When I was at San Diego Comic-Con this year and was floated a few interview opportunities for the as-yet-unseen-at-the-time film WARRIOR, it was looking pretty good that I'd be given a little bit of time with stars Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton, but when I was told that co-star Jennifer Morrison was also available, I jumped at the chance to talk to her since I'd been a big fan of her several years on "House," and I'd been hearing how much people dug her on the most recent season of "How I Met Your Mother."
Naturally fears about me asking Tom Hardy nothing but BATMAN questions made sure the talk with him and Edgerton (who were paired for interviews) never happened, but I was extremely excited that I still got to chat with Morrison, who looked great and was justifiably proud and eager for people to see her in WARRIOR, played Edgerton's character's wife, Tess Conlon, a concern spouse who rejects the idea of her husband going back into the mixed martial arts ring but knowing that if he doesn't they run the risk of losing their home because of tough economic times.
Morrsion also stars in a new fall show called "Once Upon A Time" for ABC. Apparently, it has to do with fairy tales character who are all living in a small town, trapped there not knowing that they are, in fact, characters from legendary stories. I'll let her explain it.
My review of WARRIOR speaks for itself, and I'm happy to see a quote from it appearing in current print and television ads. I don't get quoted that often, but I'm glad it's for a film that I actually believe in quite strongly. I found Morrison to be a really delightful person to talk to, not to mention easy on the eyes. Now, keep in mind, when I did this interview, I had not yet seen the film, so my questions are a little vague, but I think we did alright. Please enjoy my talk with Jennifer Morrison…
Capone: Hello. Great to meet you.
Jennifer Morrison: It’s nice to meet you too, Steve.
Capone: So you have a great advantage over me, because you actually know what this movie is about and you know what your role is, Let me know a little bit about what your role in this obscenely masculine film.
JM: It is very masculine, this is true. I play the wife of Joel Edgerton’s character. So there are two brothers who were raised by an alcoholic and abusive father, and they both end up fighting for different reasons.
Capone: Nick Nolte is the father, right?
JM: Yes, and they both sort of get out of fighting for other reasons, and one brother gets married and has a family and settles down. He’s a teacher, his wife is a real estate agent, and they have a very suburban simple lifestyle, and his other brother sort of… it’s just darker for him. He kind of is in and out of the military, he’s possibly done some shady things. There’s a lot more mystery and darkness surrounding that brother, and in the movie it’s the father getting clean and wanting to sort of make amends with these boys, and because of the economy they're both starting to fight for different reasons.
So I’m now dealing a with a husband who has been a teacher for all of these years and is now suddenly getting beaten up again and wanting to be supportive, but also being torn, because we have children and “How are they going to be affected by that?” It’s sort of complicated and also very relatable I think on a lot of levels. It touches on a lot of things that are going on in the world right now for families with the economic issues that are going on.
Capone: So that is an important part of this film, the here and now?
JM: I think so, and that was something that was really important to us while we were making it for sure is it needed to feel really relevant to what people’s real struggles are and making this family very real in terms of their function and their dysfunction, and then seeing this journey of these two brothers getting back into that world and what it means for them to both be fighting again. So truly, it’s kind of like a broken family drama, but in the backdrop of the UFC world and really getting to use that world to show who these men are, what this family is, what it means for every family member, and how to deal with the fact that this father who kind of added to their damage and added to their success in certain ways is now changed and asks them to accept him as a different person.
Capone: I’m guessing your character is against him going back into fighting, at least initially.
JM: Yeah, to some degree. This is a marriage you root for; it’s not a naggy situation, but it also is the reality of “We have children. We have a home. We have a life. We have love. Why are we choosing to put your life in danger?” So she’s coming from a very maternal, fierce place when she has got her concerns, but at the same time her love for her husband is so much bigger than you could imagine. So you don’t see her taking from him what his love is.
Capone: Right. Do you have a singular moment in the film where we hear her and say, “That sums up what she is about.”
JM: There’s a fight that she doesn’t go to, and when she gets the news that he is okay and her instinctive reaction to that shows who she is, because no matter how logical she’s been about it, no matter how concerned she’s been about, no matter what, ultimately what you see in that moment is the depth of her love for him, and I think that moment is the defining moment of Tess.
