Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Anne Garner (born April 17, 1972) is an American actress. Born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, Garner studied theater at Denison University and began acting as an understudy for the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City. She made her screen debut in the television adaptation of Danielle Steel's romance novel '' Zoya'' in 1995. She had guest television appearances and supporting film roles, as well as a featured role on the teen drama television series '' Time of Your Life'' (1999–2000) and a supporting role in the war drama ''Pearl Harbor'' (2001).

Garner gained recognition for her leading performance as CIA officer Sydney Bristow in the ABC spy-action thriller television series ''Alias'' (2001–2006). For her work on the series, she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress in a Television Drama, in addition to four consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She received additional praise for her performance in the romantic comedy '' 13 Going on 30'' (2004), and went on to portray Elektra in the superhero films ''Daredevil'' (2003) and '' Elektra'' (2005). She continued to achieve commercial success with performances in the comedy-drama '' Juno'' (2007), and the romantic comedies '' Ghosts of Girlfriends Past'' (2009) and ''Valentine's Day'' (2010).

Garner had starring film roles in the fantasy-comedy '' The Invention of Lying'' (2009), the fantasy drama '' The Odd Life of Timothy Green'' (2012), and the biographic drama '' Dallas Buyers Club'' (2013), the latter of which earned her a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. She went on to star in the family comedy '' Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day'' (2014), the drama ''Miracles from Heaven'' (2016), the romantic comedy-drama ''Love, Simon'' (2018), the HBO comedy series ''Camping'' (2018), the action thriller ''Peppermint'' (2018) and action-comedy ''The Adam Project'' (2022). Garner has also produced and starred in the comedy ''Butter'' (2011) and the family adventure ''Yes Day'' (2021).

Garner works as an activist for early childhood education and is a board member of Save the Children USA. She is the co-founder and chief brand officer of the organic baby food company Once Upon a Farm. She is also an advocate for anti-paparazzi campaigns among children of celebrities.

Early life

Jennifer Anne Garner was born on April 17, 1972, in Houston, Texas, but moved to Charleston, West Virginia at age three. Her father, William John Garner, worked as a chemical engineer for Union Carbide; her mother, Patricia Ann English, was a homemaker and later an English teacher at a local college. She has two sisters. Garner has described herself as a typical middle child who sought to differentiate herself from her accomplished older sister. While Garner did not grow up in a politically active household, her father was "very conservative" and her mother "quietly blue". She attended a local United Methodist Church every Sunday and went to Vacation Bible School. As teenagers, she and her sisters were not allowed to wear makeup, paint their nails, pierce their ears, or dye their hair; she has joked that her family's "take on the world" was "practically Amish".

She attended George Washington High School in Charleston. In 1990, Garner enrolled at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where she changed her major from chemistry to theater and was a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. She spent the fall semester of 1993 studying at the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. During college summers, she worked summer stock theatre. In 1994, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theater performance.

Acting career

1990s

As a college student, Garner performed in summer stock theatre. In addition to performing, Garner helped sell tickets, build sets, and clean the venues. She worked at the Timber Lake Playhouse in Mount Carroll, Illinois, in 1992, the Barn Theatre in Augusta, Michigan, in 1993, and the Georgia Shakespeare Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1994. Garner moved to New York City in 1995. During her first year in the city, Garner earned $150 per week as an understudy for a Roundabout Theatre Company production of '' A Month in the Country'' and made her first on-screen appearance as Melissa Gilbert's daughter in the romance miniseries '' Zoya''. In 1996, she played an Amish woman in the television movie ''Harvest of Fire'' and a shopkeeper in the Western miniseries ''Dead Man's Walk''. She appeared in the independent short film ''In Harm's Way'' and made one-off appearances in the legal dramas ''Swift Justice'' and ''Law & Order''. Garner also supplemented her income by working as a hostess at a restaurant on the Upper West Side.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1997, Garner gained her first leading role in the television film '' Rose Hill'' and made her first feature film appearance in the period drama '' Washington Square''. She appeared in the comedy film '' Mr. Magoo'', the independent drama ''1999'' and Woody Allen's ''Deconstructing Harry'', though most of her performance was cut from the film. In 1998, Garner appeared in an episode of ''Fantasy Island'' and was cast as a series regular in the Fox drama '' Significant Others'', but Ken Tucker of ''Entertainment Weekly'' thought there was "no center" to the character as played by Garner. Fox canceled the series after airing three of six filmed episodes. Garner's most significant role of 1998 was in J. J. Abrams' college drama '' Felicity''. In 1999, Garner was cast as a series regular in another Fox drama, '' Time of Your Life'', but it was canceled midway through the first season. Also in 1999, she appeared in the miniseries '' Aftershock: Earthquake in New York'' and in two episodes of the action drama '' The Pretender''.

