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'Once Upon a Time' a hit for Jennifer Morrison, viewers
The scary truth is that most people figured "Once Upon a Time" would be history after only a few episodes. After all, it's the rare new show that actually makes it, plus the freshman ABC fantasy debuted the same week as NBC's seemingly similar "Grimm." A couple of months later, however, both shows are hits, both have been renewed for the rest of the season and "Once Upon a Time" is, in fact, television's top-rated new drama.
"I'm so glad that people are responding to the show," said Jennifer Morrison, who stars as Emma Snow, the daughter of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Joshua Dallas), who have been cursed by the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla). "I think there are different things going on that explain why it's connecting with people. I always feel that any show's success starts with the writing, and (creators/executive producers) Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are such incredible writers and have such an amazing vision for the storytelling. When we get the scripts we go crazy and we're calling each other and saying, 'Oh my God, can you believe this happened and that happened?'
"That's the foundation," she continued, "and then I've been making the 'Harry Potter' comparison. 'Harry Potter' deals with good vs. evil, with very, very real, grounded relationships amidst a world of mythology and inventive, magical things. We have those elements, and I think adults respond to that and kids respond to that, too, which is great because then families can watch the show together. And there just aren't a lot of family shows."
The action in "Once Upon a Time" shifts back and forth between two timelines: a modern-day town called Storybrooke and the fairy-tale world. Emma is told by a young boy, Henry (Jared S. Gilmore), that she is his mother and that, according to his fanciful book of fairy tales, everyone in Storybrooke is a cursed figure from the fairy-tale world.
For better or for worse, Henry is correct. His teacher, Mary Margaret Blanchard (Goodwin), is Snow White. His adoptive mother, also the town's mayor, is not only Regina Mills (Parrilla) but also the Evil Queen. The loathsome Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) is Rumpelstiltskin, while the friendly therapist Archie Hopper (Raphael Sbarge) is Jiminy Cricket. And, according to Henry, Emma is a long-prophesied curse-breaker.
Speaking by telephone from the show's set in Vancouver, British Columbia, Morrison - whose credits also include "Star Trek" (2009), a recurring role on "How I Met Your Mother" (2010) and a long stint on "House" (2004-2010) - waxes enthusiastic about Emma. A bounty hunter who reluctantly agreed to stay in Storybrooke and recently accepted a job as the town's deputy sheriff, she is at once brave, sympathetic, cynical, flawed and strong.
"I truly love Emma," Morrison said. "Emma was incredibly appealing to me, from an acting perspective, because she has such a huge spectrum of emotions that she goes through in every single episode. She's so tough at times that you can't imagine her ever being vulnerable, and then so vulnerable at times that you can't imagine her ever being tough. And then there's everything in between.
"For an actor, that's just a dream to play."
The show concluded the first half of its first season Sunday with an episode entitled "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter." Someone in Storybrooke perished, someone began to remember his or her fairy-tale past and, in classic cliffhanger fashion, several story threads have been left dangling.
"That episode was written almost like a season finale," Morrison said, "because they knew we'd be off the air for a few weeks after that. There's a lot happening in it. Emma is getting to a place in her life where she's really vulnerable for the first time in years, probably since she was a child, so there's an incredible journey that gets Emma to that place. And, in terms of the other characters, there are certain things that come to a breaking point.
"We've been exploring all these elements of the curse, what it means, what the rules are and how we all ended up under this curse," she continued. "By the time we got to that episode, we started to see what it meant for everyone in Storybrooke and how Emma's presence in the town has started to affect the curse."
By the time "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" aired, fans also had become that much more immersed in the show's so-called "Easter eggs," most of them tipping the cap to "Lost," the ABC series on which Kitsis and Horowitz previously worked.
The clock in Storybrooke has stopped at 8:15, and the doomed plane in "Lost" was Flight 815. Emma Swan is a key character on "Once Upon a Time," while much time was spent in the Swan Station on "Lost." Characters on both shows eat Apollo candy bars, and former "Lost" co-star Emilie de Ravin will guest star in an upcoming episode as Belle of "Beauty and the Beast" fame.
"Eddie and Adam were executive producers and writers on 'Lost' for more than four years," Morrison said, "so a lot of it is them paying homage to 'Lost,' to something they truly loved. There's a Driveshaft bumper sticker on the window of my yellow Bug, which was the band that Dominic Monaghan's character was in on 'Lost.' There are a few more things like that coming up.
"I think it's really fun for Eddie and Adam, for the actors and for the fans," she said. "Everyone gets a kick out of it."
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=352926
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Once Upon a Time: Interview to Jennifer Morrison |
