Truthfully,
I had never really seen Jennifer Garner in her popular series ALIAS.
Yes, I had heard all the positive reviews and all the love
that folks had for the show. But
I tend to stay away from television aside from a couple cool shows. But don’t get me wrong, I did catch Jennifer in the
phenomenal DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? Okay, maybe the movie was a bit lame but I kind of dug it and
I liked her in it. But
with all that said, Colombia Pictures, CATCH AND RELEASE is the
first time I’ve really gotten to see her work. And she is great.
She
gives the character of Gray Wheeler a strong believability factor
and she is charming as hell.
So
when she stopped by the Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica, California, I didn’t expect anything less than what I got. She truly is charming, beautiful and incredibly sweet. She
really does light up the room and holds her own with a room full of
journalists without having to resort to being the diva. She talked about ALIAS and how terrific the experience was,
and she also spoke highly of her CATCH AND RELEASE director and
co-stars. And most
importantly, she showed her softer side with talk about her role of
motherhood, which is her most important role to date.
After this, I might just have to check out ALIAS on DVD at
some point. If she’s
this charming in person, I can imagine how great she is on the show.
Jennifer
Garner
One
of the things that your director [Susannah Grant] talks about was
this ‘movie interruptus’, the idea that this movie had to wait
such a long time to get released, and part of it was your
commitments to other things, ALIAS, family, life.
How do you approach sort of having this movie caught in this
suspended for so long? Does
it make any difference?
I
hope not, I think it’s still a great story.
I don’t think it matters when it comes out.
It was never certainly for a lack of anyone’s enthusiasm.
I think it was because of certainly my enthusiasm that I
wanted them to wait because I knew if it had come out when we first
talked about it last April, they wanted it to open the last week
I’d be shooting ALIAS, which couldn’t be moved because of our
air date, which was so emotional for me.
Even talking about it in the meeting when they first started
talking about it, I said well, it was my last.., and I was ‘sob,
sob’ and I was in hysteria, and I had a 2-month old baby, by then
she was three and a half, four-months old.
I
just knew… and I was pulled to the brink by just going to work at
all, which at ALIAS, they were being very kind to me, I was working
8 hour days, I was with her most of the time, she was at set with
me. But traveling with
her when she was that new, and I was a first time mom, the whole
thing just kind of overwhelmed me and I didn’t want to short
shrift Alias and I didn’t want to short shrift the movie, so
that’s kind of how my part of the decision was made.
Now I’m just so happy because I can be here and feel good,
I had a good night sleep, talk to all of your guys.
Why
this particular character, and why this particular story, did it
mean something to you personally when you read the script?
There
are always hooks that kind of draw you in, but Susannah Grant’s
writing is so beautiful, the first time I read it I knew I had to do
it. And she asked me to
do, I was beyond excited, and something happened where we had to
wait a year, and I just said, I can’t let anyone else play this
role, its my role, please wait for me, and she said ok, and they
waited for me, so this has been interruptus a couple of times.
So the writing itself is just so beautiful and speakable and
playable and real. It’s
just something that you don’t get to do.
You
either are doing a comedy, where you’re really pushing for the
comedy in finding the funny or you’re doing drama, where
everything is really maudlin. And
this is the balance that kind of follows our own life patterns, just
felt to me like something that was true.
And the things that attracted me to the character were
things… well, for example that she had seen her fiancé as this
prince on a white horse, and the idea of black and white and that
she only saw good in him, even when he at some point tried to say
hey, there is something I need to talk to you about, she didn’t
want to hear it, she wanted to live in her fantasy, and in going
through the hardest thing in her life, she grew up, and she was able
to learn about the Gray, which p.s. its her name, so I’ll give you
a little hint. [Laughter]
Very
subtle.
Yes.
What
interested me about the character, is that she’s going through the
processes of grieving, stages of grieving, and of healing, did that
strike you when you read the script?