Capone: Now you said your character is a real estate agent, so she’s probably hurting pretty bad.
JM: She’s completely out of a job by this time. She’s completely not a real estate agent by the time the movie starts. This is what she was in the past, which was supplementing the teaching income. So now they’ve got three jobs between the two of them. He’s teaching all day. He’s bouncing at night. And I’m waitressing the nights that he’s not bouncing, so they are both doing everything they can to make ends meet and raise the kids at the same time.
Capone: Were you able to do any kind of research to find out what that life is like?
JM: I feel like it’s impossible not to be aware of that right now. I’m incredibly lucky, because I’ve been able to do well enough to own a home and be able to maintain it even when there aren’t s many acting jobs. I was just lucky that I happened to be at that moment in my life when we ended up this situation, but there is not a single person I know that doesn’t have family members, friends, people close to them that are going through what this family is going through. It’s just such a close thing to be experiencing. So I felt like there were numerous people in my own life that I could draw from.
Even stories that my parents have told me, my mom has told me about her parents. They were working class in the sense that they were very smart, very hard workers, but they lived paycheck to paycheck. That was the time they were living in as well, and just hearing the stories of what that means to really be living paycheck to paycheck and the details of that in real life--like making your own clothes and packing the lunches a certain way. It’s just paying attention to those details and realizing that those are the things that really reveal the extra work that goes into numerous jobs. Three jobs between the two of them and two children you know?
Capone: Do you have any scenes with Nick Nolte?
JM: I have little, almost brief encounters with him. Most of my scenes are with Joel, but I certainly was around him. I mean he's a living legend and he has the stories to go with it, he has the experience to go with it, and he’s brilliantly talented. You can’t help but be better when you are around that kind of talent.
Capone: Just tell me real quick about some other things you have coming up. Tell me about KNIFE FIGHT? What is that?
JM: KNIFE FIGHT is an indie that is a political thriller that Rob Lowe and Carrie-Anne Moss are the leads in and I have a little cameo role in. I literally read the script and said, “I can’t say no to this, because I love this character.” It was something I had never gotten to do on screen before and I’m always playing these characters that are like smart and strong and grounded, which I have no complaints about;, that’s awesome. But she's drunk, ridiculous, possibly kind of an escort at some point. Do you know what I mean? She’s just so beautifully full of child-like life that I was like, “This is something I absolutely want to do” and the script is really great and Bill Guttentag is just a lovely, lovely man who wrote it and is directing it, and I’m excited to see how it comes out, because I really feel like there’s some great stuff going on in it.
Capone: Okay and then you also have the series, of course.
JM: Yes, "Once Upon A Time."
Capone: Explain your role in that.
JM: It’s hard to explain quickly, but I’ll do my best. It’s something that makes complete sense when you see it. It’s very clear and very obvious when you see it, and almost impossible to put into words. It’s as if every fairy tale character ever written is actually real and actually exists, but they are cursed and they don’t know who they are and they are living amongst us. And the child is Snow White and Prince Charming has been raised as a human, and is prophesized to come back and save them all from the curse. So it sounds a little fairytale-ish when you explain it.
Capone: Who are you in that story?
JM: I’m the child in the story. So you know the show is sort of it’s own fairytale to save all fairytales, and yet it’s very reality based and it’s gritty and it’s dark and it deals with those fairytales in a way that is very relevant to real life. So you buy into it as if it all is real instead of watching a fairytale.
Capone: Oh yeah.
JM: And it’s the guys who did "Lost," the executive producers who were writing for "Lost" the whole time. So they are really good at balancing those two worlds and balancing those elements of mythology that are involved in the storytelling. Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, their writing… [Laughs] Every time I see a script, I’m floored, I’m actually floored. The stuff that they give us as actors is so rich and so deep and there’s so much going on. “This is almost overwhelming,” it’s so well written, so I’m just excited to keep moving forward with that, because I think it’s something so new and so different, and hopefully people will like it as much as we do, but we really like it. [Laughs]
Capone: Alright cool. And by the way, I’m from day one a huge "House" fan and still am, so when I saw your name on the list, I was like “I will definitely talk to her.” Anyway, it was great to meet you.
JM: Thank you, that’s awesome. That’s so cool. It was great to meet you, too. Thank you so much.
