Once Upon a Time: Interview to Jennifer Morrison

Once Upon a Time: Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin Preview 'Life-Or-Death' Fall Finale

Sitting down with Once Upon a Time‘s Jennifer Morrison and Ginnifer Goodwin, one can’t help but feel the love in the room.

Already longtime friends, they now are putting on a daughter/mother act, as Emma Swan and Snow White/Mary Margaret, on ABC’s fantastical sophomore drama. On the occasion of the midseason finale airing Sunday at 8/7c, I asked the actresses about being split off from other castmates for Season 2, how it feels to fulfill princess dreams, and invited them to tease the twists ahead as Once heads into its five-week holiday break.

TVLINE | How different was it for you two, shooting this stretch of Season 2 versus Season 1? You’re split off from half the cast, working with new people, shooting almost exclusively outdoors versus on a cozy set….
JENNIFER MORRISON | We got really good at putting HotShots [hand warmers] inside our clothes so we didn’t freeze to death. [Laughs] I mean, it felt the same because we had each other, in my mind, and it felt almost like we were doing a new show together or something, because we were with two new people in a whole different situation.
GINNIFER GOODWIN | And in a world that Emma had never been in before.
MORRISON | Yeah. And even though Snow had been there, it was so different now. So everything was new for all of us, in certain ways, but I thought it was really fun.
GOODWIN | Me, too.
MORRISON | We had a lot of fun with Sarah [Bolger] and Jamie [Chung]. Like our little “gang.”
GOODWIN | How often do you get four actresses together, by the way, who really want to work together every day?
MORRISON | Really like each other. Yeah.
GOODWIN | My wish at the end of last season, once I understood that the curse was going to be broken, was to focus on the relationship between Snow White and Emma, so I got my wish as we were thrust into a world where all our characters could do is readjust to the new dynamic and learn about each other while facing external obstacles and not have to be some kind of self-indulgent family time.

TVLINE | As far as the people you didn’t get to work with during this first stretch, what did you miss most? Is there someone who sings on set, tells jokes between takes…?
GOODWIN | Lee Arenberg (Leroy/Grumpy) and Meghan Ory (Ruby/Red) are…
MORRISON | They’re fun.
GOODWIN | They’re great fun. I actually have a lot of trouble staying in character when working with Lee because he makes me laugh so hard. I can’t not break into giggles.

TVLINE | Acting is so unpredictable a career that regardless of your efforts and talents, House‘s Dr. Cameron and Big Love‘s Margene could have been your respective calling cards. And yet, here you’ve had an opportunity to create characters that are so different and so distinct. What does that feel like?
MORRISON | I love acting because you don’t have to do the same thing over and over again, every day, and that’s what attracted me to wanting to do this for a living. So to be given an opportunity to create something completely different and live that out is the dream. It’s incredibly rewarding.
GOODWIN | On top of fulfilling the dream of always getting to change it up and to play really vastly different characters, I’ve always been sort of addicted to genre-jumping. I’ve never been in the mood to do the same thing I did last time. Hence, me going from Big Love to romantic comedy, to period film…. I can’t sit still. This, I did for my inner 8-year-old and for my future actual, material 8-year-olds, Once_SnowCharmingbecause I’m a “Disneyphile” and I specifically was obsessed with Snow White growing up. One of my base dreams had always been to play a Disney princess and have it written by these guys [series creators Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis included] in such an evolved, fleshed-out, adult kind of way.

TVLINE | I said this to you at the PaleyFest panel, that I knew the show was either going to be a hit … or it was going to go south in a jiffy.
GOODWIN | Oh, totally.
MORRISON | We all knew that.
GOODWIN | But I was promised that if it did go south in a jiffy, that it wouldn’t be our fault. [Laughs]
MORRISON | And also, we would get credit for trying something daring and brave.

TVLINE | I recently gave props to the show’s CGI, because while some people like to criticize the effects, the need for them is mandatory and the budget isn’t going to suddenly…
GOODWIN | We’re not going to have $30 million-an-episode, no. It’s not going to happen. I can’t even wrap my brain around how quickly they turn these things out. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure about the CGI, in that I’ve always been a “Don’t show the monster” kind of person, but this is so imaginative and so brave, I’m hoping it’s moving technology in a new direction.
MORRISON | Someone just needs to make smaller mic packs. That’s my request for the world.
GOODWIN | Oh, my gosh, yeah. I want a microchip [inside me]. I actually had a dream about it last night, that we got microchips. And I will have that surgery. I just want something they can put under my skin and I can be in control of turning it on and off.
MORRISON | I don’t know if I would go that far but I just feel like, why, when everything else has gotten so tiny, are mic packs still so clunky?

