Once Upon A Time - Michigan Avenue: Jennifer Morrison Interview

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MICHIGAN AVENUE: Once Upon a Time's Jennifer Morrison Tells Her Story

By Paige Wiser

Jennifer Morrison has been tasked with saving a magical town in Maine. But with a little luck, she just might end up saving network drama, too.

One fall TV season not too long ago, there were not one but two new shows based on fairy tales unleashed on the public. The people did not rejoice. Fairy-tale drama is a tough sell to the masses who are accustomed to watching youngsters screeching at British judges and trophy wives clawing at each other’s fake eyelashes.

But a hero emerged. ABC’s Once Upon a Time slew its nemesis, NBC’s Grimm, and was crowned TV’s highest-rated drama debut of the season.

The reason? Amidst all the amnesiac princesses, evil witches, stumbling princes, and grumbling dwarves stood Morrison’s character, Emma Swan: a decidedly modern, unsentimental former bail “bondsman” and bounty hunter with a red leather jacket and a cool eye...




... Morrison is a bit of a good-luck charm, picking smart projects she can make even better. She’s the kind of person who seems to attract random acts of kindness—recently she was stuck at a metro turnstile, and a stranger gave her a free card swipe.

But luck has little to do with it, insists Morrison. “So often people say, ‘Oh my God, it happened overnight!” she says. “They don’t see the years of hard work. I love the hard-work part.”

Surely, though, there must be some kind of fairy godmother hovering in the background. After all, most actors don’t have scripts like Once Upon a Time fall in their lap. Morrison remembers the day the cast found out the show had been picked up for a full season. “We were on set and heard the news on speaker phone,” she says, “We walked outside and there was this giant rainbow that ended at our trailer. I have pictures of it! We all said, ‘This is ridiculous. We’re doing a show about fairy tales, and we get a rainbow?’ “So maybe there is such a thing as luck,” says Morrison. “Maybe...”


Once Upon a Time airs Sunday at 8/7C on ABC.