Jennifer Garner opened up about balancing life with her three kids following her split from Ben Affleck, admitting acting can be a “selfish” career.
“I feel lucky because I really come at [acting] from a place of joy,” Garner, 54, told InStyle in a new article published on Wednesday, June 3. “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.”
During her marriage to Affleck, 53, Garner took time off from her passion to raise their three kids: Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 13.
“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 was married to Affleck from 2005 to 2018, explained. “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.”
Despite taking a step back from the spotlight, Garner still accepted a few roles while raising her kids, including Juno and The Kingdom.
Her kids also didn’t let her off the hook so easily. Garner joked that they were “such bricks” about her missing games and typical mom activities in school.
“To have this year and a half where I just indulged [in acting is a gift], because this job is very selfish,” she said of her career. “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.”
Now, she only accepts gigs that are mostly based in Los Angeles so that she can be close to her family, with the exception of her new Peacock series, The Five Star Weekend, which filmed in Nantucket for three weeks.
“When I work, I don’t apologize to my kids for it,” Garner said. “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.”
Garner previously opened up about the struggles that come with motherhood while chatting with Access Hollywood in October 2023. “Working moms … get all freaked out because we’re told constantly, ‘You have 18 summers, you have this much time … Time is fleeting,’” she said. “It makes you panic, and my mom has always said to me, ‘You’re their mom forever. Don’t worry, you can do your job … your kids are gonna be so proud of you.’”