TVLINE | Speaking of CGI, talk about shooting the netherworld scene, Ginny. Was a butane flame anywhere near you? Was it just the disco floor there on the set?
MORRISON | [Laughs] A disco floor!
GOODWIN | I kind of wish we had had real flames, only so that I could have understood how dramatic they were going to be, because we didn’t have any concept of what was going to be there. But yes, we were just on “the disco floor” — I’m convinced the key to good effects is having a real floor – and it was one of the stranger scenes I’ve ever filmed. Oh, and by the way, the reason I wish there had been real flames or I’d seen the [effects] before is because we didn’t understand how loud or big they were going to be, and while reacting to something that you’ve never seen before sometimes works, sometimes is a bit more challenging.

TVLINE | Yeah. You’re on a quiet stage screaming at Josh [Dallas], when he’s five feet away.
GOODWIN | If that. But the weirdest part of that scene was, because they weren’t sure when either one of us would be transparent, we shot it in its entirety several times, from many different perspectives.

TVLINE | See, I wasn’t expecting that twist, that you wouldn’t be able to kiss, thus trapping Charming in the sleep spell. I was like, “Oh man, he’s [screw]ed.”
GOODWIN | I cried when I read that part.
MORRISON | I cried when I read that scene, too.

TVLINE | All of which brings us to the midseason finale. So, Aurora’s now some two-way radio kind of thing? Almost like that squicky eyeball ring from Beastmaster?
GOODWIN | Yes! I forgot about that movie; that’s hilarious. Yes, now the four of us are back together and we are going to Rumplestiltskin’s cell to get the squid ink.
MORRISON | And Cora has Aurora’s heart, so she’s acting like her puppet.

TVLINE | Is there an extra fire in the ladies’ belly now that Charming is in stuck in the sleeping spell? Reason than ever to race back to Storybrooke?JENNIFER MORRISON, GINNIFER GOODWIN
MORRISON | They just keep adding more and more reasons to feel the pressure to get back, for sure.
GOODWIN | Ogres and zombies and stolen hearts and Charming and…
MORRISON | And that justifies Snow literally taking an arrow to Mulan. It’s life-or-death at this point.

TVLINE | Ginny, have you come out of this better at archery than Jen has at sword-fighting?
MORRISON | I sword-fight in [the midseason finale].
GOODWIN | And that was awesome. I think I’m very cocky about my fake archery skills. It’s something that I did as a child, and when I have shot real arrows, they go where we need them to. But there are safety rules on set, so if someone’s in front of me, I can’t use a real arrow.

TVLINE | What sort of obstacles might be on the way to getting this squid ink? I can’t imagine it’s as easy as going there and grabbing it.
MORRISON | The most obvious obstacle is that we have a spy amongst us, so Cora’s going to always be one step ahead. I find that to be what’s so terrifying about Cora, as a villain, is that she is so cunning. There is always that unsettling feeling of “What is she going to do next? How is she going to stop them?” She’s capable of anything, in our book.
GOODWIN | And Gold himself is an obstacle, never knowing what we can trust in terms of the information he shares with us. Because though he’s selfish, things always seem to turn out in our favor in dealings with Gold and…
MORRISON | We can’t figure out why.
GOODWIN | We can’t figure out why, so we don’t know what to trust.

TVLINE | Jen, are we going to witness any new indications of the “magical something” going on within Emma? We haven’t seen much of that since the Season 2 premiere, when she helped Regina get the hat spinning.
MORRISON | Well, we don’t really know if that was anything or if it was a coincidence. Magic is unpredictable, so it’s not clear really if Emma was the reason that that happened. There’s a lot to discover about Emma, because she’s only known herself as a real person and not as aCOLIN O'DONOGHUE, JENNIFER MORRISON, JAMIE CHUNG, GINNIFER GOODWIN, SARAH BOLGER fairytale character. I think, very, very subtly and slowly, there will be little hints of discovery, for sure.

