Jennifer Garner’s acting performance was so bad the day after she and Ben Affleck agreed to divorce that the star apologized to her director, the Daily Mail reported.
Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of Men in Black and The Addams Family, said in his new memoir that Garner was “a little off” on the last day of filming the 2016 comedy Nine Lives—which came right after the celebrity power couple had decided to split.
Affleck and Garner were married for 10 years before they announced their split in 2015, officially filing for divorce in 2017.
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Sonnenfeld also recalled how Garner would often fly to Los Angeles during the shoot to support Affleck, who was struggling at the time. Still, he was stunned when Garner, who “burst into tears,” told him that she and Affleck were going to part ways.
Jennifer Garner and director Barry Sonnenfeld seen at the world premiere of Nine Lives in 2016.
Eric CharbonneauGarner’s on-set disclosure, Sonnenfeld revealed, seemed to make him as upset as she was.
“I don’t know who was more confused,” he wrote in Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time, “the 300 extras who wondered what that nice Ms. Garner had said to Mr. Barry to make him so upset, or Jennifer herself who was forced into the role of the calm person after, somehow, I had become the injured party in this discussion.”
Garner, despite her pain, was still able to maintain a semblance of a positive outlook for Sonnenfeld’s benefit.
“It’s going to be OK,” he recalled her saying. “It’s for the best.”
Garner then reportedly apologized to Sonnenfeld for her acting, and he wrote that she is “a beautiful person inside and out.”
Even in the years since their divorce, Garner and Affleck have remained close as co-parents to their three children.
“She’s just a fabulous person,” Affleck said of Garner on CBS in 2016. “She’s a great mother. She’s a real talent… She’s somebody that I admire and respect and remain excellent friends with.”
Affleck would go on to marry superstar singer Jennifer Lopez in 2022, but she filed for divorce from the Gone Girl star this August.
This week, Lopez said the divorce from Affleck was “probably the hardest time of my life,” although she said it has also been an opportunity to find “happiness within myself.”
