“I was spending every hour of the day being someone else,” the actress reflected in a recent interview
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NEED TO KNOW
- Jennifer Morrison recently opened up about feeling disconnected from herself during the height of her fame
- The 47-year-old actress and director reflected on the pressure of her acting career and the changes she made to better understand who she was outside of her work
- That realization ultimately led Morrison to explore directing and find a new balance in her career
Jennifer Morrison opened up about the darker side of achieving the kind of success many performers dream of.
The 47-year-old actress — known for her roles in House, Once Upon a Time and How I Met Your Mother — recently reflected on the overwhelming demands of fame and how years of dedicating herself to work affected her sense of identity.
During an appearance on the Question Everything podcast with host Danielle Robby, Morrison discussed the pressure of constantly being on screen while struggling to make space for herself away from the spotlight.
“I felt like I was starting to dissolve as a person, because I was so committed to the things I was doing, but I had no space to be myself,” Morrison admitted. “I’ve been on, like, 350 episodes of television, and just been able to truly, like, live an insane dream. But I also could feel this tugging of, like, a true self that just was constantly being pushed away because I was sacrificing to succeed.”
Credit: Everett
During her conversation with Robby, Morrison explained that the intensity of maintaining a successful acting career left little room for her personal life and began affecting her connection with her own identity.
“I was never seeing my friends. I was never seeing my family,” she revealed. “I was spending every hour of the day being someone else and no hours of the day even knowing who I was.”
As a result, Morrison found a way to extend her career beyond acting and into directing. Since then, she has worked on projects such as Yellowjackets, The Night Agent and The Five-Star Weekend.
This change came after even small questions about her personal preferences highlighted how disconnected she had become. She explained, “You know, people would say, like, ‘What’s your favorite music?’ I was like, ‘I can give you the character’s playlist? I have no idea what I want to listen to.’ “
Credit: Everett
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Outside of her professional achievements, Morrison shares a family life with her husband, actor Gerardo Celasco, and their one child.
Looking back on the changes she made, Morrison said the experience ultimately pushed her toward a healthier understanding of herself and her creative path.
“I knew I had to make changes, or I wasn’t gonna be okay, based on how I was feeling,” she told Robby. “It’s probably why I can say any of the things I’ve said, while I’ve sat here today, is because of the realizations that’s starting to happen from that change.”
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