Jennifer Garner is getting real about being a working mother during tough chapters of life!
Perezcious readers know the actress got married to Ben Affleck in 2005, and they welcomed three kids together afterward: Violet, Fin, and Samuel. Eventually, Jennifer took a long break from acting. She wanted to focus on her children, especially after she and Ben separated in 2015 following 10 years of marriage. In an interview published with InStyle on Wednesday, the Alias alum said of that time in her life:
“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. 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.”
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Obviously, Jennifer didn’t fully stop her career. She worked on The Kingdom, Juno, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Valentine’s Day, Dallas Buyers Club, to name a few, during that time. However, her kiddos didn’t make working easy on her! According to Jennifer, they have been “such bricks” about missing volleyball games and other mom activities, like being a Lunch Mom at school, because she had to work at times growing up.
Now that her kids are older and more independent, she gets to take on more acting gigs than before, which she is incredibly grateful for:
“To have this year and a half where I just indulged [in acting is a gift], because this job is very selfish. It’s all about your schedule. 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.”
Jennifer does only accept jobs in Los Angeles these days because she wants to be as close as possible to her family. The only exception has been her new Peacock show, The Five Star Weekend, which she filmed in Nantucket for three weeks. Jen continued:
“When I work, I don’t apologize to my kids for it. I do thank them for being so sweet about it. 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.”
So true! Although her acting career is “selfish” and hard at times, she ultimately just loves what she does:
“I feel lucky because I really come at [acting] from a place of joy. 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.”
Not everyone can say they like their job as much! Jen is really fortunate! What are your thoughts, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments (below)!
[Image via MEGA/WENN]
