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"In a town full of stick-thin blond starlets, Ginnifer Goodwin doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t fit that tired mold. But thanks to her acting chops and on-screen charm, those second-fiddle types she typically plays&amp;amp;#8212;&amp;amp;#8220;the dorky one&amp;amp;#8221; in Mona Lisa Smile, the romantically challenged singleton in He&amp;amp;#8217;s Just Not That Into You, the third sister-wife in HBO&amp;amp;#8217;s cult favorite Big Love&amp;amp;#8212;are giving way to sweet starring roles. She recently carried her first big-studio hit, Something Borrowed (Kate Hudson plays her best friend). As she films her new TV show, Once Upon a Time, the Memphis belle spoke to me about fame, friends and why fear is a blessing in disguise. KATIE COURIC: You have a lot going on right now. What are you most excited about? GINNIFER GOODWIN: A girlfriend of mine says that I&amp;amp;#8217;m in love with possibilities. I just started a new show. I&amp;amp;#8217;m planning a wedding. I bought my first house a couple of years ago, and I&amp;amp;#8217;m finally really moving into it. So at 32, I&amp;amp;#8217;m having all these new life stages starting at once. KATIE COURIC: Is any of it scary? GINNIFER GOODWIN: It&amp;amp;#8217;s all scary! But I love being scared. I think you&amp;amp;#8217;re brave only when you do things that scare you. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve always used fear as a motivator. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not sure why. KATIE COURIC: I think earlier in your career, you sometimes played the girl people feel sorry for. GINNIFER GOODWIN: I&amp;amp;#8217;ve never heard anyone word it that way, but that&amp;amp;#8217;s exactly who those characters were. KATIE COURIC: I think we all saw a little bit of ourselves in them. GINNIFER GOODWIN: I wonder if the reason I kept being cast in those underdog roles was because I&amp;amp;#8217;m so optimistic and hopeful, and that bleeds through into all of my characters. So all of these girls who were oppressed in various ways always had this positive quality. A kind of fearlessness. Maybe optimism, and positivity, and a belief in life are just other ways of saying fearlessness. KATIE COURIC: Where did you kind of feel that you had moved on, or were expanding your horizons? GINNIFER GOODWIN: It&amp;amp;#8217;s been a sort of back and forth. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve done some smaller, independent films that did not necessarily come out. [Laughs.] I just shot a television pilot in which I feel like I got to play one of the first women I&amp;amp;#8217;ve played. Because I realized that other than maybe Walk the Line and A Single Man, I&amp;amp;#8217;ve really only played girls. KATIE COURIC: So is that exciting for you? GINNIFER GOODWIN: Yes. Because I&amp;amp;#8217;m at a point in my life in which I&amp;amp;#8217;m realizing I must refer to myself as a woman and not a girl. It&amp;amp;#8217;s exciting for me to also be moving into that new world of acting choices. KATIE COURIC: Your character in Something Borrowed gets involved with her best friend&amp;amp;#8217;s fianc&amp;amp;eacute; but still comes off&amp;amp;#8212;you rat, you&amp;amp;#8212;sympathetic! GINNIFER GOODWIN: Right. This is why I took the part. Because the choices that she makes are so off of my moral compass. KATIE COURIC: I&amp;amp;#8217;m happy to hear it was a stretch. GINNIFER GOODWIN: Yes! I promise it was a stretch. Honestly, what excited me about that role was the fact that when I read the script, and when I read the book, I was cheering for my character. I wanted her to get the guy. And I found it fascinating that the author was able to do that to me. KATIE COURIC: Glamour.com reader BBird asked, very politely, I might add, &amp;amp;#8220;Do you mind asking Ginnifer what she would do if she found herself in her character Rachel&amp;amp;#8217;s shoes&amp;amp;#8212;would she choose friendship or love?