Jennifer Garner used to babysit Stephen Colbert's daughter.

Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner

The pair met in 1996 and Stephen and his wife Evelyn McGee-Colbert offered Jennifer some childcare work in between her auditions for roles.

Speaking to the 45-year-old actress on 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert', he said: "Then one day you came and you said, 'I got a new agent and I'm moving to Los Angeles'. And we said, 'That poor thing' because you were so nice, you are so nice... We thought, 'Los Angeles will devour her.'"

Jennifer - who has three children with estranged husband Ben Affleck - replied: "And it did. It did, yes it devoured me, but I'm okay. I'm all right."

Stephen also revealed he was shocked to see Jennifer on the cover of TV Guide after she landed the lead role in 'Alias' and he brought a copy home to show his wife.

He said: "I covered your name on it, you've got the red wig and the cat suit and I showed it to Evie, my wife, and I said, 'Guess who that is?' And she said, 'I don't know, someone on The Daily Show tonight?"

Meanwhile, Ben, 44, recently admitted he hopes his and Jennifer's children - Violet, 11, Seraphina, eight, and Samuel, five - don't follow them into acting.

He said: "I think it's a hard thing. I love being an actor, I got into it as a child and I wouldn't change that. But I also wouldn't want to take my kids and push them out there before they were 18.

"If they are 18 and they want to make those choices and do that kind of thing, that's fine. But being a child actor, I just know too much of the downside of what that can be like."