Jennifer Garner on playing a stepmother and learning to turn wood for ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’

Jennifer Garner in ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’
| Photo Credit: Apple TV+

After making her television debut as CIA officer Sydney Bristow in 2001 with ABC’s spy-action thriller Alias, Jennifer Garner returned to her roots with the third season of Party Down this year. Now, she is continuing her streak with Apple TV+’s thriller mini-series The Last Thing He Told Me. 

Adapted from Laura Dave’s book of the same name, the show chronicles the development of Hannah Hall’s (Jennifer Garner) relationship with her step-daughter, Bailey (Angourie Rice), while trying to find the truth behind her husband’s mysterious disappearance. In an interview with The Hindu over a Zoom call , the veteran actor shared her experience of working on the show and the reason behind becoming an executive producer alongside Reese Witherspoon.

Jennifer says that she’s been a fan of the book and recollects reading it aloud to her children at bedtime. “Laura Dave’s novel is so incredibly human at its core, and the propulsive energy of the thriller that keeps turning on a dime successfully surprises the readers,” she quips. She confesses to having grown fond of her character over the years, “I am a huge fan of who Hannah Hall is. I love that she is always the grown-up in the room willing to sit down and have the hard conversation. She always follows her instincts and to me, that is a lot of what parenting is. So when the role became available I had to express my desire to play her.”

In a unique gesture of passion, the actor wrote letters to Reese, and the producing partners and executives at Apple lobbying for the role. 

Jennifer Garner and Angourie Rice in a still from ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’
| Photo Credit:
Apple TV+

Though she had read the book and had a pretty good idea about Hannah going into the pre-production, she is vocal about getting a grasp of her character only during the shoot. “Gosh! Do you ever feel like you have your character under control?” she wonders aloud and concedes that co-star Angourie helped her find Hannah, “She was the perfect screen partner every step of the way and taught me a ton,” Jennifer shares. The actor continues, “Our rapport on the set was wonderful; we built a level of trust over the five months of working together that towards the end, there was nothing that she could do that would have surprised me.”

Playing Hannah who is passionate about the art of wood-turning also forced the actor to learn the craft. “I turned wood with a teacher for months together. It started off with a couple of hours on the weekend, and I would get so invested in a project that I would spend close to 10 hours every weekend turning wood. I absolutely loved the process and it introduced me to Hannah’s stillness; it revealed a lot about Hannah as a person and helped me bring her to life.”

The 13 Going On 30 star adds that she is delighted that the story does not indulge in the wicked stepmother trope. Though Hannah and Bailey start out at odds with each other, the actor notes that it soon turns into a story about burgeoning love between a mother and her daughter, and claims that it is the “ultimate stepmother vindication story.” 

Becoming an executive producer for the mini-series was organic for the veteran actor. “As you spend more time in the industry, you naturally take on more responsibility in the collaboration,” she notes, and adds that the creators of the show, Laura and Josh Singer being open to her inputs only helped her find the rhythm of the show quicker.

Jennifer is also in awe of director Olivia Newman who helped bring the project to life along with a significant female crew, “Olivia is completely sure of what she wants to do. She is incredibly emotionally articulate, vividly aware of every possible angle of a character’s development, visually competent and artistically beautiful. But at the same time, she is a very warm and vulnerable person,” she remarks.

The show is about a woman, a mother, becoming the hero of her own life; Jennifer now believes that she has become the hero of her life.

The Last Thing He Told Me premieres April 14 on Apple TV+