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Jennifer Garner Jennifer Anne Garner is an American actress
and film producer. Garner gained recognition on television for her performance as CIA officer
Sydney Bristow in the thriller drama series Alias, which aired on ABC for five seasons
from 2001 to 2006. For her work on the series, Garner won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors
Guild Award. While working on Alias, she gained minor roles
in movies such as Pearl Harbor (2001), and Catch Me if You Can (2002). Since then, Garner
has appeared in supporting as well as lead roles in projects including Daredevil (2003),
13 Going on 30 (2004), Elektra (2005), a spin-off of Daredevil, Juno (2007), The Invention of
Lying (2009), The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012), and Dallas Buyers Club (2013). Garner
is married to actor and director Ben Affleck, with whom she has three children.
Early life Garner was born in Houston, Texas. Her mother,
Patricia Ann (née English), was an English teacher from Oklahoma, and her father, William
John "Bill" Garner, worked as a chemical engineer. When she was four years old, her father's
job with Union Carbide relocated her family to Princeton, West Virginia, and then later
to Charleston, West Virginia, where Garner resided until her college years. She has credited
her older sister, Melissa Lynn Garner Wylie, who resides in Boston, Massachusetts, as a
source of inspiration to her. Her younger sister is Susannah Kay Garner Carpenter.
Garner's conservative upbringing included going to church every Sunday, not wearing
make-up or a bikini, and waiting at least until the age of 16 to be allowed to get her
ears pierced, which, she later joked, made her family "just a step away from being Amish."
She said: "I'd hate to say it was strict. It was just not condoned. I never felt hemmed
in." She began taking ballet lessons at the age of three and continued to dance throughout
her youth, but she did not envision herself becoming a classical ballerina. Garner attended
George Washington High School in Charleston and graduated in 1990. She holds a Bachelor
of Fine Arts degree in drama from Denison University, where she was initiated into the
sorority Pi Beta Phi. Garner did not plan on becoming an actress:
"I wanted to be a doctor, a librarian.... (Acting) wasn't possible to me. The more I
learned what there was to learn about this field, the more hungry I became for it. It
comes out of wanting to learn more, as opposed to 'I want to be a star.' I never felt that
way," she said. Career
Acting In 1994, Garner appeared in Atlanta productions
of two Shakespeare plays, The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream, by the
Georgia Shakespeare Company. In 1995, Garner started pursuing theater in
New York City and earned $150 a week as an understudy in the play A Month in the Country
for Roundabout Theatre Company. She was then cast in her first television role as part
of a made-for-television movie Zoya, based on the Danielle Steel novel. In the late 1990s,
she made brief appearances in individual episodes of Spin City and Law & Order while also securing
roles in two short-lived television series, Significant Others and Time of Your Life.
Garner made her feature film debut of the 21st century in the comedy Dude, Where's My
Car? opposite Ashton Kutcher, playing the girlfriend of Kutcher's character. In 2001,
she appeared as the supporting character of a nurse in the big-budget epic Pearl Harbor,
starring her future husband Ben Affleck. Later in 2001, J. J. Abrams, the producer
of Felicity, in which Garner had played a recurring role since 1998, approached Garner
to audition for the role of Sydney Bristow in his new spy drama Alias. Garner, who up
until then had mostly played weepy waifs, did not learn that she "might have to throw
a punch or kick" until the first few days of the audition. Told that she "throws like
such a girl" and with no background in martial arts or gymnastics, she enrolled in a month-long,
private Taekwondo class to prepare for the audition. Even as Garner was cast after several
auditions, Abrams revealed that he remained panicked with the thought that she might not
be able to pull off the role, especially as, on the first day of shooting, he was told
by Garner herself, "I don't think I can do this." Garner later commented, "I was such
a girlie-girl then. I didn't even know how to punch." While she performed many of the
action sequences during the series herself, the dangerous explosions and complex fights
were handled by her stunt double, Shauna Duggins. The first few episodes of season one of Alias,
which averaged about 10.2 million weekly viewers, earned Garner the award for "Best Actress
in a Television Series — Drama" at the 2002 Golden Globe Awards. Garner's salary
for the show began at $40,000 an episode and rose to $150,000 per episode by the series'
end. During the show's run, Garner received four consecutive Golden Globe Award for Best
Actress – Television Series Drama nominations as well as Emmy Award nominations for her
lead performance. She won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by
a Female Actor in a Drama Series in 2005. That same year, during the fourth season,
Garner directed the Alias episode "In Dreams", which aired in May. She received producer
credit during the series' final season. The series concluded in May 2006 after a shorter
fifth season that was abbreviated from 22 to 17 episodes due to Garner's pregnancy,
which was written into the season's storyline. After the initial success of Alias, Garner
made a big screen cameo in the Steven Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can in 2002; Spielberg
had seen her on the show and wanted her to play that small role. Her breakout film role
came when she played Ben Affleck's love interest as Elektra Natchios in the action movie Daredevil
(2003), an adaptation of the comic book. Garner stated that her training for Daredevil was
more gruesome than her work on Alias, and revealed that as she got hung up on wires
several times during fight sequences, Affleck became "in charge of reaching up and saving."
She was involved in a potentially serious accident on the set of Daredevil when, entangled
in wires with her arms stuck and unable to move while doing a flip, she came crashing
towards a wall "head-first with such velocity, that was about to smash head into the wall".
