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The Essentials With Jennifer Morrison: Book Clubs, Nantucket and 10 Minutes of Yoga

The Five-Star Weekend director shares her current favorites, from Elin Hilderbrand and Tana French to Nantucket coffee runs, Symbiome skincare and the workout routine that keeps long shoot days manageable.

Reading isn’t just a source of escapism for Jennifer Morrison. It also informs much of her work, whether acting onscreen in shows like House and Once Upon a Time, or spearheading a project behind the camera as a director and the founder of production company Apartment 3C. “I rely on reading quite a bit for my process,” Morrison tells Observer. “Sometimes it crosses over in a major way, like finding things that I’ve optioned for my company, but when I’m playing a character, I often read memoirs that touch on the kind of life the character might live to sort of build memories and pull ideas.”

Morrison hosts a book club-inspired podcast, The Bookshelf, and her latest credit, directing four episodes of the just-released Peacock series, The Five-Star Weekend, also started with a book.

“I had read the book, and I was totally gripped by the concept of putting together women from different times in your life,” Morrison says of the Elin Hilderbrand novel on which the series is based. Set on the scenic island of Nantucket, The Five-Star Weekend follows food blogger Hollis Shaw (played by Jennifer Garner), as she navigates the sudden loss of her husband by hosting a girls’ weekend with four of her closest friends from different stages in her life: Chloë Sevigny as childhood friend Tatum, Regina Hall as college roommate Dru-Ann, D’Arcy Carden as mom-friend Brooke, and Gemma Chan as new confidant Gigi. “When I heard rumors that there was going to be a show made, I asked my agent to keep an eye on it, and she definitely chased it once it was happening because so many people wanted to be a part of it,” says Morrison.

Scheduling proved to be the most difficult aspect for Morrison, who met for her first table read in........

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