Jennifer Garner says Ben Affleck divorce 'upheaval' led her to step back from acting for years

Jennifer Garner is opening up about her career and her life. In a new interview, Garner opened up about parenting and raising a family, and how some of the challenges they went through together resulted in her taking a long break from acting. Ultimately, it was all for the better, with Garner retaining a genuine love for acting and her craft.

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Garner was on the cover of InStyle's summer issue, where she addressed the moment she's living through right now, and reminisced about earlier years in her career, when she took a step back from acting due to the pressures of raising a family.

“First of all, when you're in a performance kind of role, you give up a year/year-and-a-half of performance while you are pregnant, having a baby, recovering,” she said, sharing that while her work diminished, she was still starring in movies during this hectic period of her life.

Garner then seemingly addressed her split from Ben Affleck in 2015, which understandably changed things for her family. “When my kids were little, I worked so little, and then we had such an upheaval in our family, that I really hardly worked for a long time," she said. 

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How Garner approaches acting now

In the interview, Garner revealed that her kids' growth allows her more freedom to pursue different acting jobs. “I feel lucky because I really come at [acting] from a place of joy,” she said. “I’m not tortured. It’s not filling a hole. I just really love to do it. And I love to be around people who love to do it. I was really, really happy when I was working in summer stock and making a hundred bucks a week.”

Garner shared how grateful she was to be able to prioritize acting, and how thankful she is for her kids, who understand her and want her to pursue what she wants. “To have this year and a half where I just indulged [in acting], because this job is very selfish. It’s all about your schedule. It’s not about what the kids have going on at school. It’s not about pickups and drop-offs and making it home for dinner," she said. 

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"When I work, I don’t apologize to my kids for it. I do thank them for being so sweet about it. But that’s part of life. Working hard is part of life, and messing up is part of life. Tripping and falling—there’s room for all of it.”

Garner and Affleck remain great partners, often photographed together at their children's events and during the holidays. The pair shares three kids: Violet, Fin, and Samuel. 

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