Jennifer Garner reveals how 'upheaval' from Ben Affleck divorce impacted her career

Shania RussellWed, June 3, 2026 at 6:20 PM UTC

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Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck in 2014
Credit: Jeff Vespa/VF14/WireImageKey Points -

Jennifer Garner is unpacking the 'upheaval' in family life that came from her 2015 split from ex-husband Ben Affleck.

The actress said she "hardly worked" after the separation, while focusing her attention on their kids.

Garner and Affleck share three children: Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14.

Jennifer Garner's split from Ben Affleck wasn't just a big personal change, it also dealt a blow to her career.

During a recent sit-down with InStyle, the Alias alum opened up about how the split impacted the former couple's young family, which seriously altered the choices that she was making in her career.

"First of all, when you're in a performance kind of role, you give up a year/year-and-a-half of performance while you are pregnant, having a baby, recovering,” Garner, who shares three children with Affleck, told the outlet.

She continued, "When my kids were little, I worked so little, and then we had such an upheaval in our family, that I really hardly worked for a long time."

Garner and Affleck split in 2015, after 10 years of marriage, and finalized their divorce three years later. Since then, they've continued to co-parent their three kids, Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14.

Jennifer Garner with kids, Violet, Fin, and Samuel in 2018
Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty

These days, Garner is back to staying busy in Hollywood, but she remains much more selective about the projects she takes on. The actress, who is gearing up for the release of her Peacock series The Five Star Weekend, said that although her kids are older and more independent, she still has no desire to uproot the family for months at a time. For that reason, she looks for projects that are primarily based in Los Angeles.

Garner noted that she feels grateful to have had "this year and a half where I just indulged [in acting]," adding that acting can be a  "very selfish" job.

"It’s all about your schedule," she continued. "It’s not about what the kids have going on at school. It’s not about pickups and drop-offs and making it home for dinner."

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That said, Garner noted that she makes it a point to not "apologize" to her kids when it comes to her career.

"I do thank them for being so sweet about it," she explained. "But that’s part of life. Working hard is part of life, and messing up is part of life. Tripping and falling—there’s room for all of it."

Even before the end of her marriage, Garner was turning down offers and taking on less work to focus more attention on the children. It got to a point where in 2012, her agent called with an offer for her to star in Dallas Buyers Club — which he delivered with an ultimatum.

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck
Credit: Jason Merritt/Getty

"He said, 'This is going to be a call about one of two things: It’s going to be a call about you doing this little movie, or it's going to be a call about you retiring,'" she later recounted to The Hollywood Reporter in a 2021 interview. "And I knew I’d asked enough of my representatives, who’d been working their tails off for me and I had said no to everything and kept getting pregnant. But I was truly overwhelmed by a third kid. Ben was making Argo and I was just trying to keep the plates spinning. I also knew that I didn’t want to be done acting, so I said, 'OK, I’ll do it.'"

As for her relationship with her ex, Garner and Affleck rarely speak publicly about the end of their marriage. But earlier this year, the 13 Going on 30 actress reflected on a few of the challenges that followed their split — including the general heartbreak of losing a life partner and navigating the breakup in the public eye.

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"You have to be smart about what you can and can't handle, and I could not handle what was out there," Garner told Marie Claire UK in January. "But what was out there was not what was hard. The fact of it is what was hard. The actual breaking up of a family is what was hard. Losing a true partnership and friendship is what was hard."

She added that "the hardest thing" had been dealing with all the interest that people still have in her relationship with Affleck. "Not hard in the grand scheme of what is hard in the world, but tricky for me and tricky for my family," she said.

on Entertainment Weekly

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