Ben Affleck revealed why he recast Jennifer Garner after she was originally meant to play his wife in his new movie.
Affleck, 54, explained in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that his film Animals initially went into production in January 2024. His longtime collaborator and friend Matt Damon was set to play the lead, while Garner, 54, was Damon’s onscreen love interest.
“I thought, ‘God, Jen Garner would be amazing for this role,’” Affleck recalled on Monday, September 14. “It also has the added benefit of, like, both of us will see our kids more because we do a week and a week and back and forth. I thought, ‘Well, we can coordinate our schedules around it.’”
Affleck added: “She can bring something interesting that she hasn’t [done], that I kind of know she can do, that I don’t think she had a chance to do in one movie.”
Animals was briefly put on pause before Affleck returned to the project. By that point, Damon, 55, was unavailable due to his commitment to The Odyssey, which led to Affleck casting himself as the lead — and recasting Garner. (Kerry Washington was ultimately brought in to help bring a complicated marriage to life on screen.)
“I talked to Jen, and she was like, ‘We don’t wanna do that. You just get baggage,’” he said about the decision.
Affleck clarified that he wasn’t ruling out a professional reunion with Garner in the future, saying, “I would love to work with her, frankly. She’s fabulous, and we’re really good friends, and I’m profoundly grateful to her, and we have a great thing.”
He concluded: “I still would wanna work with her in the future, but what you don’t wanna do is take the audience’s baggage and have it work against you, you know?”
The former couple met on the set of Pearl Harbor in 2001 and reconnected three years later. They exchanged vows in June 2005 before expanding their family with three kids. Following a decade of marriage, Affleck and Garner announced their split in 2015.
The duo’s divorce was finalized in 2018, and they have since remained focused on coparenting.
“My kids are a little bigger 1789584089,” Garner told EW in July. “Their dad — [my] ex-husband — has become this incredible coparent. And I have this unbelievable [business] partner who produces with me things that we control and are able to help keep in L.A. … I love making movies anywhere, but I really want to make movies at home.”
Garner gushed over Affleck, adding, “He’s wonderful. He takes care of them. He’s a great partner in that way. And that’s very freeing.”
Affleck and Garner both moved on after calling it quits. Garner was first linked to on-off boyfriend John Miller in 2018, while Affleck rekindled his romance with Jennifer Lopez in early 2021.
Affleck and Lopez, 57, were previously engaged from 2002 to 2004. He proposed again in 2022, with the couple getting married that same year. Us confirmed in August 2024 that Lopez filed for divorce, and the proceedings were finalized in January 2025.
While discussing his new film with EW, Affleck poked fun at the way he connected to the material.
“How do you maintain a relationship? That’s obviously something that was on my mind,” he quipped. “What does a marriage really require of us? How well can we know one another? [And what happens to that bond when] something so scary happens in your life?”
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