Jennifer Garner has been relatively quiet since the February 27 birth of her son Samuel, but that changed Thursday when she accepted the Female Star of the Year award at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.
"I told my mom the other day I was getting this award . . . and I was excited and feeling proud and thought she was going to be proud, and then there was this pause on the other end of the line," a beaming Garner, 40, said during her acceptance speech. "She said, 'Jennifer, do these people know you haven't worked in the last year?' I said, 'Yeah, I feel they probably know what I've been up to. I haven't stepped foot on a set. You are correct, mom.'"
Garner continued: "She said, 'Can they take this back? Because every time I talk to you, you are breastfeeding, you are running car pool, you are on the library committee — you are not acting!' I said it's not all about the now, it's things you've done in the past or in the future, and she was like, 'Honey, you have a weird job.'"
The Odd Life of Timothy Green actress — who showed off her impressive post-baby body in a slimming black Michael Kors dress — also thanked her husband Ben Affleck, 39, "for taking over drop-offs and pick-ups and bedtime so I could make it."
"And thanks for making me feel like maybe someday I will get to relax in a hair and makeup chair again and leave the maniacs at home with you!"
Garner and Affleck, who wed in June 2005, are also parents to daughters Violet, 6, and Seraphina, 3.
