Her image is one of beauty. Her style is one of elegance and class. Her work ethic is unparalleled. Her generosity is unmatched. Her smile, it just melts hearts. This is the world that Jennifer Garner lives in now. She can win you over with a laugh, grip your emotions with a tearful cry, and kick the crap out of you without a hesitation. But it didn’t always
start out that way.
Jennifer was born on April 17th, 1972 in Houston, Texas. The second daughter, of
three,
to Bill Garner, a chemical engineer, and Pat, an English teacher. At the age of 3, Bill and his family packed up their bags, his chemical engineering job taking them to the West Virginian city of Charleston. A small town to most, it was vibrant in its family culture and
neighborhood camaraderie. A place where, the Garner family would soon flourish.

It didn’t take long for Jennifer to start forging a path to stardom. Competing with her older sister Melissa, she took it upon herself to work incredibly hard in anything she did, and quality
that would be seen later. Though maybe not matching some of Melissa’s skills, Jen found her own path just as satisfying. She excelled in many things. Teachers saw her intensity in her academics, taking to a good book rather than a party. She would baby-sit frequently, she learned to play the piano, and she would spend around 9 years perfecting her skills as a ballet dancer. She was on the swim team in high school. Played the saxophone in the band. She was a self-professed “nerd” but loved everything that she did.

In the last couple years of high school she started to get involved with the local summer stock, where plays
would be performed for the surrounding communities. Jen was completely dedicated in wanting to just help out in any way. She would learn how to clean everything, she would help build the sets, and she would help make costumes, or sell tickets, completely wanting to be a part of everything. Thus, this led to her performing on stage as well. A first dab, perhaps, into a career that would take a stronghold just a few years later. Always being practical, Jen decided on becoming Chemistry major, following after her father, at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. The inkling for acting was too powerful however, because soon after she started, she changed her major to Theatre becoming ever entranced in her studies of
plays and stories.
During the summer she pursued regional summer stock as well as, taking trips to places like Atlanta to perform. Once she graduated from Denison with a degree in Theatre, the Dean later saying, “She may have not been the most talented to study here, but she clearly was the most dedicated,” she planned on continuing her education of drama at Yale.

In 1995 those plans changed however when she visited a friend in New York and the need and want for experience propelled her to try working in theatre there. She immediately found work as an understudy in a Broadway production of “A Month in the Country” which starred veteran theatre actor Ron Rifkin. (An actor she would know very well later in her career.) While other understudies would ditch the productions themselves to hang out, Jen would stay behind watching every performance with an exciting fervor to learn more. To earn extra money she would then take a job as a hostess at Isabella’s, a Mediterranean restaurant in New York, where she would be a server for people like Steve Martin and Richard Gere. While doing that for work, she began looking at even more opportunities, seeing chances to find roles in things on television and even more on film. She first took a role as Melissa Gilbert’s daughter in “Zoya”. She took guest roles on television series’ such as “Swift Justice”, “Law & Order”, and even “Spin City” before going back to Hallmark movies, where she played Patty Duke’s daughter in “Harvest of Fire.” She then began work on another Hallmark movie a year later, a running theme in Jen’s early work, in a big prequel to the “Lonesome Dove” series called “Dead Man’s Walk”. It was a small part but she was critically favored in the role of Clara Forsythe, which had been earlier played by Angelica Houston and Barbara Hershey.

The next year even more work. She got a pretty big role in the next Hallmark film, in the role of Rose Clayborne, in Rose Hill, her largest role up to that point. She got a small part in Woody Allen’s inventive “Deconstructing Harry”. Then in another deep character-driven cast with Maggie Smith, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Albert Finney, in “Washington Square.” Just a few months later she got a role with Orlando Jones in “In Harm’s Way” and then she got the role of Nell Glennon, a talented yet self-resigned person who can’t stay stable in her decisions in “Significant Others.” It was her first lead role in a television series and admittedly she got some really good reviews from it. Next came an indie flick called “1999” and then she got a role that would change her life forever.

It was a guest role on “Felicity.” A hit WB show that centered on Felicity Porter and her trials and tribulations of going across the country to NYU, because of a boy. Jen played Noel’s girlfriend. (Noel being Felicity’s resident advisor and even more….)
Jen made an impression on the cast, the producers, and Scott Foley. This was a huge turning point in her life. She started dating Scott Foley and they later went on to marry in October of 2000 and she began a friendship with the executive producer of “Felicity”, JJ Abrams, which in turn would be huge for her later. She did another series in the mean time, playing a lead role in the “Party of Five” spin-off, “Time of Your Life”. She would play Jennifer Love Hewitt’s roommate, Romy Sullivan, a struggling actress. It didn’t last. It was pulled off the network quickly. She did another television movie called “Aftershock: Earthquake in New York” with people like Tom Skeritt and Charles S. Dutton. Things started happening in her movie career as well. She got a bit part in “Dude, Where’s my Car?” as Ashton Kutcher’s girlfriend, which was a cult hit for the younger generation. Then she got a part as one of the nurses, Nurse Sandra to be exact, in “Pearl Harbor”. It was a HUGE box office hit and would be the first time she would meet Ben Affleck, the lead in the movie. She did another role, in an independent film called “Stealing Time”, reuniting on screen with her husband, playing his ex, Kiley Bradshaw.

