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Variety.com
March 23, 2004
Jennifer Garner: Female Star of Tomorrow
by Thomas McLean
After three seasons of making bad guys wince on ABC's "Alias,"
Jennifer Garner is going after movie auds' funny bones with her first
headliner film role in "13 Going on 30."
"Nothing could be more different from 'Alias' or from playing Elektra
(in last year's 'Daredevil') than '13 Going on 30,'" says Garner,
ShoWest's female star of tomorrow. "And of course, you want to do
what's different."
The decision to do the film -- in which she plays a teenager who
wakes up in her adult body -- came after her "Alias" colleagues
pointed out she was a perfect fit for the project, says the 31-year-
old actress. "They'd say: 'Jennifer, you act more like 13; that's who
you are between takes. Try doing that in front of the camera for real
instead of doing it just for us.'
"They're probably right -- Jenna in '13 Going on 30' is probably
closer to my actual personality than Sydney (Bristow on 'Alias') in a
lot of ways."
Director Gary Winick, whose previous film was "Tadpole," says he got
the job after meeting Garner -- who had director approval -- atop
Mulholland Drive early one morning before her call time for "Alias."
Winick says they connected immediately and established a bond of
trust that lasted through shooting. "We were both realizing how scary
this movie could be -- being both our first big movies -- and also
how exciting," he says.
Garner says the result is sweet and fun. "When I watched it, the
thing that struck me the most is how much I'm smiling."
The transition to comedy is as unexpected to Garner as her status as
an action star. "I'm well-known for action but it was never even a
hint of a consideration when I was starting to work as an actress,"
she says. "To be honest, comedy wasn't up there either. I was always
kind of the vulnerable girl next door."
Garner had been working as an actress for years, appearing in films
such as "Dude, Where's My Car?" and "Pearl Harbor." It was her
recurring role on the TV series "Felicity" that led J.J. Abrams to
cast her in his next show, "Alias." The show's loyal audience made
her a rising star, earning her a Golden Globe and two Emmy noms,
though she was working too hard to pay it much notice. She's even on
an commercial recruiting spooks for the CIA.
The world of the show, she says, "was a world that just deserved to
be given in to. The success part of it didn't really hit me until a
while later."
She points out that before that "I'd had five different jobs I can
think of off the top of my head that everyone thought would lead to
sudden success and didn't."
Next up for Garner is "Elektra," in which she reprises her role as
the deadly Marvel Comics assassin, this time as the lead.
Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad, exec producer on "Daredevil"
and "Elektra," says casting Garner in the role was one of the
company's better moves. "More than anything, she fills up the screen
with charm, even when she's full of vengeance. You're sharing her
pain, you understand how she got here."
© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 2004
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