Jennifer Garner Praises Reese Witherspoon in Classy Fashion Ahead of New Apple TV+ Series

Jennifer Garner has nothing but respect for Reese Witherspoon. For the first time, Garner will star in and serve as executive producer of her new Apple TV+ series The Last Thing He Told Me alongside her friend and fellow EP Witherspoon. In the last few years, the star has been more active behind-the-scenes, working as a producer on Netflix's 2021 movie Yes Day and the upcoming film Family Leave. Witherspoon, who has successfully built her own brand under her Hello Sunshine production company, is credited with inspiring her to pivot to producing. "Honestly, Reese is behind that, she has really pushed me. She said to me a few years ago, 'Nobody is sitting around thinking, what can I shoot in L.A. that's going to have a 50-year-old woman in it?' She's like, 'You've got to create your own stuff,'" Garner told The Hollywood Reporter. "All women in this town owe a debt of gratitude to Reese."

Garner plays Hannah in The Last Thing He Told Me, based on Laura Dave's 2021 novel of the same name. Hannah searches for the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of her husband with her teen stepdaughter. After Julia Roberts dropped out of the series, Garner said she wrote letters to the creative team pitching herself as a possible replacement for Roberts, who was originally set to lead the show. "Hannah and I are quite different, but there was something about her that just really spoke to me. I feel like she is the ultimate hero of her own story, she's fighting for own optimism and that is something that I could really relate to," Garner noted to the outlet. 

"The idea also of becoming a parent and when you are a parent, you still have to fall in love with your kids over and over again; they keep changing, they shift, and you just find new ways to love them, new ways they expand your heart in new and different ways all the time. To watch Hannah go through that process in real time was really exciting for me." In addition to its many female producers, the series also features an all-female directing team. For Garner, "This is just a story about a woman learning to trust her own instinct, a woman finding her own agency and struggling through to prove herself to herself. And nobody can tell that story better than women in Hollywood." Apple TV+ is currently streaming the first two episodes of The Last Thing He Told Me.