Jennifer Garner was told to think about retiring if she didn't accept a role in 'Dallas Buyers Club'.
Jennifer Garner
The 48-year-old actress took some time out from her career to focus on raising her children, Violet, now 15, Seraphina, 12, and nine-year-old Samuel - who she has with ex-husband Ben Affleck - and though she was feeling "truly overwhelmed" by her family, she understood she needed to take the part of Dr. Eve Saks when her agent at the time, Patrick Whitesell, called her in 2012 with an ultimatum because she wasn't ready to be "done" with her career.
She recalled: "He said, 'This is going to be a call about one of two things: It's going to be a call about you doing this little movie, or it's going to be a call about you retiring.'
"And I knew I'd asked enough of my representatives, who'd been working their tails off for me and I had said no to everything and kept getting pregnant. But I was truly overwhelmed by a third kid.
"Ben was making 'Argo' and I was just trying to keep the plates spinning. I also knew that I didn't want to be done acting, so I said, 'OK, I'll do it.' "
The former 'Alias' star's children have told her that her enounters with fans are very different to when they're out with Ben and he gets approached in the street.
She explained to The Hollywood Reporter: "People are in awe of him. He's done incredible things, he's six-four, he's … him, and they treat him with a kind of reverence.
"They say that people treat me like we were just in the middle of a conversation and they want to get back to it. They'll see me and be like, 'Oh, I've been meaning to tell you … '
The family have always attracted attention but Jennifer and her children were able to take advantage of the anonymity of wearing a mask due to the coronavirus last summer and enjoy a fun day at the beach, prompting questions from her kids as to why they had never done it before.
She said: "I told them, 'We'd try to go and we'd just get chased away [by the camera scrum].'
"And you're not just ruining the experience for your family, you're ruining it for everybody. It's like, 'Who wants to have us around?' "
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