Manifest’s Josh Dallas on the OUAT Reunion That Never Was: ‘We Tried’

Manifest’s full-circle series finale featured many happy reunions after the 828ers — SPOILER ALERT — survived the Death Date and earned another chance to live their best lives. (Read our full recap here.)

Michaela found her way back to Zeke (who died in Season 4, Part 1), Saanvi met up with Alex, and Ben got to hug and kiss his wife Grace, who was murdered in the Season 3 finale. And while these anticipated reconnections were a fitting bookend to the series, there was one reunion we’d hoped to see and were woefully denied: Manifest star Josh Dallas sharing the screen again with his real-life wife and former Once Upon a Time co-star Ginnifer Goodwin.

Dallas tells TVLine that efforts to get her on the Netflix show were made, but an appearance just didn’t pan out.

“We tried throughout the years… We really did,” he shares. “We just couldn’t make it work in the end, unfortunately.”

Dallas also notes that Goodwin is “one of the biggest Manifesters out there” and has barred him from ruining her viewing experience of the final episodes. “She’s already told me that I’m not allowed to watch with her because I make noises, talk, and mumble, and she banned me from the room,” he shares. “I’m not allowed to tell her anything, and she’s already set time aside to start bingeing.”

Goodwin — who starred as Snow White opposite Dallas’ Prince Charming on Once Upon a Time, which ran from 2011 to 2018 on ABC — previously expressed her love of Manifest, telling TVLine back in 2019 that she was “gutted” by the Season 1 revelation that the passengers had an expiration date (aka the Death Date).

“That is going to preoccupy me, so I need to know if this is something that is unchangeable,” she said. “But I am a committed viewer either way, so if you tell me, ‘Oh, they’re definitely dying on this day,’ it’s not that I don’t want to then see what they’re going to do in their final handful of years. But that is going to be my focus as a viewer!”