When Jennifer Garner travels, she by no means simply skims the floor of a vacation spot. Whether she’s chasing the Northern Lights with her mom in Yellowknife, Canada; performing purifying rituals at a Japanese temple; or obsessing over a doughnut shop in North Vancouver, the 54-year-old explores the world with a sense of open curiosity and eagerness to be taught.
And that is the spirit that she packed when she spent almost a month on Nantucket filming The Five-Star Weekend, the Peacock collection based mostly on Elin Hilderbrand‘s best-selling novel. In it, she performs a meals influencer Hollis Shaw who mourns her husband’s sudden demise by inviting girlfriends from each period of her life for a weekend getaway on the Massachusetts island.
“It’s the perfect location–especially in September when the crowds have dispersed a bit—where everyone can have their own experience in the day and come back together at night and talk about it,” the actress, who additionally served as an government producer, tells Condé Nast Traveler. “We all really fell in love.”
With a powerhouse solid that additionally included D’Arcy Carden, Gemma Chan, Regina Hall, and Chloë Sevigny, the coastal setting supplied simply the appropriate backdrop. “I’ve never worked with a group of women like this before on set—we are so different, yet we had such group harmony from the very beginning,” she says.
That rapport grew as they immersed themselves into the island’s lifestyle. Garner relished in going to “a beautiful congressional church” on Sunday mornings and “really loved” becoming a member of native exercises together with Pilates and scorching yoga—a apply she hadn’t achieved in a decade. In reality, the solid melded a lot into the group that they have been even noticed karaoking with locals at The Gaslight restaurant. We sat down with the Golden Globe winner to dissect her time on New England island.
The Trip
What journey are you unpacking for us?
I’m so prepared to speak Nantucket. We have been there for 3 and a half weeks and actually labored nonstop. I used to be in all of the scenes, so I didn’t have a ton of playtime, however you wouldn’t comprehend it wanting again via my photos as a result of I made probably the most of each minute.
How acquainted have been you with the area?
I actually didn’t know this a part of New England. I had been to Martha’s Vineyard for a evening after I was 24 and lived in New York, and I’d been to Nantucket as soon as about 10 years in the past to talk at The Nantucket Project for Save the Children. But I had gone straight to conferences, and by no means noticed one factor on the island. So after I got here again, I used to be like, oh my gosh, there are seashores in all places!
What made the journey so distinctive?
What’s so particular is that there are such a lot of completely different Nantuckets you’ll be able to expertise. You can hike and bike and be misplaced in the course of the island on lovely pure trails. You might be a seashore bum all day, go on a buying journey, or have a meals journey and luxuriate in lobster mac and cheese, lobster quesadillas, lobster ravioli, lobster the whole lot—a lot good things! You may even have a full Ellen Hildebrand Nantucket expertise. We met a lot of ladies in e book teams going to expertise the whole lot Ellen, and that regarded like a lot of enjoyable!
Who joined you?
My mother and sisters have been up with me firstly. My ballet instructor from rising up in West Virginia got here up for a day within the center—that was actually particular. My ballet associate got here as effectively. Then my youngsters got here actually shortly in some unspecified time in the future within the center.