Jennifer Garner Opens Up About Career Pause During Ben Affleck Split

Jennifer Garner has reflected on her career trajectory during a pivotal period in her personal life, sharing insights in a recent InStyle interview about the years she stepped back from acting.

The 54-year-old actress addressed the gap in her professional work, pointing to multiple factors that contributed to her reduced schedule. "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 explained.

Beyond the demands of motherhood, the actress acknowledged how family upheaval impacted her career momentum. "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," she shared.

Now that she's taking on more projects, Garner emphasized her approach to balancing work and family life. "When I work, I don't apologize to my kids for it. 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," she said.

Garner stressed that her passion for acting comes from an authentic place. "I feel lucky because I really come at [acting] from a place of joy. 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," she added.

The actress is gearing up for her return to the screen with Peacock's The Five Star Weekend, arriving July 9.

Garner and Affleck married in 2005 and announced their separation a decade later in 2015, with their divorce finalized in 2018. The former couple shares three children together: Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 14.

Since their split, Affleck has been in relationships with various figures including SNL producer Lindsay Shookus, model Shauna Sexton, and actress Ana de Armas. He later rekindled his romance with Jennifer Lopez, whom he married, though they have since divorced. Garner has been in a relationship with businessman John Miller since 2018.