Jennifer Garner Once Shared She’d Only Do a Ben Affleck Movie Under 1 Condition
Jennifer Garner revealed once that she wasn’t sure she wanted to do a movie that her ex-husband, Ben Affleck, was directing. However, she’d be more receptive to the idea if certain requirements were met.
What it would take for Jennifer Garner to appear in a Ben Affleck movie
Garner and Affleck aren’t strangers to working with each other. They did Pearl Harbor and Daredevil together. But after they became a couple, Affleck didn’t think it was a good idea to collaborate on-screen again. Especially after what he’d already experienced with ex Jennifer Lopez, where their relationship overshadowed Gigli.
“I would be profoundly lucky to work with her. But something tells me that people don’t want to see real-life couples together at the movies,” Affleck said in a 2010 interview with Us Weekly.
However, Affleck didn’t seem as resistant to the concept of directing Garner in a movie. But Garner wasn’t convinced her role was to be in an Affleck feature. She had her doubts about working with her partner while they were married.
“That’s not really a place for me, in his films. He needs to be in his films, because they consume a year and a half, two years of his life, and goodness knows we don’t need to be in his films together,” Garner once told Vulture.
Still, she didn’t rule out the possibility, either. Garner saw herself being directed by her ex-husband under specific conditions.
“Someday, down the road, you know, maybe there will be something that will make sense for me, but I would have to be unrecognizable,” she said. “It doesn’t really make sense otherwise. And the way that he works is so intense, when he works like that, I need to be home. Our kids are really little. We’ve had an infant every time he’s directed, and we have one now, so yeah, it certainly is not something we’re dying to do. So I’m not in Argo. I am Argo’s biggest fan, and I could sit here and do twice as long of an interview about Argo as I can about Butter, because I am so happy for him and what he’s poured into this movie. But you won’t see me in it.”
Although Garner and Affleck weren’t able to make their marriage work, they’ve remained close friends. So much so that Garner was said to be in talks to finally appear in an Affleck movie. The film in question was titled Animals, a thriller that’s expected to hit Netflix. The Hollywood Reporter asserted that Affleck would also be teaming up with best friend Matt Damon on the project, who helped him produce Animals. If Garner was cast in the film, she would play the wife of a politician who’s roped into a kidnapping case.
Why Jennifer Garner doesn’t want to direct her own movies
Affleck became a director because of his critically panned film Gigli and hasn’t looked back since. However, Garner didn’t have the same desire or aptitude for filmmaking as her ex did.
“First of all, I like to be told [what to do]. I like that collaboration. I like someone coming up with that idea. I see my husband do it, and you have to be good at it, and he is really good at it! And I just wouldn’t be. I don’t know what he knows,” Garner said.
However, Garner has been doing work behind-the-scenes as a producer. Garner has helped develop several projects over the years, including Yes Day, Family Switch, and The Last Thing He Told Me. She credited Reese Witherspoon for motivating her to tell more stories in Hollywood.
“Honestly, Reese is behind that, she has really pushed me. She said to me a few years ago, ‘Nobody is sitting around thinking, what can I shoot in L.A. that’s going to have a 50-year-old woman in it?’ She’s like, ‘You’ve got to create your own stuff,’” she once told The Hollywood Reporter.
