Jennifer Garner has revealed she "panicked" about her financial future following her divorce from Ben Affleck, realising she needed to focus on earning money after taking a step back from Hollywood to raise their children.
Speaking on Emma Grede's Aspire podcast on Tuesday, the 54-year-old actress said she suddenly became aware she had paused her career and feared there was no guarantee acting roles would continue.
"I panicked when I was first out of my marriage and realised I had taken such a step back in my work," she said.
Garner and Affleck, also 54, separated in June 2015 shortly after their tenth wedding anniversary, and finalized their divorce in 2018. They share three children: Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14.
"Suddenly I realised, like, I don't know how long I'll be able to work," Garner said on the podcast. "This isn't a career that's like, hey, you're 60, you're 55, you're 43, come on, let's pay you more than you've ever made. That's not been traditionally the role."
Calculated return to work
The end of her marriage forced her to rethink her financial security and how she could earn a living while remaining present for her children.
"I was suddenly like, wait a minute, I have to take care of myself. I have to take care of these kids. So what is it going to be?" she said.
The former Alias star and her long-time manager became "very calculated" about her next steps, establishing a non-negotiable rule that she had to remain close to home.
"She was like, how can you work? And I said, I can work in Los Angeles. I can't leave these kids for six months at a time," Garner recalled. "I would love to, I love going on location, but that is not this time in my career. And so it's like, okay, what can we make happen? How can we do it? And we just got really targeted and still about it."
Once Upon a Farm
This targeted approach led to Once Upon a Farm, an organic children's food business she co-founded in 2017. "Once Upon a Farm was very much a part of that play. It's just the crazy thing is it's working," she said.
The company made its New York Stock Exchange debut in February at $18 a share, giving it a value of around $724 million. Garner is the company's biggest individual shareholder, owning around seven per cent of the business. Forbes estimated this month that her stake was worth around $50 million.
Reflecting on her uncertain financial period before the company's success, Garner explained her fame provided little comfort. "It's not like you can just unfamous yourself. Life is expensive and you still have to kind of figure out how you're going to live," she said.
"And just because you're well known by people does not mean that there is some great living being provided for you. And it became very serious to me really quickly as someone who had never given a lot of thought to money. Like, oh, I need to be an earner here."
Managing finances
The actress joked her long-time business manager can still make her fear she is broke simply by giving her a look.
"All he has to do is look at me funny and I convince myself that I am broke. My problem is... I give a lot of money away," she said. "So every now and then he's like, can you pump the brakes? So that is something that I had to cool my jets on."
Her comments follow an admission earlier this summer that she had "hardly worked for a long time" while her children were young, amid the "upheaval" in her family surrounding the end of her marriage.
Her acting career has since gathered pace again, recently starring in the Peacock drama The Five-Star Weekend, alongside her role at Once Upon a Farm.
Despite the initial panic, she said she has no regrets about pausing her career. "I was so lucky to be able to luxuriate in working some and being home and being a mom a lot of the time," she said. "I was really grateful for that opportunity. I got to kind of have the best of both worlds. So I can't really look back and complain about any of it. It just is what it is."
