Jennifer Garner has opened up about her journey to stardom and the challenges she faced during the early days of her acting career. During an appearance on Josh Smith's Great Chat Show podcast, the actress recalled from earning $150 a week as an understudy on Broadway whilst living on a woman's kitchen floor.
"It was such a surprise to me that I was understudying a play on Broadway," she shared. "I thought like this was a success, and if that was as far as it went I would have been like, 'I got to do this.' I got to watch Helen Mirren every night. And then from that, the fact that I was suddenly on set, it was like, 'I can't believe I'm here.' And so I've felt that way the whole time. The surprise has always been bigger than my actual dreams, in a way."
Jennifer continued: "I [recently] had like a real moment and I was talking about it last night with my friend Claudia. We had this moment where my first movie was Washington Square, and it was an Agnieszka Holland movie. It had Maggie Smith, Albert Finney and Judy Ivey, these giants of film and theater, which is what I really cared about. And it was this beautiful Henry James novel and I had this very small role.
© Deadline via Getty Images"I really didn't know what I was doing, but I went to the first ADR and I'd never done it before. They taught me how to do it. Claudia, my friend, was visiting me from London, and she was living on a boat on the Thames with her boyfriend at the time while I was living on the kitchen floor and we went to watch this.
"And there I am on an actual screen with Albert Finney and Maggie Smith, and we left that little ADR session and we went screaming, running down Broadway, jumping up and down. It makes me want to cry thinking about it. We were like, ‘oh my gosh, what happened? How am I in that? How is this happening?’ And we celebrated it in the most full-throated, full body way."
Entering her fifties
© GC ImagesJennifer also admitted she’s surprised to still be working in the industry in her fifties, having long believed her career would come to an end in her thirties. "I cannot believe I'm still working... Certainly when I was 30 nobody was thinking, 'Oh, when you're 53, almost 54, you're going to have a show come out that you are the lead of and that you are the hero of your own story,'" she shared.
The Last Thing He Told Me
© Courtesy of AppleThe actress is currently starring in season two of the Apple TV show The Last Thing He Told Me. Adapted from Laura Dave's sequel novel The First Time I Saw Him, the eight-parter picks up after the events of season one, which saw Hannah's husband Owen disappear for five years.
HELLO!'s TV Writer, Abbey Allen, spoke to us about the new season. "Apple TV+'s The Last Thing He Told Me has proved a hit with audiences ever since the first season landed on the streamer in 2023," she said. "Not only does it feature Jennifer Garner’s compelling performance as Hannah, but it’s also helmed by Hello Sunshine's Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter – the makers behind other hit shows like Daisy Jones & The Six and The Morning Show. Season two is currently the most-watched TV show on Apple TV+ and shows no signs of slowing down as it continues to grip viewers with its twisty drama."
