Jennifer Garner Reveals Mark Ruffalo Tried to Quit '13 Going on 30'

Jennifer Garner almost had to share her Razzles with someone else! The actress, 51, revealed a new detail about filming her classic rom-com 13 Going on 30 while honoring co-star and friend Mark Ruffalo, 56, at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony Thursday.

Filling in last minute for Ruffalo's We Don't Live Here Anymore co-star, Laura Dern, who tested positive for COVID-19, Garner joked at the start of her speech, "Why wasn't I asked to do this in the first place?" She continued of the 2004 hit 13 Going on 30, "I kicked off the Mark Ruffalo rom-com era!" Not only that but "it was bookended 20 years later with The Adam Project," Garner added of their 2022 Netflix film together.

"I mean, it writes itself," she joked, telling the crowd, "Honestly, I don't know what you would've done without me. Thank God I showed up. I have got to be here to honor and elucidate rom-com Ruffalo." When it comes to looking back on their romantic comedy days, Garner asked her on-screen love interest, "How lucky are we to be in a movie that kids are dressing up for as Halloween, that still means something to people?"

"I wonder if my colleagues -- Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth [Paltrow], Keira Knightley -- I wonder if they would agree that Mark owes this rom-com success to the scruffy hair, the untucked cute button down, both of which became the norm for cute guys everywhere for the next 20 years," she continued, listing several of Ruffalo's other leading ladies and teasing, "I wonder if these esteemed ladies enjoyed Mark's anxiety as much as I did."

Garner then recalled, "I wonder if he tried to drop out of their films like he did out of ours after the first rehearsal of the 'Thriller' dance, where Mark went from kind of shocked that we actually had to do this, to antsy, to a deathly quiet, to, 'Bro, this is not for me,'" as Ruffalo let out a laugh.

Garner continued on a more sentimental note, "There's a through line from beloved Matty in 13 Going on 30 to Duncan in Poor Things. A common thread of anxiety, yes, of clarity of purpose, of understanding of story, of standing up for your characters, being a person of character, showing up for your co-stars, bringing your family with you into every moment of every scene, and showing up with joy." She concluded, "To work with you, Mark, is to love you. ... You allow yourself to be fully known by your colleagues, by the audience, by the world... Congratulations, Mark. We love you."