I recognize how wonderful is to speak in another language and have the possibility to discover different cultures through the language. It’s difficult for me to read but I do it. I force myself to keep learning.
The actress Jennifer Garner had a great weekend with her movie Miracles From Heaven that finished No. 3 at the box office, bringing in $1.9 million on opening day, sending a message of “hope and encouragement” to its audiences. In the film, Garner, plays a real-life mom who sees how her middle daughter, Annabel, was diagnosed with an incurable digestive disorder. The movie tells the true story of a Christian family, their daughter’s near-death experience, and her miraculous healing from a digestive illness. It’s based on the book of the same name, written by the mother in the story, Christy Beam. It was also no surprise that Garner, a mother of three instantly bonded with her 12-year-old co-star Kylie Rogers who plays her daughter in the film. The two spent almost every minute together on set and became great friends which is evident when you see them together onscreen. Garner also says that her own faith has become stronger after making the film, and takes her children to church more often than they went before. The actress, who was separated from her husband actor Ben Affleck during the filming of Miracles from Heaven says that faith has become something important and necessary in her life now. She was raised in a family that went to Church every week and decided that this is something that she wants for her own children.
Q: Do you believe in miracles?
A: I do. In live we all are witnesses of little miracles every day, but I didn’t know if I could believe this story. I can’t deny that I was initially a little cynical.
Q: Did you read the book?
A: Yes, and I have to say that I was surprised with how much it affected me emotionally when I first read it. I felt like I have only made kids movies over the years and I was suspicious as to how this was any different or better. But as I read it, I just got so emotionally involved with the story and the characters and what this family was going through, and it had such a really profound emotional effect on me and I cried, I admit. I just thought it was a very powerful story, regardless of your religious beliefs. It’s a true story.
Q: Do you think is a religious film?
A: The characters are Christian and I was curious about how that would go in a wider audience, but I felt the story was so moving and compelling and ultimately so uplifting and so affirming, no matter what your faith, I was thrilled to be putting something like that out in the world.
Q: What do you want that people take away from the film
A: I will be so thrilled if it lifts people's hearts in that way, if it asks anyone to re-examine their own faith and their own beliefs, that would be the pie in the sky for me. I can't think of anything better.
Q: The film was directed by Patricia Riggen, a Latina director, and you had to work with Eugenio Derbez. Did you speak Spanish during the shooting of the movie?
A: Yes. I’m fluent in Spanish, love talking and reading in Spanish. I recognize how wonderful is to speak in another language and have the possibility to discover different cultures through the language. It’s difficult for me to read but I do it. I force myself to keep learning.
Q: What books you read in Spanish
A: I’ve being reading cookbooks in Spanish as I like to cook and I found wonderful recipes in Spanish
Q: How you still manage your time? You’re the head of helping foundation…
A: Save The Children.
Q: Yes. You just make yourself time…
A: My priority is my family and everybody knows that. I needed to do two Save The Children trips and I just said to my kids, ‘okay guys, so this is what I have set up to do. Are you guys cool with it…,’ you know we talk about it. Ben was home, so it makes it possible. My mother-in-law came in, my parents come in. So I’m never gone for that long and if I do have to be, they come with me. I took them out of school to go to Cleveland and if I’m not, then I will work very short weeks and fly back and forth. So it’s really okay. It takes a lot of managing and it takes a lot of thought. Already I know that there will be press for something right around the beginning of school this next year, and I have two kids starting in new schools so I’ve already said, “Look, I have to be home this week.” I don’t know what’s happening. I know that’s during the film festival here or there, but we have to protect this week, and I just am always thinking ahead. But like any mom, we all have calendars going all the time. Right?
Q: All the time. I do admire you for that, because I’m sure that you’re – you work with them. You just do the homework. You do the cooking. That’s time consuming
A: You know if I leave town I try to make little notes for their lunch boxes for every day that I’m gone and then I overdo it and then they have stickers and glitter and then the next time they want the stickers and glitter. So there are times where I screw myself because I’m trying so hard to be everything to everybody and really sometimes, it’s just not going to work out. Sometimes I just forget about a play date that I’ve set up or I was supposed to turn in something…
Q: You’re not perfect, that’s normal.
A: Or there was something, we were supposed to dress a teddy bear in clothes from the country where we’re from and I normally would be all over hand making it and doing it with my daughter with the sewing machine and getting a pattern. I’d be all over it. This time I called the teacher, I said is it okay to buy it and he said well, it’s okay, but we prefer and I was like look I would too. This time I’m buying it. I don’t do it all. Sometimes I look for the shortcut and I take it.
Q: What’s for you to be a modern woman
A: That’s having it all, that’s like being able to live in a man’s world but maintain your identity as a woman. That’s like what we all try to do, right?
Q: Is it difficult for you to sometimes maybe working.
A: Yeah, for sure. There are definitely times like anyone. I’m sure the men at work felt this way where if you’re at work and you think oh gosh. That’s what we all do. You can’t ask to have a career and have a family and have all of these things without it being a little messy.