2000s

Garner played the girlfriend of Ashton Kutcher's character in the comedy '' Dude, Where's My Car?'' (2000). In 2001, she appeared briefly opposite her husband Foley in the drama '' Stealing Time'' and had a small role as a nurse in the war epic ''Pearl Harbor''. Also in 2001, Garner was cast as the star of the ABC spy thriller ''Alias''. The show's creator, J. J. Abrams, wrote the part of Sydney Bristow with Garner in mind. ''Alias'' aired for five seasons from 2001 to 2006; Garner's salary began at $40,000 per episode and rose to $150,000 per episode by the series' end. During the show's run, Garner won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress (with a further three Globe nominations), and received four nominations for the Emmy Award for Best Actress.

While ''Alias'' was airing, Garner continued to work in film intermittently. She had an "other-worldly" experience when Steven Spielberg called to offer her a role as a high-class call girl in '' Catch Me if You Can'' (2002). After seeing her in ''Alias'', Spielberg thought for sure "she would be the next superstar". She filmed her scene opposite Leonardo DiCaprio during a one-day shoot. Garner's first co-starring film role was in the action film ''Daredevil'' (2003), in which she played Elektra to Ben Affleck's Daredevil. The physicality required for the role was something Garner had discovered "an aptitude for" through her work on ''Alias''. Elvis Mitchell of ''The New York Times'' wrote that she "realizes Elektra more through movement than by way of her lumpy, obvious lines. She hasn't mastered the combat skill of tossing off bad material." While ''Daredevil'' received mixed reviews, it was a box office success. Also in 2003, she voiced herself in an episode of ''The Simpsons''.

Garner's first leading film role, in the romantic comedy '' 13 Going on 30'' (2004), was widely praised. She played a teenager who finds herself trapped in the body of a thirty-year-old. Garner chose Gary Winick to direct the film and they continued to look for other projects to do together until his death in 2011. Manohla Dargis of the ''Los Angeles Times'' found her to be "startling": "Whenever she's on screen you don't want to look anywhere else." Owen Gleiberman of ''Entertainment Weekly'' called it an "utterly beguiling" performance, writing, "You can pinpoint the moment in it when Garner becomes a star." Ann Hornaday of ''The Washington Post'' remarked: "Garner is clearly cut out to be America's next Sweetheart; she has the same magic mix of allure and accessibility that the job calls for." ''13 Going on 30'' grossed $96 million worldwide. Garner reprised the character of Elektra in the 2005 ''Daredevil'' spin-off ''Elektra''; it was a box office and critical failure. Claudia Puig of ''USA Today'' concluded that Garner "is far more appealing when she's playing charming and adorable, as she did so winningly in ''13 Going on 30''". Garner next starred in the romantic drama ''Catch and Release''. Although filmed in 2005 in between seasons of ''Alias'', it was not released until early 2007 and failed to recoup its production budget. Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone'' praised Garner's ability "to blend charm and gravity" but Peter Hartlaub of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' felt that, while her "natural beauty and likability are still assets, heseems occasionally challenged by what should be an easy role".

After a one-year break following the conclusion of ''Alias'', her wedding to Affleck, and the birth of her first child, Garner returned to work in 2007. Her supporting role in '' Juno'' as a woman desperate to adopt a child was described by Kyle Buchanan of ''New York Magazine'' as a turning point in her career: "She came into the movie a steely figure, and left it as the mother you'd give your own child to ... Writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman expertly deploy Garner's innate humanity as a trump card." Lisa Schwarzbaum of ''Entertainment Weekly'' said Garner had never "been lovelier or more affecting". Also that same year, she played an FBI investigator in the action thriller '' The Kingdom''. She was nursing her baby during filming in Arizona and was hospitalized on two occasions with heatstroke.

In late 2007 and early 2008, Garner played Roxanne to Kevin Kline's '' Cyrano de Bergerac'' at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway. In preparation for the role, Garner worked with vocal and movement coaches and took French lessons. Ben Brantley of ''The New York Times'' described her performance as "captivating": "Ms. Garner, I am pleased to report, makes Roxane a girl worth pining over ... hespeaks Anthony Burgess's peppery rhymed translation with unaffected sprightliness. If she's a tad stilted in the big tragic finale, her comic timing is impeccable." ''The New Yorker''s theater critic was impressed by her "feistiness" and "lightness of comic touch". The play was recorded before a live audience and aired on PBS in 2008. In 2007, Garner became a spokesperson of skin care brand Neutrogena

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