Jennifer Anne Garner is an Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe- and SAG Award-winning American actress. She is best known for her role as CIA agent Sydney Bristow on TV's Alias, as well as for her roles in the films Juno, Pearl Harbor, Dude, Where's My Car?, 13 Going on 30, Catch Me if You Can, Daredevil, Elektra, Catch and Release, and The Kingdom.
Early life
Childhood
Garner was born in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Patricia Ann , an English teacher from Oklahoma, and William John Garner, a chemical engineer who worked for Union Carbide in Texas. She is the middle child between two sisters, Melissa Garner Wylie and Susannah Kay Garner Carpenter . Her family is Methodist. At three years old, Garner began taking ballet lessons which she continued throughout her youth. Although she admitted that she loved dancing, she never had ambitions to become a classical ballerina. When she was four years old, her father's job with Union Carbide relocated her family to Princeton, West Virginia, then to Charleston, West Virginia, where Garner resided until her college years.
Education
In 1990, Garner graduated from George Washington High School in Charleston, where she played the saxophone. She then enrolled at Denison University to study chemistry. Upon realizing that she enjoyed stage acting more than science, Garner changed her major to drama. While at Denison, Garner was initiated into the sorority Pi Beta Phi. Garner graduated from Denison in 1994 and continued her drama education at the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut where she was trained by fight choreographer David Chandler, and told she was a natural in stage combat. Keen for immediate experience, she visited her friend, Clayton Kirlew, in New York City in 1995 and decided to take her chances in New York theatre.
Career
Early career
In New York City, Garner earned $150 a week as an understudy in the play A Month in the Country for Roundabout Theatre Company in 1995
