Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner (born April 17, 1972, Houston, Texas, U.S.) is an American actress known for her starring role as CIA double agent Sydney Bristow on the television series Alias (2001–06) as well as for often playing mothers and action heroes. Her standout performances from film include 13 Going on 30 (2004), Juno (2007), and Dallas Buyers Club (2013).

Early life and education

Garner was born in Houston, Texas, to William John Garner, a chemical engineer at Union Carbide, and Patricia Ann English, an English teacher. The family, which includes Garner’s elder sister, Melissa, and younger sister, Susannah, moved to Charleston, West Virginia, when Jennifer was young. After graduating from George Washington High School in Charleston, Garner attended Denison University in Granville, Ohio. She started as a chemistry major but switched to theater, and, while she was in college, she also attended the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. After graduating in 1994, Garner worked in summer stock theater.

Early roles and marriage to Scott Foley

In 1995 Garner moved to New York City and worked as a restaurant hostess to earn income while pursuing acting jobs. She was an understudy at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of A Month in the Country and had her first on-screen appearance in the 1995 TV movie adaptation of the Danielle Steel novel Zoya. The following year Garner made guest appearances on the TV series Spin City and Law & Order.

After moving to Los Angeles, Garner began to land various parts in movies and television shows. Her first lead role was in 1997 playing Mary Rose Clayborne in Rose Hill, a TV movie based on Julie Garwood’s Western novel For the Roses. Shortly after Garner made her first feature film appearances in the drama Washington Square and the comedy Mr. Magoo (both 1997). She was cast in 1998 on the TV series Significant Others and in 1999 on the Party of Five spin-off, Time of Your Life, but both shows were canceled after a few episodes. Garner had a guest appearance in 1998 on J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves’s hit television series Felicity. She met actor Scott Foley on set and married him in 2000. They appeared together in the film Rennie’s Landing (2001). Garner also appeared in the Ashton Kutcher-led comedy Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000) and the Ben Affleck World War II epic Pearl Harbor (2001).

Alias

Garner’s big break, however, came in 2001 when Abrams cast her as Sydney Bristow in the action thriller TV series Alias. The show was critically acclaimed, and Garner won a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a television drama in 2002. Although Alias never had a large audience, it aired for five seasons, ending in 2006.

Roles from the 2000s and marriage to Ben Affleck

While starring on Alias, Garner appeared in a number of feature films, including playing an escort and model in a memorable scene from Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can in 2002. She starred opposite Affleck in the 2003 comic book hero film Daredevil, in which she played Elektra. Her first starring role came in 2004 with the romantic comedy 13 Going on 30. The film was a commercial success, and Garner received rave reviews for her performance. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly said: “You can pinpoint the moment in it when Garner becomes a star.” In 2005 she reprised her role as Elektra in the film of the same name, but the blockbuster was widely panned by critics and did not perform well at the box office. Meanwhile, Garner divorced Foley in 2004 and eloped with Affleck the following year. Their first child, Violet, was born in 2005, and the couple had two other children, Seraphina (2009) and Samuel (2012).

Garner continued to appear in feature films after Alias, including the romantic comedy Catch and Release (2006). In 2007 she received high praise for playing a woman wanting to adopt a baby in the critically acclaimed film Juno. Garner then returned to her theater roots, appearing on Broadway in the Richard Rodgers Theatre’s production (2007–08) of Cyrano de Bergerac, for which she received positive reviews for her performance as Roxane opposite Kevin Kline as Cyrano. More romantic comedies followed, including A Christmas Carol-inspired Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), starring Matthew McConaughey; and The Invention of Lying (2009), written and directed by Ricky Gervais.

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Roles from the 2010s and divorce from Affleck

Garner’s roles from the 2010s include playing an elementary school teacher in the Garry Marshall-directed romantic comedy Valentine’s Day (2010), a competitive butter sculptor in the farce Butter (2011), and the adoptive mother of a child seemingly sprung from the garden in the Disney movie The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012). She was praised in 2013 for her performance as a doctor who treats AIDS patients in the critically acclaimed film Dallas Buyers Club, starring McConaughey. She then appeared alongside Kevin Costner in Draft Day (2014); Steve Carell in the Disney movie adaptation of the popular children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014); and Al Pacino in Danny Collins (2015). In 2015 Garner announced her plans to divorce Affleck. Soon after, reports in tabloids and celebrity websites alleged that Affleck had had an affair with the family nanny. Affleck denied the claims, and Garner told Vanity Fair in 2016 that they had been separated months before that relationship began. She, nonetheless, had to withstand months of media speculation about the cause of the dissolution of their marriage. The divorce was finalized in 2018.

Garner finished the decade playing the mother of a young girl who is miraculously healed from an incurable disease in the Christian-themed drama Miracles from Heaven (2016), the wife of a lawyer (played by Bryan Cranston) who disappears in Wakefield (2016), and a mother seeking revenge in Peppermint (2018). She starred in the HBO series Camping in 2018, a U.S. adaptation of a British series with the same name. The show, however, received generally poor reviews and was canceled after one season.

Roles from the 2020s

In 2021 Garner starred in the Netflix family comedy Yes Day, and in 2022 she appeared in the science-fiction film The Adam Project. Her roles from 2023 include the love interest on the revival of the Starz cult comedy Party Down; Hannah Hall in the series The Last Thing He Told Me, based on the best-selling mystery novel by Laura Dave; and a mom who switches places with her daughter in the Freaky Friday-inspired Family Switch. That same year she announced that she will reprise her role as Elektra in the Marvel Comics film Deadpool 3, scheduled for release in 2024.