Jennifer Garner's car was parked at the end of the lot next to the Prius. "It's a very long drive," he says, "so why don't we go together?" We can talk on the way, it looks fine, and I'm driving with Garner, who I've known for an hour. Half or 22, depending on how you count.
We spent the day at a carpentry shop in downtown Los Angeles. That's what I call it, but I'm being corrected. Technically speaking, this is "wood turning". Garner spent dozens of hours preparing for his latest role as a professional director named Aaron, who owns a yoga studio-sized decibel metal speed show. The last thing he said to me as a member of the Apple TV + Thriller staff.
"It spoke to the mountain girl in me: It's a big part of Appalachian culture," says Garner, 51, who grew up in West Virginia. She is also very talented. "First we did the spinners, then we did the rolls before we moved on to the dishes." Looks like she graduated with honors - the bowl she made for me that day (and which she gave me later) is lovely. After carpentry, he would sweep the floor, clean the saw, and brush shavings off his cashmere sweater. Dinner time.
On the outside, the Garner is a crisp black BMW, polished and arguably nonchalant in terms of styling. Are the windows tinted? He opened the door and we got in, then he walked out to the parking lot and took us to dinner. Some pedestrians at pedestrian crossings look at the windshield twice. she…? But on the road, Garner's car isn't named, a four-door German luxury sedan that weaves into the river of Los Angeles' freeway system.
The car's interior tells a different story. On the console is a loose bag with an elastic band loose, and in one of the side pockets is a Pirate's Booty bag, one of those little bags that don't sell by the piece and usually come in big packages. It's called "The Family". measuring."
I know this car. This is my car (not a BMW). It's a car that arrives early to drop you off and queues to pick you up at 3:00pm as the kids take a nap with their hair out the window, fresh from the shower, fretting in the mirror on a chilly morning and getting dressed. . fabric. T-shirts, texting friends, checking Snapchat, missing homework. Chewing gum is someone's baby, whitening cheddar cheese is someone else's pimple, and change is someone's guess.
"I knew I was going to be a mother. Of course I could be a mother. She could be adopted, she could breastfeed, but that's it," Garner said in 101 Ways to Change. There was no doubt that she was going to be a mother, I mean, wherever I went, I was a little doll. And with my friend Carrie, I babysat with C and J babysitting in the seventh or eighth grade.
He told Garner that our girls go to school together. Four degrees apart, I wouldn't say they knew each other, but one day last year, after meeting a particularly ugly girl, my daughter lined up at a bar to avoid crying in public. I wasn't there and the details were as vague as a 7th grader's story, but the older girl asked if she was okay and somehow managed to replace the bad girl's room right away. Kindness and grace. It was later revealed that she was Garner's first daughter.
"Oh, I love that," she says. "This is the violet."
Garner has three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck, and while she talks about being a model mom, it's easy to forget that she's not a typical mom. She told me that her kids don't like watching her movies. "They don't care about their father, but they want me to be their mother. They don't want to see women cry anymore, upset about what we do. And they don't want to see me in a romantic relationship."
Garner speaks of her children with such warmth and wisdom that it's hard not to turn to her for advice. Here's how I did it. Maybe more often.
"As your kids get older, they really understand who and what they are, and they're probably going to be attractive," she says. “I have great faith in my kids. I don't like their behavior all the time, all the time. It's a crooked upbringing.” He also stressed that raising a child in 2023 is difficult for everyone. “We weren't looked at in the same way we looked at our children. I was a young mother. My eldest daughter didn't stand a chance. A nightmare for everyone around me.”
If Jennifer Garner: Fantasy is hard to understand , you're not wrong. The Garner brand is built on the good and the supernatural. The equivalent of sneakers and pretzels. Even calling it a brand seems ridiculous.
Garner became a true celebrity in 2001 at the age of 29. In 2005, at the age of 33, she married her favorite Hollywood actress, Us Weekly . She spent the next 13 years in such a spotlight that even the most seasoned celebrity couldn't resist her.
A year in life and planning is the kind of motherhood (and, in her case, so sweet and rich) that you'll find at any school fundraiser. Somehow, in a war of hate that has mostly been waged with Instagram videos brimming with chocolate and creamy hazelnut candies, it's getting hard to imagine it was any better than... well.