Recalling how she was rescued by Affleck, she said in 2003, "out of nowhere comes this
6 ft. 4 in. red devil who just kind of put his arms out and shouts: 'I've got her!' I'm
telling you, it was like, 'I've got my own superhero.'" While Daredevil got mixed reviews,
it was a box office hit. Garner starred in her first leading role in
13 Going on 30 (2004), a moderate commercial success. Reviewers praised her performance
as "radiant" and "effervescent without ever being cloying", and The Christian Science
Monitor commented that "while Garner is no Tom Hanks, she's consistently appealing".
Her second lead role saw her reprising the character of Elektra in the 2005 Daredevil
spin-off titled Elektra, a box office disaster that was panned by critics. The Boston Globe
stated, "Based on Garner's humorlessness, lack of vocal inflection, and generally bland
disposition, "the Way" she has yet to grasp seems to be that of acting," whereas USA Today
concluded that "Jennifer Garner... is far more appealing when she's playing charming
and adorable, as she did so winningly in 13 Going on 30.
Garner performed the Frank Loesser song "My Heart Is So Full of You" on the 2006 charity
album Unexpected Dreams – Songs From the Stars. She appeared in the films Catch and
Release (2006) and The Kingdom (2007) alongside Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman and Ashraf Barhom.
She then appeared in the Jason Reitman-directed comedy/drama feature Juno, which became a
sleeper box office hit, grossing over $230 million from a production budget of $7.5 million.
After that film's premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, Entertainment Weekly declared
Garner's work the best female supporting performance of the festival, saying, "The star of Alias
and The Kingdom does no butt-kicking in this sweet comedy. Instead, as a young wife desperately
hoping to adopt, she's funny, a bit tough, and unbelievably touching."
Garner made her Broadway debut on November 1, 2007, playing Roxanne in Cyrano de Bergerac
alongside Kevin Kline at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway. The show was originally
set to run until December 23, 2007, but it was extended through January 6, 2008 due to
the Broadway stagehand strike in late 2007. In 2010, Garner appeared in the ensemble romantic
comedy Valentine's Day, directed by Garry Marshall, which also starred Ashton Kutcher,
Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts, and former Alias co-star Bradley
Cooper, Patrick Dempsey among others. She portrayed the girlfriend of Dempsey's character.
The film was a commercial success, grossing over $215 million worldwide. In 2011, she
starred in the 2011 remake of Arthur. In that same year, Garner was invited to join the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2012, Garner appeared in the films The
Odd Life of Timothy Green and Butter. Garner appeared in the 2013 film Dallas Buyers
Club, reuniting with Matthew McConaughey, which received positive reviews. On April
24, 2013 Garner started filming Summit and OddLot Entertainment's dramedy Draft Day in
New York and Cleveland, Ohio, which also stars Kevin Costner. The film is directed and produced
by Ivan Reitman. In April 2013, Garner joined Steve Carell in the Disney adaption of the
popular children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
In May 2013, Garner joined the cast of the movie Imagine alongside Al Pacino, Annette
Bening, Bobby Cannavale and Michael Caine. Fashion
As of July 17, 2013, Garner is the first and currently only celebrity spokesperson of Max
Mara. Starting in September, the campaign will appear in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle,
W, InStyle, The New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune.
Producer In 2006, Garner founded a production company
called Vandalia Films. The first film she produced was Butter, released in American
theaters in 2012. Activities
Garner is currently an ambassador for Save the Children, advocating for early education.
In August 2013, Garner testified alongside Halle Berry before the Assembly Judiciary
Committee in support of a bill that would protect celebrities' children from harassment
by photographers. The bill passed in September. Personal life
Marriages and family On October 19, 2000, Garner married actor
Scott Foley, whom she had met on the set of Felicity in 1998. After separating from Foley
in March 2003, Garner filed for divorce in May 2003, citing irreconcilable differences,
and the two were officially divorced on March 30, 2004. Following her separation, Garner
dated her Alias co-star Michael Vartan from August 2003 to March 2004.
Sometime in early to mid-2004, Garner started dating her Daredevil co-star Ben Affleck and
the two made their first public appearance as a couple by attending the Boston Red Sox's
opening World Series games in October 2004. Since her relationship with Affleck, first
as girlfriend and then as wife, Garner has been a tabloid staple. "Ben taught me that
you cannot read that stuff, that it's poison," she said in 2009. On Garner's 33rd birthday,
Affleck proposed to her with a 4.5 carats (900 mg) diamond ring from Harry Winston.
Affleck married Garner, who was four months pregnant at the time, on June 29, 2005 in
a private ceremony in the Caribbean, officiated by family friend and Garner's Alias co-star,
Victor Garber, at the Parrot Cay resort on the Turks and Caicos Islands. The couple have
three children: daughters Violet Anne Affleck (born December 1, 2005) and Seraphina Rose
Elizabeth Affleck (born January 6, 2009), and son Samuel Garner Affleck (born February
27, 2012). Issue with stalking
Garner had been stalked since 2002 by a man, Steven Burky, who was eventually arrested
in December 2009, after violating a 2008 restraining order. Burky was charged with two counts of
stalking, to which he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; in March 2010, he was
ruled insane and sent to the California state mental hospital with a court order to stay
away from the Affleck family for 10 years if released from the hospital.
In the media In 2002, Garner topped the Maxim Hot 100 list.
In December 2007, Garner was named The Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail's 2007 West Virginian
of the Year "for her dedication, work ethic and unique role as role model and ambassador
for West Virginia." People named her one of 2012 Most Beautiful at Every Age.
Filmography Television