For Jennifer Morrison, evolution has never been about reinvention, but refinement. From her early days diagnosing patients on House to wielding magic (and emotional depth) on Once Upon a Time, the actress has built a career on inhabiting complex women. Now, with her latest role in The Night Agent and a growing slate of directing projects, Morrison is embracing a new kind of duality. We recently spoke with the multi-hyphenate as she reflected on the connection between inner life and outward expression—and what beauty means to her now.
Congrats on The Night Agent. I’d love to hear how you got into your First Lady character. Did you get any inspiration from other First Ladies?
“When we were looking at that, we felt like they intentionally hired a President and a First Lady on the younger side…from what we’ve been seeing in the presidency. Especially when I was talking to the costume designer, Jenny Rogan, who’s awesome. I love her. She’s just such a collaborative force to work with.
We were talking about looking at it more as what the young royals look like. We were looking more at the British royals right now, and just looking at their fashion and style and how that applies to being in a position where there’s a lot of eyes on you, but you’re trying to keep it timeless, classic and elegant, but also defined for each person. We were looking there more than backward at any of the American presidents and first ladies. That’s where the silhouette started to come from for Jenny.”
You have a lot of different hats that you have put on, between directing and acting. Does beauty and the fashion of a character always play a part, no matter what you do for work?
“The internal life and the external life are always informing each other in a circle. You never quite know which one comes first. They’re both so deeply intertwined because so much of how we present ourselves as humans is a representation of how we feel about ourselves internally, or how we’re hoping for someone to react to us. The two things really go hand in hand.
This was one of the first times I was experimenting with working with a movement coach for a character, not because there was drastic movement for the character, but because it feels like people have to have a delineation between their public presentation and their personal presentation when their life is so public in a political situation.
I was looking to find really nuanced things. I didn’t want it to be anything crazy where you look at her giving a speech and you think, ‘Well, that’s a totally different person.’ It was more just, ‘Yes, it’s the same person, but what are the nuances that are slightly conditioned or slightly different or slightly planned in public, versus when she had her guard down with her husband behind closed doors?’”
The show is dark; it has to have some high pressure. How do you walk away from that at the end of the night? Are you good at letting the work go?
“It depends on the character. Also, it depends on the number of hours I’m in the character. In this one, it was a little bit easier because I was jumping in and out in these clicker spurts. It wasn’t a 24/7, five days a week situation for me, whereas shows like House, This Is Us or How I Met Your Mother had much longer hours for me.
Sometimes, it’s just the sheer quantity that affects my getting in and out of the character more than what’s going on with the character. I definitely felt that on Once Upon a Time, six years of being in someone’s physicality and body. I would feel like it would take a month of not playing Emma to have her out of my body.
Some of it is just sheer quantity of time. Some of it, too, is just about having those touchpoints in your relationships. It’s something that’s so important to me and has always been so important to me. It’s just always grounding myself back in my closest relationships. For a long time, that was my parents, my family and my closest friends. Now, it’s expanded to include my husband and my daughter. I think those are the things that really quickly bring me back to me and put things in perspective, where you go, ‘Oh, right. That’s all just a story. My head has been in that space all day, but I can tuck that away and return to myself a little faster.’”
You’re someone who always seems to be working, which is a good thing. Do you have anything either personally or professionally that you’re looking forward to as we get into April?
“Yes. I’ve been so lucky to be working and to be working on things that I’m so passionate about. I just finished directing a pilot for NBC, so I’m in the post-production process on that, and I’m really excited about the footage. I’m excited about the cast. I’m excited about the writing. I’m really proud of what we were able to accomplish together. We’ll see if that’s something we get to put into the world or not, because it’s a pilot, and we have to go through that process of them choosing a pilot or not.
I’ve been really excited to see all that come together and hopeful that maybe NBC will like it. Then I’m going to go back to Yellowjackets, which feels like home. I love being over there. I love that group of people. I love directing that show. Then I’m trying to protect a little bit of time after that to just have some time off. It’s always scary to take time off in the business because you want to keep the momentum. You’re like, ‘I don’t want to miss out on anything, and I want to stay in the momentum.’ I’m definitely trying to circle a little bit of time to take a little vacation with my family after I finish Yellowjackets. We’ll see if I’m able to pull that off or not!”
