Jennifer Garner opened up about one of the hardest days of her career, returning to work on Dallas Buyers Club just weeks after giving birth to her third child.
Talk to Hits Radio My life in the cinema In the YouTube series, the 53-year-old actress recalled the intensity of filming the Oscar-nominated drama, which was filmed in just 21 days, shortly after welcoming her son Samuel with Ben Affleck in 2012.
The pace left almost no room to breathe, and for a breastfeeding mother this presented a very specific and painful problem.
“I was breastfeeding and we were tossing and turning. It was the first day, and around bedtime for my baby, all of a sudden, my [body] exploded,” she said.
On other productions, there had always been a natural window, a camera turn, a brief pause, where she could slip away. There was nothing on that one. “I couldn’t on this film,” she says simply.
The emotion of it all caught up with her on set. Leaving her newborn was already difficult and the physical discomfort was pushing her over the edge.
“That third child, leaving him was so hard, and I was a disaster. And I started crying, and I can’t stop crying. I’m not supposed to cry. And Matthew said, ‘What’s wrong with you?'” she recalled.
When she explained what she needed but didn’t want to slow down production, McConaughey didn’t hesitate.
“He said, ‘Guys, I need a minute.’ And he said, “Go and do what you need to do.” »And so the rest of this movie, every time I needed to pump [he would break]”.
The gesture meant a lot to Garner, especially considering what McConaughey and co-star Jared Leto were putting their own bodies through at the time, with both going on extreme diets to lose weight for their respective roles.
