Even the world’s most successful people had to get their foot in the door somehow—billionaire Warren Buffett got his start selling Coke bottles door-to-door. Jeff Bezos once flipped burgers at McDonald’s. And award-winning actress Jennifer Garner, whose organic food brand, Once Upon a Farm, just went public at a $724 million valuation, had a similarly humble start: At a low-paying New York theater, she earned just $150 a week as an understudy.
“I just realized that I liked drama … At the time, I planned a career in the theater; I didn’t even consider film or TV,” Garner told the Independent. “I certainly never expected to be in front of a camera one day of my life.”
Garner said she was “a total snob” and only wanted to do theater—until the paychecks came in and she realized that film paid more. Her first shot at the big leagues was the 1995 television movie Zoya.
“When I moved to New York and was trying to get a job onstage, and was broke and got offered a TV movie,” Garner told the Independent in a 2009 interview, “I was like, ‘Hot dog, put me in front of that camera. Let’s do it!’ And now that it has continued to evolve, I still love my job.”
Yet Garner had to scrape to get by while her career was gaining steam in the 1990s. On top of doing her acting work, Garner even babysat the daughter of late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert. And even when the money started rolling in a bit more, she stayed frugal, spending her first Hollywood paycheck on essentials.
“I took a couple of thousand dollars and put it away in a retirement account that I still have. I think it’s now worth like $2,005,” Garner said in a 2015 interview while promoting the film Danny Collins. “I used that money to help me pay first and last month’s rent and an apartment finder’s fee for my first real apartment with my friend.”
It didn’t take long for Garner to move from the stage to the screen, desperate for steady pay—and the sacrifice paid off.
Garner’s 30-plus years of success across Hollywood
Over the past three decades since, Garner has become a mega-celebrity from Hollywood hits like 13 Going on 30, Juno, and Dallas Buyers Club.
Garner starred in a slew of TV shows, Law & Order among them, before uprooting her life and heading to the movie capital of the U.S.: Los Angeles.
Garner made her foray into film with Rose Hill, also taking on a number of roles in movies like Pearl Harbor, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and Valentine’s Day. Post–New York, she’s also continued her work in television, including spy thriller Alias.
This year, Garner is welcoming a slew of new projects: The actress is slated to star in Netflix comedy One Attempt Remaining, and the second season of her Apple TV thriller The Last Thing He Told Me premieres later this month.
Now, Garner’s making a name for herself as ‘Farmer Jen’
Aside from the entertainment industry, she’s made a name for herself in the food business.
Garner took home $1 million last year in her role as cofounder of Once Upon a Farm and as “Farmer Jen,” the company spokesperson; she is expected to earn $2 million to $3 million in annual compensation through 2028.
The food company she scaled with Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz started trading as OFRM this past Friday at $18 a share, raising $198 million and hitting a whopping $724 million valuation.
Garner joined Once Upon a Farm as a cofounder and chief brand officer in 2017, just two years after Curtis created the nutritional baby food brand.
And after taking the brand public last week, business boomed, and so did Garner’s role in the operation; she will serve on the new public company’s board of directors while maintaining her role as “Farmer Jen.” At the time of the company’s IPO, Once Upon a Farm boasted $200 million in annual sales, according to its S-1 filing, offering its products in 19,000 stores.