JENNIFER GARNER: EVERYTHING THAT'S FUN TO KNOW - PART 6
3 MAY 2004. SOURCE: TEEN HOLLYWOOD

Teen Hollywood: What's your worst memory of being 13? Was it in school?

Jennifer: No. I'm thinking really hard. I just remember, when I was 13, being in a band uniform at a football game, and I really liked this trumpet player, and he was my older sister's boyfriend's little brother. And, I so had a thing for him and all my friends were running up to him and saying, "Well, do you like her? Why don't you ask her to go with you?" And, there I was with my saxophone, and he didn't ask me the whole night, and I just waited and waited. I had on huge glasses. And, it was a bummer.

Teen Hollywood; Did he ever ask you?

Jennifer: Nah, we joke about it now. My friends tortured him. He's married and happy now.

Teen Hollywood: So not being ultra popular didn't buy you like it did your character Jena?

Jennifer: No. I was not devastated by not being the popular girl. I was one of the girls on the outskirts and separated by the inability to dress and a natural geekiness, and being in the band was a stigma, but I was not unhappy about it. However, even now, if I were around the girls that were cool at the time, now, I would still feel like a geek. I would still feel like I don't know what to say. I mean, believe me, you are all still 13, right under the surface.

Teen Hollywood: What do you think that this movie is telling young girls?

Jennifer: I think that it's a cautionary tale for 13-year-olds to just be careful, and to not be seduced by some idea of who you should be, but to make choices based on who you actually are. I think that the scary thing about being 13 is that most kids probably have really pure, good instincts, and feel like they need to do something in order to be accepted or they need to fit into a pattern, and I think that this movie says that you don't. And, actually, if you change yourself in order to fit that pattern, you could be very sorry later.

Teen Hollywood: That almost makes sense here in Hollywood too, right?

Jennifer: Yeah. Well, I think that, for adults, this movie is more about, "Okay, just remember that you're constantly shaping who you are becoming, so what choices are you making to keep yourself on the path that you want to be on?" TO BE CONTINUED / BACK TO THE TOP