Yes,
particularly because you can go through, you can lose someone, you
can lose your idea of someone, which I think was as hard for her as
losing Grady himself was losing her idea of Grady, so she had to
grieve doubly, you know, not just for the loss of her wedding.
In the beginning of the movie, her wedding flower were being
brought up to the house and she is standing there at his funeral
looking and just imagining herself in that dress, and all the things
that were supposed to be happening that day, and just on girl level
alone, and then the fact that the man himself, her partner, her best
friend, her boyfriend of forever the only way she knows life, that
he’s gone.
And
then her idea of who he was, that he was this straight forward,
straight and arrow guy, who only loved her and never cheated on her,
that that has to go away too. But
you can go through all of that and with the help of friends, and
with your own introspection, or whatever, growing, you can come out
better and stronger, and that is something that interested me very
much.
How
hard was it for you to leave Sydney behind, and what challenges can
you define to find a female character as strong and as complicated
and as diverse as she?
Well,
I was ready, and you know, five years or something, I think we all
felt exactly the way we were supposed to feel at the end of ALIAS,
we were all heartbroken, you’ve never seen a closer cast or group
of crew. It really was
the best place to work, and we all say that now when we see each
other. So there was that
loss, but at the same time, we really felt like we had told the
story. We didn’t know
what else there was to tell, we felt that we had done it justice, so
it wasn’t like oh gosh, we wish this was going on another year.
But I still get emotional about it.
JJ [Abrams] just gave all us for Christmas this huge leather
bound book of pictures starting with the pilot.
I can hardly even talk about it.
I can’t look at it without crying because of the crew…
and I miss them, I talk to them a lot.
Do
you keep any wigs or costumes?
No,
I’m not… I just don’t care about that stuff, so I don’t know
where all those wigs are, I mean there are hundreds of thousands of
dollars of wigs that only fit my head, that are floating around Los
Angeles, but no, I’m sure they’re in a Disney warehouse
somewhere.
Find
some character that you can give us an account of?
Oh,
well, that’s cuz forgot… I got interested in my own story.
Will I find another character?
Yeah, the lucky thing is that there are great writers out
there, and its just finding the character that fits you and then you
have to get the job and you know there are a lot of things that has
to happen. But this was
definitely a character that I felt as strongly as I felt about
Sydney.
Is
this a female sensibility this film, and I want to background that
with the idea that in classic Hollywood movie in the golden era, all
the women’s directors were gay men, like George Cukor, and they
were famous for having understanding how women talk, how they feel
like, how they dress, do you think that there is that sensibility
now with people like Susannah Grant?
Yeah,
not just with Susannah, I mean JJ certainly isn’t gay, but he can
write women like nobody’s business.
I mean, there are just people who get a female vibe, and
Susannah without a doubt, that was one of the things I loved about
making this movie, we just had girl heaven, there was Jenno Topping,
this wonderful producer who was smart and to the point and no
bullshit and then there’s Susannah who is this incredible writer
who in the middle of the scene if it wasn’t working, you can kind
of say, well I feel like I should be saying Susannah is this, what
I’m trying to get across is this, and she says, oh well, you’re
right, let me just take a minute.
Literally,
you’d think that she’s gone to the bathroom or something and
she’d come back and have reworded it in such a way that it was all
clear and there, so that’s kind of magical to have somebody who
has that ability, right there, everyday, all the time.
And just her warmth and kind of her calmness and her
stillness, I mean normally sets at some point there’s a blowup,
like the director would be like, ‘c’mon guys we gotta go’,
that never happened with her, it could not have been more just Zen
and chill, I’m sure you got from talking to her.
She’s very [makes a sound representing centeredness]
[Laughter]
As
the girl in the cast of mostly guys, did your relationship with your
cast members mirror what you saw on screen, Gray and roommates?
Umm,
there’s nothing better than being a girl in the middle of a group
of guys, you know what I mean, it’s true.
