Jennifer Garner opened up about the “upheaval” in her family life following her split from Ben Affleck in 2015. Initially, she reflected on the time spent navigating pregnancy and recovery before explaining how she temporarily stepped back from her career to focus on raising her children. Now that she has resumed her acting career, she revealed that she remains selective when choosing Hollywood projects.

In a conversation with InStyle, Garner initially spoke about pregnancy before shedding light on how the split not only impacted her personal life but also her professional. She said, “First of all, when you’re in a performance kind of role, you give up a year/year-and-a-half of performance while you are pregnant, having a baby, recovering.”

She revealed that when the kids were young, she was more focused on raising them and didn’t work much. “When my kids were little, I worked so little, and then we had such an upheaval in our family, that I really hardly worked for a long time,” she explained. Now that she is back in Hollywood, she mentioned being picky about projects, mostly accepting those based in Los Angeles. This is because she has no desire to be away from the family for extended periods of work.

In addition, she reflected on how acting is a “selfish” job, explaining that it is not about domestic responsibilities but rather the demanding schedule. She added that she is unapologetic to her kids when it comes to her career and is grateful that even they have been “sweet” and understanding about it. “But that’s part of life. Working hard is part of life, and messing up is part of life. Tripping and falling—there’s room for all of it,” she elaborated. Affleck and Garner married in 2005. They share three kids, Violet, Fin, and Samuel, whom they now co-parent following their divorce settlement in 2018.