Jennifer Garner Was a ‘Huge Fan’ of Victor Garber Before She Learned He Would Play Her Dad on “Alias”

Victoria EdelMon, July 13, 2026 at 6:51 PM UTC

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From left: Jennifer Garner and Victor Garber in ‘Alias’Credit: ABC/CRAIG SJODIN -

Jennifer Garner reflected on the making of Alias, which premiered 25 years ago

She remembered being starstruck when she learned Victor Garber would be joining the cast as her father

Garner said that not only Garber but also much of the show’s crew are present and active parts of her life

Jennifer Garner was thrilled when she found out who would be playing her TV dad on Alias.

Garner, 54, revisited some of her most iconic roles in a July 9 video for Vanity Fair. Those roles included her leading part as Sydney Bristow in the action thriller series Alias, which earned her four Emmy nominations.

The series ran from 2001 to 2006 and saw Garner move out of her girl-next-door typecasting into a new mold as a spy and action hero (with an incredible collection of wigs). Sydney’s father was Jack Bristow, played by Victor Garber.

“Anything Victor Garber does is iconic,” Garner said about her friend. Before she was cast alongside him, she was a “huge fan” of Garber from when she lived in New York and he starred on Broadway. “I couldn’t afford to see plays, and so I would spend $20 to stand in the back,” she said. “I’d seen Victor in Arcadia, in Art, in Damn Yankees, and when I heard that he would be playing my dad, I kind of lost my mind. I was so excited.”

Garner said that she feels like Garber’s “actual daughter” and that she sees the 77-year-old actor as a “real father figure.” She noted that he officiated the ceremony when she married her ex-husband Ben Affleck and that he’s the godfather of one of her three kids.

From left: Jennifer Garner and Victor Garber in ‘Alias’Credit: Danny Feld/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

“That’s a cherished relationship,” she said. “I will do anything to be with him or to see him or to be there for him or to call him when I need him.”

She then watched a clip where Garber, as Jack, was driving a car while also shooting people outside the window. “God, he’s such a badass,” she said while watching — before revealing that Garber is actually “a horrific driver,” a fact she attributed to him being a New Yorker. “There’s no way that that was Victor,” she said of his stunt driving.

The actress, whose credits include 2004’s 13 Going on 30, 2018’s Love, Simon and the new Peacock series The Five-Star Weekend, said that Garber isn’t the only person she’s stayed close to since Alias ended 20 years ago.

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“You often hear people talk about how they become family because you’re in the trenches with people and the hours are so crazy, and you’ve heard all of those stories. Not to belabor them, but in this case it was all of that, times a thousand,” she said. Making the show was “so ambitious,” she said, and took a lot of time.

Victor Garber (left) and Jennifer Garner in 2015Credit: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

“It was a very, very intense experience for me, and they were my whole world, the cast and crew and they still are,” she said. Garner said that she still works with the same costumer, driver, stunt double and stand-in that she worked with “from day one of Alias.”

“We just wrapped a movie and . . . we’re a little band that’s gone together for the past 25 years,” she said. Garner has also worked with Garber since the show ended; he had a guest role in the first season of her Apple TV show The Last Thing He Told Me.

Garner said that playing Sydney helped her have much more confidence on set and that the show was “like boot camp for acting.”

“And I think it just made me more brave all around to have gone through something like that particular series and it comes up in my life, personal life, absolutely all the time,” she said.

Alias also starred Ron Rifkin as Arvin Sloane, Michael Vartan as Michael Vaughn, Bradley Cooper as Will Tippin, Carl Lumbly as Marcus Dixon and Kevin Weisman as Marshall Flinkman.

Garner has shared photos from reunions with both Garber and Rifkin, 86, over the years, and often jokingly calls Garber her “SpyDaddy.”

Rumors have persisted about Alias getting a reboot, and both Garner and Garber have voiced their support for returning to the series.

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”