Ben Affleck Once Told Jennifer Garner That She’s a Different Person When She’s Not Working

Jennifer Garner underestimated how much her life would change after starting her family with Ben Affleck . Much to Garner’s surprise, she had to cut back on work significantly for the sake of her children. But Affleck might’ve felt that Garner wasn’t exactly herself when she went on long hiatuses.

When Jennifer Garner knew it was time to return to work

Garner has dedicated much of her life to her work after becoming an actor. In her 2013 interview with The Telegraph , it was noted that Garner immediately flew to New York after graduating from university. She went in search for acting work, which she eventually found in theater.

“I got a job as an understudy [ in A Month in the Country , starring Helen Mirren] for $150 a week. I was living on someone’s kitchen floor on a futon for $400 a month. I was so broke I’d eat noodles with canola oil and salt; not even butter,” Garner said.

Her initial plan was to remain a theater actor. But the more lucrative paychecks she was offered in film and television lured her to much bigger stages in the entertainment industry.

“I was offered a miniseries that paid a couple of thousand dollars a week. My snobbery went,” she said. “There was no question. I realized, too, that it was a different kind of acting and I saw how hard it was to do.”

Since making that decision, Garner found steady work on both the big and small screens. The 2000s especially saw Garner starring in popular works like Alias , Pearl Harbor , and Daredevil , adding momentum to her career. But work noticeably started to slow down after Garner began her relationship with Affleck. When the former married couple decided to start a family, Garner took a long hiatus from acting to focus on her duties as a mother.

Initially, it was a sacrifice she didn’t think she’d have to make.

“I really thought when I was pregnant with my first that it wouldn’t affect my work at all, it would just be a baby that grows up on set,” Garner said. “And I was absolutely wrong. For women, the high point of their career and needing to have babies just don’t really go together.”

Around the same time, however, Affleck seemed to maintain his work ethic. Still, knowing his ex-wife, he felt she might not have been content without work. As their children grew a little older, he encouraged Garner to break her hiatus.

“Ben’s always saying, ‘You need to work, it’s a part of you and you’re a different person when you’re working,'” she recalled.

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Garner seemed to apply her work ethic to all facets of her life, including marriage. In her interview with Vanity Fair , she reflected on how hard she tried to salvage her and Affleck’s deteriorating marriage. The fact that it was her second marriage which didn’t last inspired the Elektra star to do some much-needed soul-searching.

“I’m a pretty hard worker. It’s one of the pains in my life that something I believe in so strongly I’ve completely failed at twice,” she said. “You have to have two people to dance a marriage. My heart’s a little on the tender side right now, and it’s always easier to focus on the ways that you feel hurt, but I know that, with time and some perspective, I’ll have a clearer sense of where I let the system down, because there’s no way I get off in this.”

On the brighter side, the divorce allowed Garner to enjoy more flexibility than she might’ve known what to do with.

“I definitely put a lot of time towards my marriage that I will now have for myself,” she said. “I don’t know how I will use that.”