And for women, as hard as it is because there are so many
more men’s roles than there are women’s, typically that’s the
way it is, once you get there, you have this big group of guys to
play with, and they treat you as one of them, and so I loved it, and
did my relationship with the cast members mirror the ones with the
characters, no not really, its hard to think that because there was
romance, intrigue and tension, and there was none of that certainly,
and with banter and friendship, and them treating me like a dude,
yes and that was heaven.
Although
I have to say my favorite, well, Kevin Smith is so great, but my
other favorite, favorite thing about the movie was Juliette Lewis,
who I think…She is a genius or what, she’s so funny.
And the first day of rehearsal, she came and she was like, I
can’t do this, this doesn’t make sense to me, I don’t think I
should be doing this, I can’t do this, and she would start to
talk, and I would be like you’re a genius, and I think I love you.
[Laughter]
What
would determine the kind of work that you would be doing, and how
much do you weigh the validity of the project to the fact that
you’re mom now?
The
validity of the project? Well,
I mean, it’ll determine what I do in that just timing-wise, I
don’t think I could do two huge things back to back anymore.
I couldn’t do a single lead on a one-hour drama anymore.
So just on a very practical level and I have to love
something a lot to be willing to not be with my little girl
everyday. I will have
had 6 months straight with her before I go back to work and its
heaven on earth. But
it’s great because I have it just so good right now, I’m afraid
if I even tell you, it’ll get screwed up.
Because I’m home with her, and I get filled up with her,
and I’m definitely the primary caregiver all the time, but I do
have enough meetings with my production company that I find really
fun and fascinating, and I use my mind in a different way that I do
get out of the house.
What
sort of surprise have you found out about motherhood?
I
thought it would be easier, I thought the pull from her would not be
as huge as it is, I thought it would be easier for me to work, that
I’d be like oh its fine, she’s here, she’s happy, and that
actually isn’t the case. She
is fine; I’m the one who is a wreck if I don’t get to be with
her.
How
are you staying so well-adjusted then?
She
is right now, we have four teeth come in at once, that was a rough
month, she’s a pretty good sleeper, you know, so if you crash out
at 9, it’s not so bad.
In
terms of family, how difficult was it doing THE KINGDOM off shore?
I
was here, I was in Arizona.
So
you didn’t have to go over to the Middle East.
No,
they did go, but I wasn’t in that scene, so I didn’t go.
Do
you feel that at this point in your life, you have it all; you have
a great career, your movies… Or do you just appreciate every
moment?
I
have those moments in the middle of the night of course; I don’t
think I’d be human if I didn’t.
But I really try to just to exist in it and to be… feel how
happy I am, and just enjoy it. I
mean, life is always going to have hard spots, ups and downs,
whatever, so what’s the point if you’re in one of those spots
where there’s a balance and happiness and joy and health, and if
you don’t at least appreciate it and take advantage of it.
That
was kind of our thing on ALIAS, when things would get really tough,
as they do on any series, we would always say to each other, lets
just appreciate this now, because when its over, we’re going to
look back and say oh remember how great it was to all be together,
and at least if we just know that we’re appreciating it while its
happening we won’t feel like it was wasted, even though we can
think it sucks today at the same time, and I kinda …I mean, my
life doesn’t suck today at the same time… but I mean in general
that kind of my attitude, just love it.
Who
are you playing in THE KINGDOM?
I
play Janet Mayes, she is FBI agent, and she’s one of four,
there’s Chris Cooper, Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman and myself, and
it’s so much fun to be with those three guys.
We’re going to Saudi Arabia to investigate a terrorist
attack against a western civilization within the kingdom.
Some
actors like working with certain directors quite often.
Greg Grunberg loves to work with JJ, have you been contacted
at all to work with JJ again in the near future, maybe in Star Trek
or anything?
