Jennifer Garner - ‘I'm Back In Action!'

Jen Talks Motherhood And Getting Fighting Fit For Peppermint

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The humble Jennifer Garner has had more than a few reasons to be immodest this year. She cemented her celebrity status on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – ‘It’s outside Hooter’s,’ she proudly told Jimmy Fallon – and made her TV return in Lena Dunham’s HBO series Camping.

Now the 46-year-old has another achievement to add to her list – playing Riley North in her latest thriller Peppermint. Taking on the role of Riley, a mother seeking revenge after her daughter and husband are murdered by a drug cartel, was a no-brainer for Jen. ‘She’s a great character,’ she says. ‘I’m afraid people are gonna hate the movie and take pity on me, see me and think I’m just obsessed with myself.’ We could never, Jen!

You fight crime in Peppermint. What made you jump back into the action genre?

I’d wanted to do something physical, but the roles that came my way didn’t have high enough stakes to make me believe in them. To me, if you’re going to do an action movie, it has to be grounded in emotion. And whatever happens has to be strong enough that you have no choice but to fight, no choice but to pick up a weapon and do what you need to do. And this, to me, really was an expression of that ‘mum rage’.

That’s an understatement, you play a pretty violent role… did that get to you?