Garner said, "The problem with 'Oh, she's so beautiful' is when I have a bit of a superior, people think more than they actually are. I've definitely had days where I just can't do that. I look before people approach me. I'm not perfect." And I don't consider myself rude, but I can't lie I'm an open book to a person.
Garner takes us from the streets to the grim city buildings and open spaces of downtown Los Angeles. As we cross a one-way road, I ask her about her (minimal) beauty routine, (the opposite of minimal) workouts, and why her hair is so thick when she's two years older than me. It looked like this when I was 24 years old. "I've been with Vertue for three years now," says Garner, referring to the hair care line she's talking about, though she seems to use the line even if she doesn't. “It really works. I believe in shampoos and conditioners—they're game-changers.”
Just when we think Google doesn't know where we are, Garner points to an unexpected covered booth at the entrance to an empty parking lot. “Is that where we're going? If yes, I'm so proud,” she says as she enters the Soho House bar. Your arrogance is unfounded: here we are.
A few minutes later we sat down at a brightly lit table in the corner overlooking the city centre. Seconds later, a friendly but not overbearing host appears to be keeping the celebrities at an appropriate distance. This is Jose.
"What can I offer you ladies this afternoon?" Two types of mint tea, tuna ceviche on toast and guacamole with fresh vegetables. California proud.
“There are things I talk about and there are things I don't,” said the host absentmindedly. She added that drawing that line is particularly difficult for her. "It's hard for me because it just doesn't come naturally."
"Besides, being a woman is fun," I say. I don't want to live my life in a relationship with a complete stranger. This is a female language.
"I know!" says Garner. Immediately dug in: “How are you?” nice to meet you. What is going on with the vagina?
Well, now that the doors are open..."I understand our love can fail," she said. "I saw my obi this week and she gave me a brochure on genital prolapse." Garner's eyes widened, enjoying the moment in the doctor's office. I took the watch: "I asked:" When already? "It's close? Should I write this on my calendar? What's going on?! "Have you ever heard of this?"
"no." But thanks, now I'm a little scared.
"It's something."
"Is this something that happens to all of us?" I asked him.
No, it's just luck.
"Wait, is this what happens when you sneeze or cry?"
“No, it's not a failure. A breakdown is like if you can't have sex because you can't get to it, because it's a failure in and of itself. [Editor's note: To be clear, this isn't medical advice. For problems, see a doctor.]
Our mint tea has arrived! Did Joseph hear about the imminent fall? If you do, you won't let go. When you host Soho House in Los Angeles, you know when to choose.
Garner knows how to be an open book. And when he asks a question, you can't imagine he could care less about the answer. She seems like what we all want from a boyfriend and sadly she said not long ago that she wasn't. "It was a couple of decades when it was very difficult to talk," she says. "To me, that's not bad manners. I sat with the kids every day. The day after my baby was born, [the paparazzi] were watching again. They're trying to get to the next level of what they're selling, so they're rushing you through your life."
For reasons of a lack of international fame, I never thought that if you were like Garner, the paparazzi would have remote control over your life. Fast forward with energy, stop gaining weight, fast forward with your daily activities, revisit any past relationships. It's one thing to feel like someone's always watching you, but being judged, scrutinized, and eating popcorn while you're alive. It seems very claustrophobic to say the least.
During those years, Garner avoided all celebrity gossip. “I realized a long time ago that I'm very sensitive to everything that is written about me and my family. I have the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal on my phone,” he says. “I can't even get CNN. I used to like the Huffington Post, but anything about celebrities," he says. she said, shaking her head. Sometimes you look at other celebrities and don't realize they are "married with kids".
Over the years, he managed to snatch the remote control from the wrong hands. In 2013, Garner and Halle Berry helped lobby the California state government to protect celebrity children from the paparazzi. It succeeded and the bill was passed.
"The paparazzi reassured me so much that I was back in the world," says Garner. "I'm not going to follow you around the grocery store taking pictures of everything in your cart. Maybe my life is so boring that there's nothing to see here. I think social media helped him calm down. You have relationships with people."