&amp;amp;#8221; GINNIFER GOODWIN: I&amp;amp;#8217;m loyal till the end of time to my girlfriends, so I can&amp;amp;#8217;t imagine opening myself up to a situation in which I would even have feelings for a friend&amp;amp;#8217;s fianc&amp;amp;eacute;. That being said, if I had a great love like Dex, whom I lost to a toxic friend like Darcy, it&amp;amp;#8217;s possible that I would confront those feelings head-on. But before taking action, I would bring those feelings to light to everyone. KATIE COURIC: That&amp;amp;#8217;s a good answer. Are you hoping that this film will establish you as a true leading lady, rather than&amp;amp;#8212;you know, an Ethel to Lucy? GINNIFER GOODWIN: That&amp;amp;#8217;s funny. Yes, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s a huge part of my having taken it. The opportunity to play a leading character, and one this meaty, was a great opportunity for me. KATIE COURIC: Is it a chick flick? GINNIFER GOODWIN: See, they&amp;amp;#8217;re gonna hate me for saying this, but yes. [Changes voice.] &amp;amp;#8220;No. Tell them that men 18 to 35 will love this when they&amp;amp;#8217;re dragged by their girlfriends&amp;amp;#8230;.&amp;amp;#8221; But I will say this: My fianc&amp;amp;eacute; hates this genre, and he thoroughly enjoyed the movie. KATIE COURIC: Let me ask you about Weight Watchers, because I&amp;amp;#8217;m on Weight Watchers right now. I mean, I kind of start every day on it and end every day off it. GINNIFER GOODWIN: [Laughter.] But that&amp;amp;#8217;s kind of the joy of Weight Watchers: &amp;amp;#8220;Oh, well, I guess I&amp;amp;#8217;ll just use my cheating points again.&amp;amp;#8221; KATIE COURIC: But a lot was made about the fact that you&amp;amp;#8217;ve done Weight Watchers. Do you sometimes just want to tell people to go screw? GINNIFER GOODWIN: Oh, I want to punch them all individually in the face. Like, systematically. KATIE COURIC: That&amp;amp;#8217;s too time-consuming, though. GINNIFER GOODWIN: Maybe my loyal girlfriends would work in shifts. KATIE COURIC: But how do you just say, &amp;amp;#8220;I know that I have to pay attention to this, because it&amp;amp;#8217;s part of my career,&amp;amp;#8221; but not let it rule you, and or dictate how you feel about yourself? GINNIFER GOODWIN: It&amp;amp;#8217;s difficult, but not in the way I expected it to be. I was afraid that my success would be dependent partially upon my body, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s true I can&amp;amp;#8217;t be 20 pounds heavier and play the leading lady. But I&amp;amp;#8217;m on the smaller end of an average-sized woman. I&amp;amp;#8217;m positive of this, mathematically. And I still get to play the lead, without having to be anorexic like so many of my peers. But where I find the pressure is the press. With my Weight Watchers story, I thought, You know what? I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to fess up to this. That in sharing that information, maybe I&amp;amp;#8217;d be giving permission to women who are afraid to join an actual program or go to meetings. KATIE COURIC: Or to say, &amp;amp;#8220;I need a little help with this. I need some guidelines and guidance. To make myself feel good.&amp;amp;#8221; GINNIFER GOODWIN: I think the noblest thing you can do is ask for help. And I mean that about therapy. I mean that about dieting. I was hoping to be a healthy example, because we can&amp;amp;#8217;t all look like all of these actresses and the models you see on the covers of magazine. And they aren&amp;amp;#8217;t doing it healthfully anyway, I promise you. And I could not believe the backlash. I could not believe that people twisted and turned that story&amp;amp;#8212;and accused me of having body image issues or an eating disorder. People who said horrible things about my mother for having taken me [at age nine] to, by the way, a professional program under the supervision of my doctor. And then someone explained to me that most people on the planet probably don&amp;amp;#8217;t know what Weight Watchers is, that it&amp;amp;#8217;s really just about good eating habits. KATIE COURIC: Is that when you decided, &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m just not going to read this garbage&amp;amp;#8221;? GINNIFER GOODWIN: One time I had too many Heinekens and I googled myself and realized that that was a very, very bad combination. One should not google oneself. My mother lets me know when I&amp;amp;#8217;m being followed by paparazzi. She&amp;amp;#8217;s like, &amp;amp;#8220;There&amp;amp;#8217;s a man who is outside your house, Ginny, and you need to be logging onto this website to see if you can find a pattern in when he follows you.