Cinescape is now advertising its June issue, so I'm transcribing the April article here. The part about Scott Foley is a little sad, considering subsequent events . . .
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Femme Fatale
Fresh off the heels of Daredevil and her ongoing series Alias, actress Jennifer Garner is proving to be this generation’s next action heroine
By Eric Moro
Don’t let that soft voice and those incredible good looks fool you--Hollywood’s latest action hero, Jennifer Garner, is one bad mutha . . . Well, you get the idea. After kicking ass and taking names on the hit ABC spy series Alias (a role for which she has earned a Golden Globe Award), and making an impressive turn as femme fatale Elektra in the latest comics-to-big screen adaptation, Daredevil, Garner actually tries to convince this reporter she’s just as prissy as the next girl off the street.
“I’m a strong person,” says Garner with a smile that can stop traffic. “But I’m not tough in any way, shape or form, and I’m not violent. I can’t even watch violence. I can watch a fight scene with a little bit more interest than I could before because I like to see, ‘Was that a miss? Was that a good reaction? Was that a nice kick?’ But, no, it’s not my thing.” On the other hand, “I’ve never been a ‘run away from a spider’ kind of a girl. My big sister was always very scared of spiders, so it was always my job to take care of that stuff.”
Sorry, Ms. Garner. We’re not buying it. And neither is on-screen Daredevil Ben Affleck, who, given the opportunity, paints quite a different picture of the actress.
“As far as working with her, [Garner] was better at the action stuff than I was,” admits Affleck dejectedly. “Flat out, no questions about it--just better at it. It was something I had to address in my own life.”
“I did take like a divot of skin out of his nose,” adds Garner with a sinister laugh. “Kind of like, if we were on a golf course, you would have to go back and take the whole piece [of grass] and pad it back in. And his makeup artist had to fill it in every day for a month. It was kind of like, ‘Is that nose insured?’”
Hard to believe, then, that this Charleston, W. Va., native never held acting or a career as an action heroine in high regard. On the contrary, it wasn’t until she moved to New York, due in large part to the coaxing of her mother, that Garner truly realized her knack for performance.
What started out as a brief visit meant to hone her auditioning skills turned into an extended stay and a full-time acting gig. Her move out to Los Angeles proved just as fruitful, landing her a role on the hit series Felicity, where she ended up meeting her future husband Scott Foley.
With the actress downplaying her initial desire to enter the profession, however, one can’t help but wonder what she would have aspired to had the acting bug not bitten her.
“When I was little, I wanted to be a librarian, a poet and [author] Bevery Cleary,” says Garner. “I love books. I would help the librarian out in my school and she would let me shelve the books and help order them. I would set up the card catalogue, and I thought that it was the most romantic thing the world to be surrounded by books.”
So how exactly does one go from aspiring librarian to Maxim magazine’s sexiest woman of 2001?
“Well, my sister was--and is--a genius,” notes Garner. “She was the valedictorian, she’s incredibly beautiful and she was the head majorette of my school, which in West Virginia is a really big deal. I was so proud to be her little sister, but I needed to find a different angle, and it just came in the way of ballet. I had this great teacher who insisted on discipline and that was right up my alley. Once I learned that there was a musical theater company in the neighborhood, I was like, ‘I want to do that.’ So I did that and when I got to college, I learned about plays. Then I couldn’t stop doing plays. It’s kind of been like that. I sound a little OCD.”
Shifting gears of a moment, what stands out most about the actress is how completely down-to-earth she is in regard to her beauty. While much of the studio/network marketing machine has focused on her appearance (who can forget the post-Super Bowl installment of Alias where Garner spent most of the episode in skimpy lingerie), she does what she can to downplay that aspect of her career.
“There are a lot of women who are not only aware of [their beauty] but, particularly in this business, are subconsciously instructed to use their physical attributes to trade on their sexuality,” notes Affleck. “But it really isn’t about that for [Garner]. I don’t think she thinks she’s as drop-dead gorgeous as she is. That is what gives her this incredibly appealing quality. She’s more than the girl next door because she’s va-va-voom, but also she’s not threatening. I think women look at her and don’t say, ‘She’s going to seduce my husband.’ But rather, ‘She’s somebody I can trust. She’s somebody I can get along with.’”
Of course, it’s hard for Garner to feel sexy when she comes home beaten and bruised--as has often been the case after shooting an episode of Alias or the afore-mentioned Daredevil. But imagine what it’s like for her husband.
“He is not a fan,” admits Garner. “He’s so happy that I’m doing a comedy this summer, I can’t even tell you. Last summer, seeing me naked was quite a sight. There was nothing sexy about it. I thought that I looked pretty cool, but he was horrified 100 percent of the time. I just had really bad bruises. But it’s fine and it’s part of the job.”
A part of the job that Garner looks to continue moving forward with, that is. Believe it or not, the actress is in no hurry to exit the action-adventure genre and harbors no fear of being typecast.
“Before I took Daredevil, I was like ‘This is so what’s expected, and I shouldn’t do it. I should flip it and play the opposite,’” she says. “But ultimately, it’s what I wanted to do and I knew that I would have the most fun doing this. Alias just opened up this world for me that I would never have guessed that I would have an aptitude for, much less a passion for. It never occurred to me to turn a ballet kick into a roundhouse. So I was shocked and thrilled with this new thing that I discovered.”
