Article content continued

Unlike Morrison’s departure from the series House, in which she played Dr. Allison Cameron for six seasons, her exit from Once Upon a Time was her own decision rather than the producers, she said.

“My contract was up and I was personally really struggling with being away from home so much,” she said. “It’s nine-and-half, almost 10 months out of the year when you add it all up and it was six years of my life. I was away from the family and my friends and I was not feeling like it was the right thing for my life to be so far away from my life. So I made the decision on that one to do what I felt was right for my life.”

Morrison has moved on to writing and directing, among other things. That includes directing her feature debut, the comedy drama Sun Dogs. But while the actress has a sterling record of being involved in projects that garner strong fan response — she was in How I Met Your Mother, House, was an original producer of Glee and even achieved geek-royalty status by playing Captain James T. Kirk’s mother on the 2009 Star Trek reboot — most of the questions on Saturday afternoon were focused on her time playing Emma Swan on the ABC favourite.

The series has found a devoted audience with its romantic and occasionally dark mash-up of fairy tales and folklore that borrows from, and often deliciously twists, characters from Disney franchises. The series began with Emma Swan being reunited with her 10-year-old son Henry, who she gave up for adoption. She learns she is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and returns to Storybrooke, Maine to help break a curse imposed by an evil queen. She becomes involved with a bunch of fairy tale characters, including an evil Peter Pan, a dashing Captain Hook and a creepy Rumplestiltskin.