At a screening for the Apple TV+ limited series The Last Thing He Told Me in New York City Tuesday, actress Jennifer Garner revealed why playing Hannah Hill is her “dream role.”
The thriller, based on the same-titled book by Laura Dave that spent 65 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, comes out Friday with its first two episodes on Apple TV+.
The Last Thing He Told Me: ‘I can’t even explain how much I loved it,’ Garner said.
Garner only got the role of a new wife struggling with the disappearance of her husband, Owen (played by Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), while caring for his teen daughter, Bailey (Angourie Rice), when Julia Roberts dropped out because of scheduling difficulties, the Associated Press reported.
And that was a stroke of luck, because Garner loved the book just as much as millions of other people did.
“I read it with my middle child,” Garner said. “We kept pushing bedtime later and later because we were just compelled to read one more chapter, two more chapters, three more chapters. I can’t even explain how much I loved it.”
When Owen suddenly goes missing, he leaves Hannah a cryptic note that says she should protect Bailey, but nothing more. Bailey, having only known her father as a caregiver, doesn’t even want Hannah around. But the two have to deal with each other as they try to figure out what happened.
Cult of Mac‘s reviewer gave the first two episodes of the limited series three stars of out five.
Parent-child dynamic
Garner and Rice found their off-screen relationship progressing along with their screen roles.
“In this case, you’re watching us grow closer and closer and more and more trusting of each other into a really cool partnership in the way that Hannah and Bailey experienced as well,” she said.
And that’s saying something, as the two actresses are apparently nothing alike.
“Hannah and I are incredibly different,” Garner said. “I have kind of Labrador retriever energy and Hannah is more a sphinx of a cat who wants to be left alone.”
Garner, who has three children of her own and described herself as a “natural caregiver,” said she found playing a character “growing into becoming a mother” an interesting prospect. That, and playing a person who finds out “how much of parenting comes from doing it.”
Garner’s parental cred previously showed up in her film roles, such as Yes Day and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. She also co-founded the clean baby food and snack company Once Upon a Farm and serves as a Save the Children board member.
All in the family
Garner, Rice and the other actors also benefited from the guidance of Oscar-winner Josh Singer, who co-created the project with Laura Dave and is also her husband.
The two hosted script readings under a 100-year-old pine tree in their backyard. Garner would visit, going through the script again and again before shooting started. Agourie and other cast members dropped by, too.
“The script was so lived in by the time that we got to set,” Dave said. She added that she spent 10 years writing the book, which was “painful.” But the screenwriting process moved her in a more positive way.
“There were a couple of times when we were in my backyard where I had to casually say ‘excuse me’ and I went inside and I was like a puddle,” she said. “And then I’d go back outside and Jen would be like, ‘You’re not fooling anyone. I see the tears.'”