With that said, staying in shape is something that Garner’s very career rests upon. As such, she follows a strict regime of diet and exercise--one that her husband has recently adopted.
“He kind of got tired of me coming home and being like, ‘Oh look, a new muscle,’” jokes Garner. “He quit smoking a few years ago and we both gained a lot of weight when he quit. He was like trying to eat everything that he could to not smoke and I was kind of like, ‘Oh, we’re eating? OK, good. I’ll eat.’ So when I started Alias, I just stopped eating felgercarb. I just try and eat small meals several times a day. He kind of said, ‘Okay, I’m ready to do this as well,’ and now, doesn’t he look great?”
And for those of you looking for free fitness advice the actress notes that the key to a successful workout program is consistency.
“I got into shape for the Alias pilot with a trainer named Valerie Waters who I owe a huge debt of gratitude,” says Garner. “Her approach is one of being very consistent. I workout as many mornings as I can--it’s almost always in the morning because then you can’t skip. Usually it ends up being five days a week, never more than an hour, but I don’t miss. I don’t take a week off because it’s inconvenient, or I don’t sleep in because I’d rather I get up and do it. So, that’s really what it’s about.”
Of the workout specifics, Garner notes “it’s a combination of cardio; weight circuits; more cardio to keep the heart rate up; a lot of injury prevention like rotator cuffs, knees, backs, ankles; and a ton of stretching.”
The actress is taking a break from her grueling routine this summer however. Trading in the boxing gloves for quick one-liners, she’s set to star in the fantasy-comedy 13 Going on 30.
“I’m so excited and I’m really nervous,” says Garner. “But it feels closer to me character-wise than anything that I’ve really played so far. Kind of the easiest way to [describe] it is the female version of Big. I play this young woman, who at 13 suddenly fast-forwards to 30 physically and the rest of her family has fast-forwarded ahead. But emotionally, she’s still where she was at 13. It’s a movie with a lot of heart and it should be funny. Mark Ruffalo is going to star in it with me; it’s at Revolution Studios and Gary Winick is going to direct.”
While she’s flexing her acting muscles by venturing out onto the big screen, Garner says she has no interest at present in leaving television or Alias altogether, especially since it’s the medium and series that helped make her career.
“Well, the thing that makes this so much fun--this who Daredevil, Elektra, 13 Going on 30--is that I love my day job,” says Garner. “And I know that I can take risks like this and I can, if all else fails, go back to a place where everyone loves me, where I learn from them every day, where they write beautiful things for me to say and incredible things for me to learn to do. I’m still learning in that job. I’m still growing in that job. Just [the other day] I was saying to Victor Garber [he plays her dad on Alias], ‘How do you do this one thing?’ And I have these incredible mentors there that no other actor, unless you’re in some kind of fantastic regional theater experience, has. So, no, I’m not wishing for Alias to go away at all as long as the writing stays good.”
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Daredevil vs. Elektra: Battle at the Box Office
With both characters making their big-screen debuts in Daredevil, the race is on to see who follows up first with his/her own feature.
By Eric Moro
Vegas bookies are setting the odds and fans the world over are placing their bets on just who will make it up onto the big screen first, The Man Without Fear in Daredevil 2 or Elektra in her own spin-off feature. Not sure where to place your money? Then check out Cinescape’s inside tip, taken straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth.
“My bet would be on a Daredevil 2 movie first if we’re lucky enough to do a sequen,” says Daredevil writer-director Mark Steven Johnson, who will also serve as producer on the Elektra series. “I think that would come first. [Elektra actress Jennifer Garner’s] got the show [Alias] and she only has that one window in the summer to do a movie, and I believe it’s already booked for next summer. So I think she’ll be a while before she’s available to do that. And I’m sure if this does well, they’ll want us to jump right in there. They’ve already approached me about writing it and about ideas for the second movie if there is one.”
Of the ideas being tossed about for a potential Daredevil follow-up are adaptations of two very popular comic book storylines. [vh's note: SPOILERS regarding possible plots for the sequel follow in white; highlight if you want to see them] The first, Frank Miller’s “Born Again,” has Daredevil’s former lover Karen Page trading in the costumed vigilante’s secret identity to the Kingpin for a simple drug fix. As a result, the mob sets out on a mission to destroy Matt Murdock’s life and drive the hero insane.
The second story, Kevin Smith’s “Guardian Devil,” tests Daredevil’s notion of faith as the hero is forced to deal with both a mysterious baby left on his doorstep and the death of his long-time lover--the aforementioned Karen Page! Johnson’s hope for adapting this storyline includes a more intimate involvement from indie filmmaker and comic book scribe Smith.
“What I’d like to do is kind of talk Kevin into writing the script,” notes Johnson. “The problem is that the Mysterio character [the main villain of the story] is in the Spider-Man universe, so I believe Sony has the rights to that.”
As for an Elektra spin-off, Johnson hints that the rationale behind the character’s inevitable return can be traced back to her comic book roots and not some bogus “sequelitis” explanation.
“I can just tell you it’s very, very true to the comic,” says Johnson of the character’s return. “We [couldn’t] tell that much of the Elektra story [in Daredevil]. Her story ends as it ends in the movie. And if there’s a spin-off, then you would continue it as in the comics--the Frank Miller story [“Elektra Lives Again”]. This isn’t going to be saving Mary Jane at the last minute as she falls off the bridge.”
