Jennifer Garner Gets Candid About Always Being Called 'Nice'

Jennifer Garner has a reputation for being nice, but she’s so much more than that.

“I have no reason not to be nice. My life is lovely,” she told Town & Country.

But the actor says there are many other parts to her beyond the image people have.

“I’m not always just nice. I can also be salty, and I can be taciturn, or I can be really serious about what I want to get done,” she said.

“It’s not that I feel I’m underestimated in that way — I’m not afraid to stand up for myself and say, ‘Just so you know, this isn’t going to fly with me.’ When that happens, I don’t want you to be shocked that I’m a real person.”

Garner’s seemingly omnipresent smile and hokey Instagram videos, in which she cooks, farms and even meditates, have enhanced the image of her as a relatable — and, yes, nice — celebrity. She’s also showed off that nice side through her actions, baking and delivering cookies to first responders during the pandemic, as well as buying coffee and other drinks for customers behind her in line at Starbucks.

Earlier this year, Garner, who works with the charity Save the Children, went to Kentucky to help flood victims.

“We have a lot of work to do, but we will dig in,” she told TODAY.

She takes her nonprofit work so seriously that she treats it like a job, Garner told Town & Country.

“I mean, how you do anything is how you do everything,” she said.

But that doesn't mean she can't let loose. The actor, who is set to star in a new TV series "The Last Thing He Told Me," shared that she celebrated turning 50 in April with a huge birthday party.

“I basically had a wedding for myself,” she told Town & Country. “I was so shocked that I was doing it.”

And then she did something, well, nice: She asked her guests to fill 5,000 backpacks with food to feed a family of four for the nonprofit organization Blessings in a Backpack.

“I put everyone to work,” she said.

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This article was originally published on TODAY.com