Jennifer Michelle Goodwin (born May 22, 1978), better known as Ginnifer Goodwin, is an American actress. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Her sister, Melissa, is a stop-motion animator for shows like Robot Chicken.
She's a Shakespearean actress, having studied in Stratford-on-Avon with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her first television roles were on Law & Order and Ed, before moving on to film. She played roles in films like Mona Lisa Smile, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, Walk the Line, and Birds of America. She also played a leading role as Margene Heffman on the HBO series Big Love, He's Just Not That into You, Ramona and Beezus, and recurring voice roles on Robot Chicken.
In 2011, Goodwin was cast as Snow White on the ABC television show Once Upon a Time. The fall of that year, she started dating her Once... co-star and the actor playing her character's husband, Josh Dallas, and the two have a son. She also voices Judy Hopps in Zootopia and its spin-off Zootopia+. Following the finale of Once Upon a Time, she was cast as Beth Ann Stanton in Why Women Kill. She's won multiple People's Choice Awards over her career.
Tropes associated with Ginnifer Goodwin and her work:
- Awesome, Dear Boy: She says that she signed on to Once Upon a Time because it was the type of show she knew she'd be addicted to. Additionally Snow White was her favourite Disney Princess.
- Boyish Short Hair: She had long hair early in her career but opted to keep it short for years, claiming she finds long hair too difficult to manage. She did however grow it out in 2018.
- Casting Gag: In both Something Borrowed and Once Upon a Time she's had an affair with a married man. And the wife is blonde in both too! And the man's name starts with a D.
- Contractual Purity: She says that "nudity is for my boyfriend or my doctor."
- Hide Your Pregnancy: Twice in Once Upon a Time.
- In Season 3 she wore lots of loose clothes during the Neverland arc and was shot mainly from the chest up. They wrote the pregnancy in after a mid-season Time Skip but had to resort to the old tricks in the finale (which features time travel). It's obvious when they switch back and forth from archive footage to newer stuff, because Snow White's face is much fuller.
- In the second half of Season 5 the pregnancy is hidden with big coats (as Emilie de Ravin was also pregnant and hers was written in) and Snow gets written out for a few episodes.
- Hollywood Hype Machine: In the 2000s she got a minor push, headlining a few romantic comedies and getting plenty of magazine covers. Her films did well but she didn't do another one in between Something Borrowed and Zootopia - which is a five year gap. However, she was chosen to headline Once Upon a Time, though she's slowed down since becoming a mother.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Judy Hopps in Zootopia looks a lot like her, despite being a bunny.
- Playing Against Type: She plays Johnny Cash's jealous first wife in Walk the Line.
- Promoted Fanboy: She has said that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was her favourite Disney film as a child. Other cast members have said just how much like Snow White she is in real life too.
- Romance on the Set: She and Josh Dallas fell in love and married, just like their characters.
- Separated-at-Birth Casting: As has been widely publicised, she and Jennifer Morrison have frequently been mistaken for each other so many times. So they were a perfect fit to play mother and daughter in Once Upon a Time. She also bears an uncanny resemblance to Bailee Madison, who plays her character's younger self.
- Stage Names: Her real name is Jennifer but 'Ginnifer' is how she pronounced it with her original accent.
- Star-Making Role: Big Love for sure.
- Typecasting: As a wholesome Girl Next Door type. She plays with this in Once Upon a Time as her Storybrooke persona is this, but Snow White is actually a Lady of War. Zootopia is something of a merger between the two, where her character is a The Pollyanna Plucky Girl.
- What Could Have Been: She replaced Hilary Swank as Rachel in Something Borrowed.