[Laughter]
JJ’s contacted by me everyday, saying what are we doing,
what are we doing next, now what do you want to do, its me, how are
you, what are you doing, I’m outside his house, with coffee in the
morning, hi JJ, its me. Um
no, I don’t think I have been contacted by JJ yet, but you know
he’s one of those great guys that you know life is long, and you
know he has a core group of actors… how great was Keri Russell in
Mission [Impossible] 3, I hope that someday he and I will get to do
something together again, because anybody who works with him, he’s
just their favorite favorite.
Your
character is quite reserved and held her emotions in, are you kind
of like that yourself?
More
than Gray definitely, I just cry more.
You know, sometimes its harder, sometimes you can’t just
help but babble about how you feel about something but Gray, one of
the things that I liked about her was that she was going through
this hard time that she was trying to resolve. I
don’t think she let herself have a ton of emotions so she’s
trying to figure out how to go through the grieving process without
it being too messy and in the end it kind of is.
It’s just a little messy.
What
do you see in movies that you are a producer now?
What role or TV or whatever that you didn’t see as an
actor, and what roles are you looking for?
We
are having a blast with our producing company, my producing partner
Juliana and me. And we
are just amazed at the development process and how much you can be a
part of the script changing and how much you can be a part of a
story, waking up in the middle of the night and thinking what if in
the third act this happened, you know.
We had three meetings this week, each of them were three
hours long about one script that won’t happen forever but we’re
just kind of in this intense phase.
I think I will look at every script that I do differently
from now on because I’ll see that it’s not just set in stone.
I’ve never really tried to affect a change on a script that
I’ve been given. I’m
a good little girl, and you give it to me and I go and say my lines
and now I may be a terror. [Laughter]
People
say that you studied Boulder [Colorado], that you looked into
Boulder are you a big researcher for every role?
Yeah,
of course, it makes it more fun, it makes it more rich for yourself.
Although you probably won’t see me acting out that I know
what Boulder is. Yeah, I
did, I studied everything I could from the grieving process, to
Boulder, to the Green Party, to what her wedding would have been
like, just to have it all in your mind somewhere.
Do
you know what you’re doing next?
Yes,
I do actually. I’m gonna do
this little project called JUNO, that Jason Reitman is gonna direct,
who did THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, which he did such a great job on.
Is
it wry, sort of…?
A
little bit, it’s this wonderful script that I have been waiting
for it to come together for the past year, and when Jason came on to
it I was so excited. I
was so excited they asked me to be in it, and I have a small role,
and only working a couple weeks.
And it’s just cool, it’s called JUNO and it’s written
by this kooky woman named Diablo Cody.
Have you ever heard of her?
She just decided randomly to become a stripper for a year.
It isn’t about that… [Laughter]
You should look her up. She’s
pretty funny. Anyway,
her personality infuses the whole script so its gonna be a blast.
Who
do you play in that?
I
play a woman who can’t have children, and who is wanting to adopt.
One
of the things that is interesting about this movie CATCH AND RELEASE
is that you’re very reactive.
You were talking about Gray’s approach to life.
Do you have to react to everybody?
And I’m curious if the acting process is different for when
you have to react and hold things in, than when you’re proactive
in ALIAS. And I’m
assuming in THE KINGDOM for example, you’re proactive, you’re in
there, and you’re causing things to happen.
Could you contrast those styles for you?
It
makes it much more… not that it isn’t always, but you have to
pay more attention to the part of you that’s listening to your
cast. In the scene you
become the listener, what you do is much more about what they do.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, that was kind of lame, but it kind of is the truth.
You’re at the mercy of the actors that you’re working
with and luckily Tim and Sam and Kevin, kooky Kevin, and Juliette
were all great.
Kevin
is best friends with your husband [Ben Affleck], how involved is he
in your normal day to day life?
I
think they mostly just write hateful emails back and forth,
[Laughter] from what I can tell.
Do
you ever read them?
No,
no. I just hear Ben
laughing to himself when he’s returning one, kind of maniacally
alone.
Is
Ben as profane as Kevin when it comes to that kind of stuff?
That’s
probably why I don’t read them.
