Jennifer Garner

While doing summer stock in Atlanta, Georgia, a few years back, Jennifer Garner approached a veteran New York stage actress for career advice.

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"She told me to forget acting and go get a paralegal degree," recalls Garner. "I wanted to kung-fu her and take her down!" Instead, Garner focused on moving from stage work to TV shows like "Law & Order" and "Felicity," where she met her husband, Scott Foley. After honing her acting chops with various film roles, Garner was cast as Ashton Kutcher's girlfriend in last Decembers stoner comedy Dude, Where's My Car? She one-upped that when director Michael Bay chose her to play Nurse Sandra opposite Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett in the upcoming Pearl Harbor. Working for the first time on an epic-scale picture was difficult enough; being a female on a male-oriented set was an extra challenge. "None of us women had really done an action film before and Michael had never done an action film with women, so there were a lot of tears shed and a lot of pressure." The cure for the Pearl Harbor blues? "We'd all gather at the makeup trailer and play Madonnas The Immaculate Collection and put on our Hawaiian grass skirts and coconut bras and dance around and make each other laugh." Following Pearl Harbor's release, Garner will make a brief appearance opposite Foley in the upcoming indie Rennie's Landing, about a group of college grads who plan a bank heist. As a Young Hollywood couple who have already shared screen time twice, how do Garner and Foley handle love scenes that occur with other actors? "I think it's fair to say that Scott gets more jealous than I do. However, on the night before our wedding, I turned on the TV and there was the 'Felicity' episode in which Tyra Banks straddles Scott and thrusts her ta-tas in his face. He was like, 'Tyra Banks is hot.' I thought, 'Oh, how nice."' Garner flashes a wicked smile. "But what can you do? She is hot--I'd kiss her."

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Michael Moses