TVLINE | Do you consider an Emma/Hook hook-up out of the question at this point?
MORRISON | It’d have to take some really interesting logic to get Emma to want to be with someone who’s a villain. What I see, and what I think fans see, is they’re very kindred spirits. They both come from being thieves and finding creative ways to survive life. When we work together, I feel that, he feels like a real partner — but not right now in a way that’s romantic. Shes met her match in him in other ways, though, so there’s a connection.

TVLINE | Speaking of thieves, are we going to see Neal Cassidy (played by Michael-Raymond James) again? After all, he was sort of “summoned” from his New York City apartment.
MORRISON | Yes, we will. That has to pay off at some point, for sure.

TVLINE | What have the two of you learned about each other, spending this much time together? Like, would Ginny indeed make a cool mom?
MORRISON | Oh, yeah. I’ve always known that though. I think that’s pretty obvious.

TVLINE | And Ginny, how must Jen be as a daughter? Do you foresee trouble with curfews, boys…?
GOODWIN | No, Jen’s a good girl, which is also something unusual in this business, I find. I’m ready to adopt her.
MORRISON | We’d been friends for years before this project, so it’s one of those dream situations where, going in, you know you’re working with somebody you already care about a lot and know a lot about.
GOODWIN | Jen was quite literally the only person I wanted to do this with. In fact, I was misquoted in an interview with a journalist who was not taping our conversation, as you are, but just taking notes. I said that if I was being shipped off to a foreign country to be a part of a project for the next decade, Jennifer Morrison is like, absolutely, hands down, the person with whom I would want to do that. But the quote they ran was, “Jennifer Morrison is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, in a foreign country.”
MORRISON | It was really funny. It sounds like we’re in love.
GOODWIN | That’s why I didn’t correct it because, I mean, that’s awesome.

TVLINE | Can you tease the final moments of the midseason finale? What kind of emotions viewers are going to go through during the closing minutes?
GOODWIN | God, I cannot wait to see it. It’s so satisfying. And yet…
MORRISON | It’s set up in a way where we don’t know what we’d be coming back to if we go through the portal, while in Storybrooke they don’t really know if it’d be us coming through or someone else. It really allows for the emotions to be heightened.
GOODWIN | And, after all that we’ve done, something might be enacted that would…
MORRISON | Would kill us.
GOODWIN | Yes. It would be fatal upon our coming back.

http://tvline.com/2012/11/30/once-upon-a-t...nnifer-goodwin/

Interview: "Once Upon a Time" Co-Stars Ginnifer Goodwin & Jennifer Morrison

As ABC's "Once Upon a Time" races towards its winter finale, the many fantastical story threads are coming together as Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her daughter Emma (Jennifer Morrison) try to return to Storybrooke and keep the dastardly Cora (Barbara Hershey) and Hook (Colin O'Donoghue) from following them. Also, there's a small matter of Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) being trapped inside a sleep spell as well as the exploration of deeper layers for both Regina (Lana Parrilla) and Gold (Robert Carlyle).

There was only one place to get all the non-spoilery answers to where things are heading with this Sunday's episode so our Jim Halterman ventured to Storybrooke (a.k.a. Vancouver, where the show films) as part of an ABC-sponsored trip to talk to the cast members.

Regular viewers already know that this season has been jumping between two locales of Fairytale Land and Storybrooke with Snow and Emma have been stuck in Fairytale Land and have been trying desperately to get back home. As physically and emotional challenging as that has been, Goodwin admitted there has been an upside to the mother/daughter being together on this quest. "I just could not wait for these mother/daughter scenes," she gushed. "And they weren't at all what I expected because I didn't know that we were going to be thrust into a fairytale world and therefore our bonding would occur as a result of our having to deal with magical obstacles."

The experience also gave Goodwin's character a chance to step into the motherly role. "These two women learn a lot about themselves and each other at the same time and Mary Margaret/Snow White's sort of Mama Bear instincts take over often... [she] takes down some ogres to defend her daughter's life, things like that. So they were sort of fast forwarded through that [and] they were bonding at light speed, which I think is really marvelous in how we told that story."

