Jennifer Garner
Biography:
While landing a guest spot on
a hit television series would be
a welcome event for most
up-and-coming actresses,
Jennifer Garner's brief run on
Felicity proved especially
fortunate for her -- thanks to
her appearance on the show,
she met her future husband,
and the producer who would
cast her in the leading role of
the successful
action/adventure series Alias.
Jennifer Garner was born in
Houston, TX, in 1972; when
she was very young, her family
relocated to Charleston, WV,
where she grew up. Garner
was the second of three
daughters, and early on
developed an interest in ballet.
After graduating from George
Washington High School in
Charleston, Garner attended
Denison University in
Granville, OH, where she
became interested in drama,
and eventually received a
degree in theater. After
college, Garner moved to New
York and began auditioning for
stage roles, landing her first
part only a month after arriving
in town in 1995 as an
understudy in the Broadway
production of +A Month in the
Country. Later that same year,
Garner moved to Los Angeles
and began working in
television, making her screen
debut in the made-for-TV
movie Zoya. Over the next two
years, Garner landed guest
roles on several television
shows, including Spin City and
Law Order, and small parts in
several motion pictures,
among them Deconstructing
Harry, In Harm's Way, and Mr.
Magoo.
1998 found Garner cast as the
female lead on the short-lived
Fox drama Significant Others,
and while the show only aired
for a little over a month,
Garner fared much better with
a showy recurring role on
Felicity, where she played
Hannah, the former girlfriend
of Noel Crane, played by Scott
Foley. Though Garner claims
she had to go through five
rounds of auditions before she
was given the role, she
certainly made an impression
on co-star Foley; they soon
began dating, and were
married in the fall of 2000.
Garner's work on Felicity
helped win her a major
supporting role on the
television series Time of Your
Life, a spin-off of Party of Five
starring Jennifer Love Hewitt.
The heavily promoted series
was a ratings disappointment,
but Garner received
enthusiastic notices, and
began winning film roles in
high-profile projects such as
Pearl Harbor and Dude,
Where's My Car?
In 2000, J.J. Abrams, who
produced Felicity, was
preparing a new series for
ABC about a female spy living
a triple life as a college
student and supposed bank
employee, who is also a
double agent working for the
CIA. Abrams remembered
Garner's impressive
performance as Hannah, and
cast her as Sydney Bristow in
Alias. The show quickly
became a success when it
premiered in 2001, earning
respectable ratings, strong
reviews, and a devoted fan
following who tuned in each
week to see Garner beat up
bad guys and don an
impressive collection of slinky
outfits. That same year,
Garner also appeared
opposite her husband, Foley,
in a supporting role in the
independent drama Rennie's
Landing.
Riding high on the success of
Alias with a Golden Globe
Award in hand, Garner
continued to grow as a
big-screen presence. After a
memorable appearance in
Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If
You Can, Garner displayed
the butt-kicking skills she
honed on Alias, appearing as
Elektra in the 2003 comic-book
adaptation Daredevil. The next
year, she took on her first
big-screen starring role,
playing an adolescent girl who
wakes up to suddenly find
herself all grown up in the
romantic comedy 13 Going on
30. Sadly, also in 2004,
Garner and husband Foley's
marriage proved to be
short-lived when they
announced that they were
getting a divorce.
While continuing to star on
Alias, Garner next geared up
to star in her own Daredevil
spin-off film, appropriately
called Elektra. Unfortunately,
when the movie was released
in 2005 it bombed at the box
office and was panned by
critics, though many
nonetheless complimented
Garner's strong performance.
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