There was a time in Hollywood when turning 40 meant the phone stopped ringing for actresses, and Jennifer Garner remembers it well. While the industry still has work when it comes to women, with Peacock's new series The Five-Star Weekend, Garner and the rest of the cast prove that with age comes raw talent, relatability, beauty, and commitment.
© Emma McIntyreSpeaking to HOLA! Ahead of the series release, Garner reflected on how dramatically the industry has changed. She stars as Hollis Shaw, a celebrated cookbook author whose seemingly perfect life begins to unravel after the death of her husband. It's a dramatic role for Garner, and you see her tap into emotions and pain that don't feel performed. They feel lived in.
When we asked how living more life changes you as an actress, and if there are emotions that are easier to access, Garner shared how grateful she is to be working at a time when women are finally being given stories that reflect the richness of their lives rather than their age.
"It's such a shame," Garner says. "When we were first starting out, women at our ages now... they were done. Forty was always the cutoff, and I'm 54."
For Garner, that's never made much sense. "The older you are, the more life you have under your belt, the more you have to offer—as a person, as an artist, as a performer in any way, and certainly emotionally," she explains. "Pretty much a lot of keys on this piano have been played at this point."
That emotional depth is exactly what drew her to The Five-Star Weekend, based on Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling novel.
Hoping to reconnect with herself, Hollis invites friends from different chapters of her life to a weekend in Nantucket, where old wounds, long-held secrets, and unexpected reunions force each woman to confront who she has become. "I am really eager and excited to play roles that ask a lot of me," Garner says.
In the same interview, her co-star Chloë Sevigny admitted neither of them realized just how emotionally demanding the series would become until filming began.
"I don't think we expected it to be as emotional as it was," Sevigny tells HOLA!. "There was so much crying. You're like, 'I'm crying again today.'"
Rather than becoming exhausting, she says the emotional weight of the material energized everyone on set. "It was very crackly on set," she says with a laugh. "We all just felt very crackly and alive and excited to be there."
Part of that excitement came from the women behind the camera. Sevigny credits directors Minkie Spiro and Jennifer Morrison, along with showrunner Bekah Brunstetter and author Elin Hilderbrand, for creating an environment where every character felt fully realized.
"We didn't want to take this for granted at all," she says. "We tried to show up every day." That commitment extended beyond the performances.
And while at first glance you might think it's a movie - given the rare instances that an all-women cast gets to carry a series like that, according to Brunstetter and executive producer-director Spiro, The Five-Star Weekend was always envisioned as a television series - not a film.
"It was never a movie," Brunstetter tells HOLA!. "I like living with these women for eight episodes. I don't think we would've been able to pack a deep story for each of these five women into a two-hour movie.
For Spiro, that longer format was essential because stories centered on women at this stage of life remain surprisingly rare. "There aren't enough television shows that are female-centric that dig deep the way this does," she says. "This is what there should be - and will be - an appetite for."
That philosophy shaped every creative decision, including assembling an ensemble cast featuring Garner, Sevigny, Regina Hall, Gemma Chan, and more. "We were trying to find women who were stars in their own right," Brunstetter explains. "Women who couldn't be pinned down."
Rather than allowing the series to slip into familiar territory, she says the goal was to elevate the genre. "I wanted to make sure this had the kind of premium television quality to it."
As for what they hope The Five-Star Weekend gets out of people? "I want everyone to carve out their own Five-Star Weekend," Spiro says. "Invest in those friendships that have served you so well."
Brunstetter hopes viewers leave with something even bigger. "Just because you're in your 40s, your 50s, your 60s, that doesn't mean you can't continue to evolve," she says. "It's never too late to find a new career, move across the country, or get out of a bad relationship. We are constantly evolving. If we have the courage - and the support of our friends - we can continue to change."
