Jennifer Garner shares how she celebrated turning 50: 'I basically had a wedding for myself'
Is Jennifer Garner really as nice as she appears? Yes — but she’s not just that.
In an interview with Town & Country about her work with the humanitarian organization Save the Children, Garner, 50, spoke about the perception that she is one of Hollywood’s nicest celebrities. The Juno star, 50, admitted, “I have no reason not to be nice. My life is lovely.” Yet just because she’s mostly nice doesn’t mean that’s the only trait she identifies with.
“I’m not always just nice,” the Alias alum continued. “I can also be salty, and I can be taciturn, or I can be really serious about what I want to get done. It’s not that I feel I’m underestimated in that way — I’m not afraid to stand up for myself and say, ‘Just so you know, this isn’t going to fly with me.’ When that happens, I don’t want you to be shocked that I’m a real person.”
One way Garner said she is a real person? She celebrated her 50th birthday with a lavish party.
"I basically had a wedding for myself," she said. "I was so shocked that I was doing it." Of course, she then put her guests "to work" filling backpacks with food for the charity Blessings in a Backpack.
The 13 Going on 30 star shared that when it comes to planning her future in Hollywood, she is not "ambitious in that way." Though she'll next star in the Reese Witherspoon-produced TV series The Last Thing He Told Me, based on the book of the same name, she doesn't feel like she's "owed some kind of accolades" in the industry.
"I’ve kind of played it differently," she told the magazine. "How lucky am I that I’ve gotten to work all this time and raise a family? It’s more that the work truly comes from a place of love. I love being with a crew. I love being part of a crew. And I love when I get to be on set. It’s different from anywhere else. It’s just mine."
When Garner isn't hard at work on set or with one of her charitable organizations, the mom of three is sharing inspirational wisdom on Instagram. In April, just ahead of her 50th birthday that same month, she posted a little “wisdom from mom.”
"Happiness is your own responsibility. The life you're living while you wait for the grade, the college, the job, the man, is your actual life,” she wrote in her Instagram Stories at the time. “Decide to enjoy it and work towards your own peace and contentment.”
The star also dropped some gems about beauty and aging in a July interview with Harper's Bazaar.
"My beauty advice is always the same: Look in the mirror less, obsess less, and look at the rest of the world to see what you could be using your time for instead," she shared. "We all look at our faces more than people used to, and it doesn’t do you any good. You obsess over changes or how to fix something on your face."
Wellness, parenting, body image and more: Get to know the who behind the hoo with Yahoo Life's newsletter. Sign up here.