Then something that was never expected occurred, JJ Abrams had been thinking up ideas for another series he was working on. While working on “Felicity” he had this thought; this lingering question…. “What if Felicity was a spy and couldn’t tell Ben or Noel what she had to do?” This was the first real idea that would become a small television show called “Alias”. A show that would propel JJ Abrams into the big time, as well as a young actress he remembered from her “Felicity” stint, Jen Garner.

JJ had her in mind from the start, but it took some convincing to the studio and the network, ABC, to give her the job. She had 5 auditions. She spent a few months training in Tae Kwon Do to get ready for the part of Sydney Bristow, a student by day and covert spy by night. She won everyone over. When Alias premiered it became a cult favorite immediately and Garner became the newest “It Girl”. Alias was a smart, complex, exciting, and engaging show that would bring huge guest stars and even bigger fans. One of which that would give her a role in his next big A-list movie, Steven Spielberg. The role was a small cameo in “Catch Me if You Can” with Tom Hanks and Leo DiCaprio. She was a call girl that tries to play Leo DiCaprio’s character, but in the end gets played herself. Then her next high profile role would reunite her with “Pearl Harbor” co-star Ben Affleck in “Daredevil”. This time she was right by his side in one of the lead roles, which was an incredible change from 2 years before. He was playing blind superhero Daredevil, and she, the sai-wielding assassin Elektra. She was trained to use the sais to the point that even professionals said she was incredible at using them. Considering as well with training from Alias, Jen normally did around 95% of her own stunts, a shock to most the cast and crew. From back flips off walls, to incredibly amazing fight scenes, she was there for most of it. Her work ethic she had as a child was still prevalent. During this time as well, she became good friends with Ben, learning a lot about the business and a lot about life in Hollywood.

As her career was flourishing, Jen was winning numerous awards (Golden Globes) and numerous nominations in every television award show, including the most prestigious, the Primetime Emmys, her relationship with Scott was falling apart. They moved their separate ways and divorced officially in 2004. As gossip magazines swirled about whom she would date next, she remained focused in her work. She would later win a Screen Actor’s Guild for her role. Exciting, because it’s given by the actors themselves, voting for their peers. She would then carry her first starring role as Jenna Rink; a 13 year old trapped in her 30 year old self’s body. It was her first comedic role to date in a movie. This won her critical praise in the film industry as well. People began calling her “The Next Julia Roberts”, a comment that was exciting and amazing for a very humble Garner. While still working on Alias, she began seeing, albeit briefly and very privately, Michael Vartan, her Alias co-star. Jennifer became a hot commodity in the gossip pages in that relationship and as she went off to film “Elektra” a spin-off to her hit movie “Daredevil”, one she was contractually obligated to do; Garner and Vartan went their separate ways. As the summer of 2004 was coming to a close, news started circulating that Jen and her good friend Ben Affleck had begun to see each other. Very secretive about her relationships still, the media tried hard to get evidence of her new courtship with Ben. Evidence was hard to find any really, until at last, the night of the first game of the World Series in 2004. Jen braved the cold temperatures and even bigger media attention, as she arrived hand in hand (more arm in arm) with Ben, cheering the Boston Red Sox on. From then on people caught a glimpse of them at coffee shops and running errands but they still refused to acknowledge that they were together. Though Michael Clark Duncan, their Daredevil co-star stated “They are for real, I’ve seen the love they have, not just a Hollywood thing, they are for real and when they get married it will for a long time”. In the spring of 2005 more news began circulating that Ben had asked Jen to marry him. The engagement was not a shock to those close to them. This was also during the last stretch of the 4th season of Alias in which she tried her hand at directing. Then the media began reporting that Jennifer was pregnant with her first child. On June 29th, of 2005, Jennifer married Ben in a private ceremony. Within months, after filming a movie “Catch and Release” in Canada, Jen was back to wrap up Alias, adding “producer” of the show to her ever-growing resume, and on December 1st 2005 she welcomed a baby daughter, Violet Anne Affleck, into the world. She has begun work on a production company as well and has future movies lined up but is now focusing on her best role yet as mother.

Not long after Alias ended, and Jen was able to take a short and well deserved break, she began to get offers for new roles. The first, an action-thriller called, “The Kingdom”, set in the Middle East, following an elite FBI team led by Ron Fluery, played by Jamie Foxx. It didn’t take long to hear more news about her movie career when she took a role opposite Ellen Page, an up-and-coming actress, playing a woman wanting to adopt a child in “Juno”. “Juno” was an awards darling, giving Jennifer the best reviews of her career.

As 2008 started, she not only took a role opposite Matthew McConaughey in “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” and Ricky Gervais in “The Invention of Lying”, she also gave birth to a second daughter, Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck.

If two kids weren’t enough, she’s taken on the task of looking for scripts, writers, and directors with her production company “Vandalia Films”. The first will be a feature called “Butter”, about an Iowa butter carving contest. Recently as well, she also signed a producing deal with ABC Studios. This deal will allow her production company to also take on television.