Great reading turned into a dream role for Jennifer Garner

If you eat Laura Dave’s novel.” The last thing he told me“You are not alone.” The book has spent 65 weeks, according to A New York Times bestseller And one of those readers is Jennifer Garner.

“I read it with my middle son. Later and later we kept pushing bedtime because we were forced to read one more chapter, two more chapters, three more chapters,” Garner said in a recent interview, a copy of the book beside her on the chair. I can’t even describe how much I love it.

Her great reading is to “ Dream role Julia Roberts – Julia Roberts, originally attached to star in the TV show based on the book, had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Dev co-created SeriesShe co-wrote the adaptation with her Oscar-winning husband Josh Singer, which debuts Friday on Apple TV+. Reese Witherspoon, also executive producer, selected the book for her Reese’s Book Club upon its May 2021 release.

Garner plays Hannah Hall, who marries a man named Owen (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) after a whirlwind courtship. Not only is Hannah a new wife, she’s also stepmother to Owen’s teenage daughter, Bailey, played by Angora Rice, who sees her two families as a rude interruption. One day Owen disappears and Hannah leaves a note instructing her to wait for Bailey, she has no clue. Hanna and Bailey are left to find out what happened.

The idea of ​​playing someone “growing up to be a mother” intrigued Garner. As a mother of three, she describes herself as a “natural caregiver” who gravitates toward children. Garner is a board member of Save the Children, a farm-based company that focuses on fresh produce for children, and has also starred in several family-friendly films. “Yes, day.” and “Alexander and the Terrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” Garner was enthusiastic about the character, who knows “how much parenting comes with doing.”

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For Rhys, “She adapted to play someone who had no experience of giving birth.

“Bailey only had one man in her life, and that was her father. He’s the first and only person you go to anyway,” Rice said. “They really make a team, so when that goes away, I think Bailey is against Hannah because she’s everything her father isn’t. Bailey doesn’t understand her, and it’s very common for Bailey to understand.”

Garner and Rice’s off-screen relationship has progressed through the casting process, becoming more organic than mother and daughter.

“Sometimes you play a mom in a movie and you’re pushed into the role of a mom. You’re being a mom and then the actual relationship underneath it has to end,” Garner said. “In this case, you’re watching us grow closer and closer and trusting each other leads to a great partnership that Hannah and Bailey have.”

Garner had to keep her energy up to match the more reserved Hannah.

“Hannah and I are incredibly different. I have a Labrador Retriever Power and Hannah is a cat lady who likes to be left alone.

The cast also had the benefit of keeping the book under the direction of the singer along with Dave’s writer.

“How Josh likes to work, we have this backyard with a 100-year-old pine tree that you can sit on. Before we even started shooting, Jane would come and we would go through the script again and again. Josh wanted to hear how the words sounded. Then Angori joined us and some actors joined us,” said Dev.

Dave spent 10 years writing the book, and for someone who loves the writing process, it was “painful,” he says. Working on the script took a different direction and was very positive, it made her emotional. “There were a couple of times. When we were in my backyard, I would slowly go in and say, ‘Excuse me,’ and I’d be like a puddle. And then I’d come back outside and Jane would say, ‘You’re not fooling anyone. I saw the tears.’

“I must be very lucky,” Dave says of the pair working together again.

“Josh taught me so much,” she said. “There’s not a note that this person doesn’t think about or want to talk about, and it created an atmosphere where everyone felt it, which I loved seeing. I love being alone in a room and talking to anyone. There are no plans that can be canceled, I am not happy that they have been canceled. He is the opposite.”

A singer is equally as flattering. “I’ve been a fan of Laura Dave for a long time now,” she said. “She has such a moving and unwavering compass for emotion, character and story. There is nothing better than working with someone who has a real compass,” he said.