While Morrison was also happy with that aspect of the story, there were others elements of Fairytale Land that she personally was glad to leave behind. "I was thrilled to no longer carry around a giant, heavy, compass," she said. laughing. "I've swung logs with that compass in my hand and had knife fights and had sword fights and I've had hugs and I've climbed a beanstalk. Literally, I was like, 'I don't even know how to act anymore without a giant compass in my right hand, or in my pocket.'"

There was a not-so-happy side to leaving the fairytale world behind, though. "I felt like it was bittersweet," Morrison said. "Because I really enjoyed working with both Sarah Bolger [Cinderella] and Jamie Chung [Mulan] and not to say that they're not going to be back in different ways but the four of us will never be in the forest again and have a nine-episode journey in the forest together and we just had a lovely time."

But one interesting story component for Emma in the fairy tale world has been her potentially romantic relationship with Hook, who, according to O'Donoghue, isn't truly the villain that we think we know... or is he? "I think it's a bit more complex than the outwardly evil Hook that people are probably used to... he wasn't a completely wholesome guy in the first place and probably, pretty ruthless." However, the Irish actor added, "The way I see it is that he will use his charm up to the point and if it's not going to work, then he'll have no problem killing the person if he has to; that's the way I see it. It's kind of like a sociopath in a weird way. Like he'll use somebody to get his own means, but once they're done, they're done, that's it, move on kind of thing."

Devious or not, Morrison sees an attraction between Emma and Hook as a result of their characters being more alike than we might first believe. "They're definitely kindred spirits," Morrison stated. "They're both thieves and they've come from troubled pasts and they've both lost a true love, so I think that there's a lot that they recognize in each other. So there's that camaraderie and also the combativeness of that right away." Plus, Morrison added, Emma's love life needs some attention. "I'm hoping that Emma has some romance in her life. It's been a while."

One thing Emma hasn't had a lot of time to do this season since she's been away from Storybrooke is get to know her father, Charming. "I hope we explore it more," Dallas offered. "[David] doesn't want to push it, he doesn't want to push that relationship because it's been a long time and she's never known her father or anything like that. So he doesn't want to push her and I think he is more interested now in getting to know her as a woman and who she is as a friend before delving deep into that kind of parental role."

Amidst the time spent in both worlds in the sophomore season, two of the show's more evil characters - Regina (a.k.a. The Wicked Queen) and Mr. Gold (a.k.a. Rumplestiltskin) - have shown much more dimension this year and both the actors couldn't be happier. "I've done so much of the historical background for this character," Parrilla said, talking from her character's Mayoral office, "so it's kind of nice to see it all coming to fruition this second season." Viewers shouldn't worry, though, that just because we've seen the softer side of Regina this season that she has lost her wickedly ways. " I know everyone misses the evil queen but she's not too far from our future. She's coming back."

Carlyle admitted that he doesn't see Mr. Gold and Rumplestiltskin as different people but is clearly thankful for all the various sides to them. "Gold/Rumple is the same guy," he said, "so it's two different sides of the same coin, really. But I really enjoy it, particularly on the Rumple side because sometimes you go back to pre-nasty Rumple and getting the opportunity to do that all in the one episode... to play three, sometimes four roles in the one, it's very unusual to get that in mainstream TV. So I'm blessed. I really enjoy that."

But, as Carlyle added, don't forget that Gold/Rumple has an objective that he always has his sights on. "Everything about him is about finding his son," the actor said. "Everything is about that. Nothing takes precedence over that - love, power, nothing. It's about that now, so he will definitely try to find his son, that's for sure." Despite that objective, Emilie de Ravin, who plays Gold's love interest, Belle, said that she would never get in his way of his search. "She is completely supportive of that," the former "Lost" star said, "and I think that really she is the only person that he talks to about that and for him to open up about that. And for him to open up to somebody about something so personal is also a big character development."

With all the changes in the second season of the series, Dallas said he was initially a little nervous about how viewers would take to the changes. "It's such a wacky premise and I didn't dream that they would break the curse in the first season, I thought that was going to be the thing over four or five seasons or whatever. To break it and completely change the whole setup of the show and the rules of the show was yeah, totally frightening. But you know I put full faith in [executive producers] Eddie [Kitsis] and Adam [Horowitz] that they know what they're doing."

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/interviews/2..._onceuponatime/