Jennifer Garner Intentionally Avoided Playing Mothers in Films After Having Children
Jennifer Garner once shared that her children with Ben Affleck affected her career in many ways. After starting a family, she became a little reluctant in portraying full-time parents on the big screen.
Jennifer Garner didn’t want to play mothers after having children
Garner has played a variety of characters in her career. But seeing the action star portray a mother on-screen was once admittedly a rare sighting. She broke this pattern with films like The Odd Life of Timothy Green, which was a small drama she co-starred with Joel Edgerton. In an interview with Reuters, Garner revealed that her decision to avoid playing mothers in movies wasn’t by accident.
“That was kind of on purpose. I was nervous about merging the two – the real part of me and the work part of me,” she said.
She was concerned that she’d end up being categorized a certain way if she chose to do those kinds of film roles. But Timothy Green was so captivating to the actor that she decided it was worth the risk.
“The last thing you want to do is play into that or exacerbate that in any way. But this role, I campaigned for it. I really went after it. This role was so right on so many levels – the messiness [of parenting], the humiliation and how a kid can humble you. How you work so hard toward some imaginary goal in your mind and then realize it’s out of synch with what’s best for the child,” she said.
‘The Odd Life of Timothy Green’ might have ‘pushed’ Jennifer Garner towards having a third child
Garner and Affleck gave birth to their third child soon after the Alias alum wrapped filming on Timothy Green. This was a bit unexpected for Garner, who thought for sure she’d be adding another girl to the family.
“I’m shocked that I had a boy. We had not thought in our minds that we would have a boy. I feel like he is a little bit magic. But he’s only five months and I’m so in baby lust right now, that I feel like he has to be magic,” Garner said.
She also theorized that it was the movie itself that played a part in having a third child.
“We were in discussions. We could have stopped it, but this [film] might have pushed us over the edge to have another. It’s so life affirming, this movie. It really made me feel like, Gosh, if I could go through this again, why wouldn’t I? And Ben is just really agreeable,” she said.
Jennifer Garner was faced with force retirement after having three kids
Garner confided that having three children was harder than she predicted it’d be. She thought the process would’ve been easier by already having raised two before.
“I was just gobsmacked by the amount of mothering that was required,” she said on the Jess Cagle Show. “And I didn’t know how I was ever going to set foot in the world.”
This would later pose a problem for her film career as well. When the opportunity for Dallas Buyer’s Club arrived, Garner admitted that she wavered on doing the movie.
“I would have to decide, ‘No I actually do love this job,’” she told Variety about picking film roles after having children.
Eventually, her agent at Patrick Whitesell handed Garner an ultimatum.
“Patrick said, ‘Either this is the telephone call about you doing Dallas Buyers Club and how we’re going to make that happen, or it’s a telephone call about your retirement,’” she remembered. “That was a real moment of decision and clarity and I loved him for it because it forced me to say, ‘OK, I am not ready to be home all the time.’”