Indeed, Garner has an unbalanced relationship with the world in his own way. She's become an internet celebrity with the coolest, most formal social media presence in the world, kind of funny personality. You have created a nice, inclusive and simple world. If Jennifer Garner can set up a fake restaurant in her kids' backyard, why can't I? NBC described his Instagram account as "the last original corner of the internet". It's a happy, energetic, and self-deprecating elixir from the rest of the World Wide Web.
"Coming from a woman who didn't want to be on social media, that could be ridiculous," Garner said. “I co-founded One Time Farm [an organic plant-based baby food company] and part of my deals was selling on social media. I walked in. Mo, who was my assistant for many years at the time, has a degree in cinematography from Northwestern University. She's very talented and has great taste, so I said, "Mosi, we'll do it together."
Listening to her talk, Garner's post-divorce family seems like a kind of woman-centered parenting idea. Four women (Garner, Moe and two others) are constantly cooking, cleaning, instagramming and doing whatever they like. But there is a community and a community. "It's like a little girl's charm," she says. Then he paused and added (even the deaf Joseph did not hear this): "I really like my celibate life."
I wonder what Garner's life would be like if he hadn't taken action. (Direction and production do not count). Avoid Hollywood completely. Who are you
I was not ready to answer: "I wanted to be a minister," he says. "My mom thinks I still am. I grew up in such a beautiful church, the United Methodist Church, and the pastor to me was like a cave dad. I love studying religion. It reminds me of studying theater. Absolutely. You must understand history, geography, literature. This is art. This Everything. I don't know anything about Hinduism, Islam and many other religions and I want to know. It's a sign of respect."
I was never religious. But as I sit here talking to a woman I've only known for a few hours, I can come close to thinking the absence of religion is a great loss.
"The more involved you are, the more you know about how people believe and worship, the more you'll be able to sit next to someone and be neighbors," says Garner. “It means a lot to me. I don't know if I'm going to write a Sunday morning sermon, but I loved the idea. I love the idea of going back to seminary.”
Garner goes to church with his kids and teaches my son the most amazing Sunday school ever.
“As a child, my family and I always read this beautiful sermon,” Garner recalled, saying that our minister took something complicated, went down to the river and made a beautiful chest. "Whatever you have, put your pain chest carefully and watch it float down the river. The power of letting go. Don't accept it. Just let it go."
She continued, "A lot of times my sisters and I said, 'You should throw this in the river.'"
It's already noon. Time to drop Joseph and head back to Servant, Highway City. Back in the car, I'm still trying to picture Garner as Minister. I ask him if he has any regrets. "There can be no regrets in life," she says.
I say "of course you can". "I've had enough. Maybe you're not trying hard enough?"
She shook her head. "First of all, what's the point? They dumped you, and why? You won't win anything." Garner is known for his discipline, and "nothing to gain" sounds like a mantra. It might even be an exhortation.
"If we want to survive, we have to be psychologically disciplined," he says. "You have to be hard on yourself. You have to do something. You have to exercise because it gives you peace of mind. You have to do your best. I made my way. I made my money. My soul and I did it."
Despite his almost hallowed reputation in Hollywood, Garner's view is a bit more complex. “When Alias came out, I got so much praise for my hard work, my dream of being number one on the challenge list and all that. Now that I look back, oh my God, JJ [Abrams series creator] hurt.”
Finally, we're back where we started, the studios are now empty. Garner got out of my car, and when she reached for the doorknob, she said the last thing: "Listen, tell me if you need anything." Celebrity interviews are polite - feel free to ask clarifying questions.
I answer: "Of course I will talk to your representative."
“No no no. It was definitely meant to be, but that's not what you mean.” "I mean, if you had any questions about parenting or if I could help Finn or Frankie with school stuff, with all that, I'm pretty through."
The woman who can't remember my children's name, Jennifer Garner, wants help with school stuff, teen stuff, like a friend, like a neighbor. This is an invitation to be a part of his young reign, if only for a moment.
I paused, paused, and said something I will never admit, but for which I will always be grateful. In the meantime I say goodbye and sit in the car. another night. Garner has plans for tonight and I have to call my kids.
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Photography: Tom Schirmacher
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Top photo: Amy Jacques. Michael Kors t-shirt. Tiffany earrings.
He first appeared in Allure
Originally posted
