Jennifer Garner is opening up about how overwhelming her early rise to fame really was.
Appearing on the podcast Aspire with Emma Grede on Tuesday, August 25, the 54-year-old actress reflected on landing the lead role in the spy drama Alias and how disorienting that transition felt in real time.
“I don’t remember a lot of it because the hours were so intense,” she said.
“But looking back, I’m aware of how overwhelmed I was. You lose a couple of years of life when you become famous.”
Garner described the identity recalibration that came with sudden success, including realising she’d let some friendships slip away without fully noticing at the time.
“You have to recalibrate. You have to find yourself. I looked back and was like, ‘Wait, what happened to that friendship?’ It was me.”
She admitted she initially felt embarrassed about losing touch with people, but has since made peace with that period enough to reach back out.
“Enough distance from that now to know and to take ownership of that and to call those friends and say, ‘Ah, I think I disappeared there for a minute,'” she said, laughing as she added, “It’s 20 years later, but hi. How you doing? What you been up to?”
Despite the adjustment, Garner said her time on Alias itself was genuinely joyful, crediting the bond she formed with co-stars Michael Vartan, Ron Rifkin and Victor Garber, along with creator J.J. Abrams.
“The time on set was the happiest I’ve ever had,” she said, noting those relationships have stayed intact over the decades, “I think I’ve texted with almost everyone in the show in the last week, if not most of them in the last 48 hours!”
Garner also looked back on her leaner years in New York City, working theater jobs before her breakout screen role came along.
“There was, there is, a certain amount of confidence that comes from no expectations,” she said.
“I only wanted to be on stage, but I kept getting hired to be on camera. And I was broke.”
Even now, she said theater remains her true creative happy place.
“My happiest, truly, if you could plop me somewhere, it would be to be in the middle of a chorus of people singing and dancing on Broadway. Not out in front. In the thick of it.”
Garner has several upcoming screen projects on the horizon, including One Attempt Remaining and Netflix’s reboot of 13 Going on 30, following her recent lead role in The Five Star Weekend.