He isn’t around me, but I have a feeling…
As
a good girl, like you said sticking to the script, what’s it like
to work with an actor like Kevin Smith, who’s so improvisational,
do you react to that?
It
was good for me and it was a blast.
He never once said the lines that were on the page.
I don’t know if Susannah told you this but she would say
during a scene, please just once do it like I’ve written it.
I mean she’s an Academy Award nominated writer, do what she
wrote, you know. But he
couldn’t. And every
now and then he’d do it. And
he blatantly would say, just give me a line reading, just tell me
how you want me to say it, cuz your line doesn’t make sense to me.
And she would be like ‘aw Kevin’, and she’d do the line
for him, which is like the no-no of directing and acting, and he
would do it, and he’d be like hysterical.
So he was a novelty on the set.
Do
you keep a straight face when working with him?
I’m
bad about keeping a straight face anyway. I
very rarely keep a straight face a whole day, so no, I can say that
I did not keep a straight face with Kevin Smith nor did I with
anyone else.
Do
you miss the action stuff; I mean that action babe kind of roles?
Do you ever want to go back and do that again?
I
mean, I do like it. I do
think that it satisfies this part of me that I didn’t even know
was there. And I like
that physicality of it in general.
I like roles that are physical.
I like physical comedy. I
don’t really care. But
the action per se, not necessarily, but the roles that tend to have
action in them, if they are well done, I like.
And I love my stunt double so much that I’m always seduced
by getting to be with her.
For
many years you have to train yourself, you have to train, you have
to push yourself, now that you don’t have to do that, do you do it
for just taking care of yourself, is it something that you miss…
That’s
so true. At first when I
finished ALIAS, I didn’t work out for a long time, and I didn’t
lose my baby weight for a long time, it was just kind of annoying
because I just didn’t want to, I didn’t want to take that hour
away from her and work out, or if she was sleeping and I was
exhausted, I wanted to just veg or take a nap or something.
And then finally this summer, I noticed my own energy has
shifted, because I wasn’t taking care of myself the way that I had
become really accustomed to. So
then I just got on a treadmill and started getting back in shape,
and I still am slower than I used to be, because I just am not…
There’s something bigger in my life now, so I might do twenty
minutes where I would have done forty-five before.
Now
that you guys are married, you have a baby together, is there a
tendency to say we want to maintain a work-life separation and not
appear together on screen again?
A
big part of it is somebody’s gotta raise the kid.
So if we’re both at work, that’s a bummer for her.
But yeah, there’s no rush, we’re not looking for anything
to do together.
Is
there a defining moment when you realized that you’re famous?
Yeah,
I mean there was a defining moment where I realized it.
I went shopping, this was a long time ago, I’ve told this
story before, but it was a big moment in my life.
It was the year ALIAS had come out and I hadn’t been out in
the world once since July when it started, and it was December and I
went Christmas shopping, and it was freaky and terrifying.
I mean in July I could have gone shopping and nobody would
have seen me or said anything, and it wouldn’t have been a big
deal at all, but in December, in that short amount of time, I
couldn’t even take a step without somebody stopping me and picture
and da da da and that has just never ever happened to me before.
So that was the defining.
How
have you coped with fame since that?
Are you much more level-headed about it now?
Well,
I keep my knickers on. [Laughter]
Oh great, sorry. I
have a strange relationship with it, I think most people do, it’s
not a comfortable way to live your life.
There are great things about it, and it’s also one of these
things. But my life is
really great, so I find it hard to complain too much.
Two
actors in a household, how do you manage to keep Hollywood out of
your daily life routine? Do
you have a rule at home that you don’t talk about the job or
something like that?
Yes,
we have rule… [Laughing] no, that would be awesome.
No, don’t say that, don’t tell me about your day, aw,
stop. No, it’s pretty
easy when there’s a baby; you basically talk about the baby.
Let
me know what you think. Send
questions or comments to jimmyo@joblo.com.