Jennifer Garner Says She Might Have Been A Minister If She Hadn’t Become An Actress

There are many things Jennifer Garner could have done with her life if she hadn’t decided to pursue acting. She could have run the family farm in Oklahoma or, based on her social media, probably excelled in the culinary world. 

In a recent interview with Allure, however, Garner shared that if things had gone differently for her in Hollywood, she might have ended up with a career in ministry. 

“I would have really liked being a minister,” the 13 Going on 30 star said. “My mom thinks I still will be. I grew up in such a lovely church in the United Methodist Church, and the minister was like the den parent. What I like about the study of religion, it reminds me of the study of theater—it’s really a liberal arts education. You have to understand history, geography, literature. It’s art, it’s everything. I don’t know anything about Hinduism, Islam, so many other religions, and I wish I did. That feels like a sign of respect.”

“I think the more you engage, the more you learn about different ways that people believe and worship, the more you can sit next to anyone and be a neighbor,” Garner continued. “There’s such value in that to me. I don’t know that I will ever be someone who is writing a sermon Sunday morning, but I like the idea of it. I like the idea of going back to divinity school.”

Garner regularly goes to church with the three children she shares with ex-husband Ben Affleck: Violet, 17, Seraphina, 14, and Samuel, 11. Violet even teaches Sunday school. 

Garner knows how impactful religious services can be on a young mind. 

"As a kid, my family and I, we always referenced this one beautiful sermon," she told Allure, "where our minister talked about taking something hard that had happened and imagining yourself going down to the banks of the river and fashioning a beautiful box out of what you find there and placing this hurt carefully in the box and watching it float down the river. The power of letting go. Don’t carry it. Just let it go.”

“So many times, my sisters and I have said, ‘You need to put that in the river,’” Garner continued. “I’m not coming from a place of, ‘I have this unshakeable faith that I have to share.’ It’s coming from a human place—a place of respect and curiosity.”