Finding Normal - SID

Jessica Morris says good-bye to misunderstood Jen

Jessica Morris, a former model from Jacksonville, FL, had moved to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. Ironically, her big break would require a move to New York for a jojb playing ingenue Jennifer Rappaport on ONE LIFE TO LIVE. The transition was a rough one, but just as she'd gotten used to it came word that the soap had agreed to let her go this spring. "I'm going to miss getting food delivered," she chuckeles, adding, "and also the weather, the traffic, the noise."

For Morris' character, living in Llanview was an even bigger adjustment. When Jennifer left her safe Swiss boarding school in 2001, she never dreamed of the trouble that was to come. During the next four years, she survived her parents' fights and her father's death, was involved with five different men, got married twice, suffered a miscarriage, struggled with alcohol issues and was even suspected of murder!

Crazy Is Good
Alas, as the storylines eventually became tamer and her work schedule dwindled, the actress became dissatisfied. "I liked it when Jen was a little more crazy, and we really didn't know what to expect from her," Morris confides. "When she started trying to be a better person, it got kind of boring for me to play. [During] this past year, I've only worked maybe one or two days a week."

Not that the actress didn't have a great time honing her craft along the way. One of Morris' favorite scenes was when her character "lost it" in an inappropriate place. "I liked it when Jen destroyed the hospital medical closet," she says with a laugh. "She just took that stick and broke all the glass and everything -- that was fun!"

...ON JEN'S STRANGE BEHAVIOR: "If the storyline had made more sense -- combined with me working more -- I would have been tempted to stay," Morris says.

Although she loved her character's unpredictability, Morris admits that not everything Jen did made sense (although really, why would it? The girl is Lindsay's daughter!). If she could change anything, Morris says that she would not have had Jen attempt to marry "paralyzed" Al Holden. "Jen was always trying to be a good person and she felt sorry for Al, but it was in such a twisted way because it made her look really dumb to try to marry him when she was still in love with Cristian," Morris reflects, chagrined. "That just never made sense to me, and it made it kind of confusing."

...ON JEN BEING DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL: "When Sam (Laurence Lau) was here," recalls the actress, "it made Jen a little better because you'd see [that] she was trying to be more like him."

However, one wild tangent the actress wishes that her character had gone on would have been mixing it up in her mother's love life. "I always liked the [relationship] between Troy and Lindsay. It was really dynamic, and I thought it would have been more so if they would have gotten Troy and Jen into some kind of affair -- that would have been a really interesting triangle!"

...ON JEN BEING HER MOTHER'S DAUGHTER: "I liked it better when Jen was more unpredictable," says Morris. Certinaly, the character had an out-there role model in Lindsay.

The Next Chapter
Having accomplished nearly everything that she wanted to with her beleagured character, Morris packed up her things and headed West. "I moved back to Los Angeles, so I'm excited," she reveals. Already pounding the pavement, she's attempting to take her career in a different direction. "I'm auditioning for film and primetime... I'm excited to get out there, but I'm just trying to get everything [like finding a permanent place to live] in order."

At press time, Morris had yet to tape her final OLTL scenes and was trying not to think about saying good-bye to her fellow castmates. "I'm just kind of being normal, you know. Seriously," she confides. After three years of playing the chaos that is Jennifer's life, we're sure "normal" sounds pretty good."

...ON GOTHAM LIFE: "I liked New York," says the ingenue. "I'm actually getting more used to it now."




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