Ben Affleck has explained why his ex-wife Jennifer Garner stepped back from his new Netflix film Animals, despite having been unveiled as one of the lead stars when the project was first announced.
Affleck has co-written and co-directed the crime thriller, which sees a Los Angeles mayoral candidate’s life and campaign derailed when his son is kidnapped.
When the project was initially announced, the Gone Girl star’s close friend and frequent collaborator Matt Damon was due to play the politician, with Affleck’s ex as his therapist wife.
“I thought, ‘God, Jen Garner would be amazing for this role’,” Affleck told Entertainment Weekly. “It also has the added benefit of, like, both of us will see our kids more because we do a week and a week and back and forth. I thought, well, we can coordinate our schedules around it.”
However, just two weeks before production was due to begin, Affleck pulled the plug on filming after learning Spike Lee was working on a similar project.
When he later returned to the idea, Damon was busy with The Odyssey – so Affleck stepped into the lead role, which prompted a conversation with Garner about whether it was a good idea for them to play a married couple who are going through a crisis.
“I talked to Jen, and she was like, ‘We don’t wanna do that. You just get baggage,’” he explained.
“I would love to work with her, frankly. She’s fabulous, and we’re really good friends, and I’m profoundly grateful to her, and we have a great thing. I still would wanna work with her in the future, but what you don’t wanna do is take the audience’s baggage and have it work against you, you know?”
Kerry Washington replaced the 13 Going on 30 star in the role.
Affleck and Garner began dating in 2004 after the former’s (first) highly public split from Jennifer Lopez. The couple married a year later and welcomed three children – Violet, now 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14 – before announcing their split in 2015.
After parting ways, the couple remained on good terms and have often been seen spending time together with their children.
Last year, Affleck praised Garner as a “great” co-parent as he spoke to Access Hollywood about his daughter Violet, an activist who had recently testified at the United Nations.
“I could not be more proud of my children. I can’t even tell you,” he said. “[Violet] takes after her mom. She’s spectacular.
Referring to Garner, he continued: “And I’m very lucky that I’ve got a great partner and that we got great kids. It’s the joy of my life and I’m just very, very lucky. And it makes me happy every day."
