Star happy to be typecast as ‘beacon of hope’
Jennifer Garner, Jason Reitman riff on their latest collaboration
Men, Women & Children is another Jason Reitman, cinematic, social-studies statement — this time focusing on multiple middle-class family affairs set in the modern digital world.
The ensemble cast co-stars Jennifer Garner, who had a role in Reitman’s Oscar-honoured Juno. In Men, Women & Children, Garner plays an overprotective mother trying to shelter her daughter from social media.
During a recent Toronto interview, the 36-year-old Reitman and 42-year-old Garner offered he said/she said observations on: Reitman’s aging process: “You’re really going saltand-pepper,” said a smiling Garner to begin the chat.
“I’m getting old,” Reitman said, running his hands through his hair. “It’s happening quickly.”
Persuading Garner to read the Men, Women & Children script during a commercial flight:
“He’s a mentor professionally,” said Garner of Reitman. “So I thought, ‘Oh good, I’ll give him a few notes on the script and return the favour.’ After I read it, he said, ‘Do you want to play Patricia?’”
Reitman said: “It all happened mid-air.”
“It’s a great way to get an actor to do your movie,” said Garner. “Trapped in a plane and ply me with alcohol.”
Sorting out the Patricia portrayal:
“I definitely don’t judge her,” said Garner of her character. “Jason and I talked a lot about how not to make her a caricature.”
Social media as a backdrop in Men, Women & Children:
“If any of us thought we were making a movie about the Internet, then, yeah, it would have felt like a failure the entire time,” said Reitman.
Said Garner: “The scariest story, to me, is on the pro-anorexic website, where (the teen character) gets her validation.”
Portraying less-than-positive people in Juno and in Men, Women & Children:
“It’s so weird that you say that,” said Reitman to Garner. “There’s so much humanity in both roles.”
“I think so, too,” said Garner. “It makes perfect sense to me, but that’s what people say to me, who have seen both movies.”
“OK, there is darkness in Jen Garner,” said Reitman, who adds more seriously, “but I think there is something incredibly hopeful about the two roles.”
“If you have to be typecast as something, a beacon of hope is good,” Garner said.
Parental fears in the socialmedia age:
“My fears are so vast that we don’t have time to discuss,” said the mother of three. “At some parenting class that I took, the woman said to me, ‘Prepare your child for the road, not the road for your child.’” Social media habits: “I’m not on social media,” said Garner, who describes it as a waste of time. “I would certainly never pimp out my children, and that’s really what people are interested in, and I’m not going to talk about my marriage (to Ben Affleck) on social media.”
Said Reitman: “You could photograph your meals. That seems to be a big part of it.”