Jennifer Garner Says She 'Hardly Worked' After 'Upheaval in Our Family' During Ben Affleck Divorce
Jennifer Garner Says She 'Hardly Worked' After 'Upheaval in Our Family' During Ben Affleck Divorce
Bailey RichardsWed, June 3, 2026 at 3:32 PM UTC
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Jennifer Garner; Ben Affleck
Credit: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic; John Nacion/FilmMagic
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Jennifer Garner took a hiatus from acting to focus on motherhood and navigate her divorce from Ben Affleck
She now chooses projects near Los Angeles to balance work and family life with her three children
Garner says she's grateful to return to acting and approaches her career with joy and appreciation
When Jennifer Garner was going through her divorce from Ben Affleck, she took some time away from Hollywood. Now, she's more selective about the projects she chooses to work on.
In a new InStyle cover story published Wednesday, June 3, the 54-year-old actress said that as she became a mom to her three children — Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 13 — she took a bit of a hiatus from the screen. When she and Affleck, 53, separated, she took even more time away from acting.
“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,” she explained to the magazine.
“When my kids were little, I worked so little,” Garner said, “and then we had such an upheaval in our family, that I really hardly worked for a long time.”
Jennifer Garner for 'InStyle'
Credit: Celeste Sloman/InStyle
She and Affleck wed in 2005, welcomed their first child, daughter Violet, that same year, and split a decade later before divorcing in 2018. When Garner did take time away from her children to act, she told InStyle, they were “such bricks” about losing mom time.
Garner, who is dating businessman John Miller, and Affleck have been spotted out together from time to time over the years as they continue to co-parent. The 13 Going On 30 star chooses to act more now with her kids now in their teen and adult years.
Speaking about her latest project, the upcoming Peacock series The Five Star Weekend, she told InStyle that it was a gift “to have this year and a half where I just indulged [in acting], because this job is very selfish.”
“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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Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner in 2014
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“I relate to that feeling of like, Okay, I gave everything to mothering. I'm still their mom, I'm not going anywhere, I'm still all-in. I'm also really grateful to have this part of my life back,” she said of acting. When she does work, she told InStyle, "I don't apologize to my kids for it.”
She does, however, “thank them for being so sweet about it,” and only accepts projects that are primarily based near her home in Los Angeles. “But that's part of life,” Garner told InStyle. “Working hard is part of life, and messing up is part of life. Tripping and falling—there's room for all of it.”
“I feel lucky because I really come at [acting] from a place of joy,” she told the magazine. “I'm not tortured. It's not filling a hole. I just really love to do it. And I love to be around people who love to do it.”
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Jennifer Garner for 'InStyle'
Credit: Celeste Sloman/InStyle
Garner previously opened up about how she strikes a balance between motherhood and being an actress — and revealed that she had a moment of doubt about her career after giving birth to her third child, son Samuel, in 2012.
The Alias alum took a six-month break after Samuel was born because “three kids just knocks you flat on your ass,” she told Variety in 2018. Then, a call with her then-agent of 20 years, Patrick Whitesell made her rethink her career.
“Patrick said, ‘Either this is the telephone call about you doing Dallas Buyers Club and how we're going to make that happen, or it's a telephone call about your retirement,'” the star recalled to the outlet. “That was a real moment of decision and clarity and I loved him for it because it forced me to say, ‘OK, I am not ready to be home all the time.' ”
Said Garner, “I would have to decide, ‘No I actually do love this job.' ”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
