Jennifer Morrison Central

Jennifer Morrison talks to Metro about her latest role as Snow White’s daughter in Once Upon A Time, being friends with Angelina Jolie and why she found it weird hearing Hugh Laurie’s British accent.

Emma is a damaged character, to say the least. I’m guessing you are rather less damaged.

She’s parts of myself but to a much greater extreme. She puts up her walls and can be very sceptical. I definitely put up a front that I’m OK, and I don’t let people realise how sensitive I am or how emotional I might actually be.

Ginnifer Goodwin plays your mum, Snow White. That’s pretty out there.

It’s wonderful, because I don’t believe or know that she’s my mother. So I just have to think: ‘What would it have been like to be friends with my parents at my age?’ She’s also really Emma’s first friend, and Emma is still a kid, because she hasn’t grown in a way where she’s emotionally an adult.

You have a ‘superpower’ with which you can tell who’s lying. Would you like that in real life?

It may already be something I have in common with Emma. I have strong instincts about people in terms of whether I feel they are being honest with me or not. And it is interesting because, at times, I feel like I’m very off about it when my emotions get involved, or when I’m dealing with a guy that I have feelings for. That’s exactly what Emma has trouble with.

Fairy tales are everywhere right now. Why?

I can only guess but it’s not an accident that Disney’s Snow White was released during the Great Depression. This is a time where everybody is unstable economically and so many things are shifting in the world. We all grew up with these fairy tales so there’s a warm, fuzzy comfort to going back to those stories as an adult and experiencing them in different ways.

Your parents are teachers. How did you end up being a child model, then an actress?

I have no idea. Honestly, it makes me wonder about past lives, because from the moment that I have a memory of having a memory, I thought of myself as an actor.

Has working in the business for such a long time demystified the cult of celebrity for you?

Well, I guess I have to believe that everything happens for a reason. I may never understand exactly what the journey has been.

Did you pick up any crazy English expressions or fondness for strange foods from Hugh Laurie in House?

Hugh always stayed in his American accent during filming, so I feel like I missed out on getting some British culture. It would always feel so weird when we would do a press event or something. He’d be speaking with a British accent and we’d all say: ‘Come on, don’t put on that accent!’

Your on-screen boyfriend in Once Upon A Time, Jamie Dornan, has left the programme. Are you missing him?

So much. He had such a joy for life and was such a central part of our social life out here in Vancouver, where we film. He always found a new little pub with a great new beer, and we all got into playing this arcade game, Big Buck Hunter, because he loved playing it. Ginny Goodwin and I bought him an actual Big Buck Hunter game for his home in London.

You’re also busy making films. You starred in Warrior with Tom Hardy and start another film, Some Girls, soon. Do you like to stay busy?

I really do but I also have to try to take care of myself. I’ve been getting sick a lot lately and that’s because I’ve been going, going, going. There is that thing with actors, though.You always feel like you’re in your last job and that someone is going to catch on to the fact that you have no idea what you’re doing. But then you realise at some point, ‘I guess no one knows what the heck they’re doing, we’re all just figuring it out as we go’. Still, an actor with too much time on their hands is a dangerous thing.

What do you do when you’re not working?

I obsessively watch movies. I feel that, with the amount of films out there, I could watch movies all day and all night and still never catch up to the movies that I’d like to see. I always have a pile of DVDs or BluRays that I’m dying to watch and I always have a pile of books that I’m working my way through. I just started F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful And The Damned.

What did you play in Mr And Mrs Smith?

I was one of Angelina Jolie’s staff going around in short skirts and high heels. I was on salary for six months with a lovely group of girls, all of whom I still know.

Are you including Ms Jolie in that?

I think I’ve run into her once since then. I’ve certainly been in the same room with her at award shows.

But you’re not lining up with the masses to say ‘hi’?

Yeah, exactly. I’m not adding myself to that list of crazy people who are like: ‘Don’t you remember me?’

Metro.co.uk