&amp;amp;#8221; But otherwise, I can&amp;amp;#8217;t find any good reason to read my own press. KATIE COURIC: As a friend of mine said, it&amp;amp;#8217;s in the fine print of your fame contract. GINNIFER GOODWIN: I love that. KATIE COURIC: Suzanne O&amp;amp;#8217;Gorman asked on our Facebook page why Big Love ended after five seasons, and whether there&amp;amp;#8217;s a chance for a spin-off with the sister-wives. GINNIFER GOODWIN: Oh, believe me, we begged. None of us wanted that show to end. That was the best job I ever had, best job I will ever have. It ended purely because the creators and HBO had always been working together toward this particular ending. Also, HBO is famous for quitting while they&amp;amp;#8217;re on top. KATIE COURIC: I want to say congratulations on your engagement. You&amp;amp;#8217;re not really interested in sharing your fianc&amp;amp;eacute; with other women, are you? GINNIFER GOODWIN: I&amp;amp;#8217;m a one-man kind of girl, and I only want a man who&amp;amp;#8217;s a one-woman man. KATIE COURIC: He&amp;amp;#8217;s from Kentucky, right? GINNIFER GOODWIN: He is. He&amp;amp;#8217;s a good southern boy. KATIE COURIC: And you&amp;amp;#8217;re from Memphis. So is that something that attracted you to each other? GINNIFER GOODWIN: I had not dated a Southern man since high school. I do find that there&amp;amp;#8217;s something about the Southern values and the Southern foundation that are important to me, in a partner. KATIE COURIC: Are you going to get married in Memphis, and have a big Southern wedding? GINNIFER GOODWIN: I am going to get married in Memphis. [Laughs.] We have not made the choices that most people make by now&amp;amp;#8212;we&amp;amp;#8217;ve been talking about getting married in the fall. We&amp;amp;#8217;re kind of throwing things together, so it will not be a big, fancy Southern affair. KATIE COURIC: It&amp;amp;#8217;s not going to be like Steel Magnolias? GINNIFER GOODWIN: [Laughs.] It is not going to be like Steel Magnolias, with her shades of blush and bashful. KATIE COURIC: Now, I know that you feel passionately about animal rights. Where does that come from? GINNIFER GOODWIN: My grandmother lives on a farm. And growing up, I assumed that the animals that I was eating and the animals that I was wearing all came from farms like my grandmother&amp;amp;#8217;s. They all had names, they were all smothered with love, and they all lived to be very old. I had this idyllic image in my head of Granny&amp;amp;#8217;s farms all over America, all over the world. I never even cared to investigate, until Jeanne Tripplehorn made me read the book Skinny Bitch [about eating heathfully and humanely]. And I forced myself to watch all of these horrible videos online. I told myself that if I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t bear it, I knew I would have to make life changes. So I became a vegan, and I was one for years. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not vegan anymore, because of health issues, but I still make humane choices. And I got involved with the Humane Society through my cousin, who works on the anti-animal-fighting campaign. There are also groups that I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been getting involved with, like The Art of Elysium, which brings artists together with, for instance, hospitalized children, to find ways of using art to help them. I&amp;amp;#8217;m also an impassioned supporter of St. Jude Children&amp;amp;#8217;s Research Hospital in Memphis. KATIE COURIC: Are you excited about having kids yourself? GINNIFER GOODWIN: I&amp;amp;#8217;m desperate to have children. I am chomping at the bit. It&amp;amp;#8217;s a problem. I can&amp;amp;#8217;t imagine that I will not be a mother for much longer. KATIE COURIC: You&amp;amp;#8217;re playing Snow White in a new TV show. What can you tell us about it? GINNIFER GOODWIN: It&amp;amp;#8217;s called Once Upon a Time, and the only thing I think they&amp;amp;#8217;re letting us really say about it is that it&amp;amp;#8217;s about a woman, played by Jennifer Morrison, who comes to a small town in Maine where she learns that fairy tales might just be real. I can also tell you that I was obsessed with Lost. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve never smoked crack. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve never done most things, drug-wise. But I assume that the experience I had watching Lost is the experience that crack addicts have smoking crack. The script in which I was being offered the role of a Snow White was written by two of the most lauded writers from Lost. It plays with time, and how it overlaps and stuff, which I love&amp;amp;#8212;I&amp;amp;#8217;m a science geek. KATIE COURIC: That sounds interesting. GINNIFER GOODWIN: It&amp;amp;#8217;s bad-ass. [Laughs.]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2011/06/ginnifer-goodwin-tells-katie-couric-i-dont-have-to-be-anorexic-to-be-a-leading-lady/2>