.Yup!
How did the writers and cast respond when you told them?
There was a lot of shock/surprise when we went in the room last year, too.
Thats when I sort of put them through this.
I wasnt talked out of it!
And I didnt tell the other actors or anyone else in production.
It was pretty fun.
It was a pretty fun moment for us.
Thats amazing!There was a lot of planning!
All that kind of stuff went into it.
And in the episode itself, we primed the palate for a huge telenovela-esque reveal.
That was our way of telling everybody to buckle up, something big is gonna happen.
There are very different things we will be returning to.
Things are coming full circle, and thats the theme were going to explore.
We want to be pulling those threads together in a big way.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
