Ben Affleck reveals Jennifer Garner turned down playing his wife in Netflix's Animals: 'You just get baggage'

For a brief moment, Netflix's upcoming kidnapping thriller Animals was on track to put Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner back on screen as husband and wife. It was Garner who pulled the plug.

Affleck, who directs and stars in the film, told Entertainment Weekly that the idea came up late in production, after he took over the male lead himself. Garner was already attached to play the wife. Once it became clear the two former spouses would be playing a married couple, they reconsidered. Garner's view, as Affleck recounted it, was simple: "We don't want to do that. You just get baggage."

Affleck said he came to agree. The worry wasn't about their relationship, which he described as warm and grounded in deep mutual gratitude. It was about audiences. Viewers would bring their own knowledge of the couple's history into the theater, he explained, and that could undercut the story the film was trying to tell. He added that he still hopes to work with Garner on a future project.

Garner hadn't been an afterthought. Affleck said he had pictured her in the part from early on, believing it would let her show a side of her talent he felt she hadn't yet had the chance to display on film. There was a practical appeal too: the former couple split time with their children on alternating weeks, and making the movie together would have made it easier to coordinate their schedules and spend more time with the kids.

The version with Affleck opposite Garner wasn't the film's first form, either. The project originally paired Garner with Matt Damon, Affleck's longtime friend and collaborator, as the couple at the centre of the abduction plot, with Affleck directing from behind the camera.

He shelved the film after learning that Spike Lee was making his own kidnapping thriller, Highest 2 Lowest. When Affleck later returned to the script and revived it, Damon was no longer available because of his commitment to Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. That left the lead open, and Affleck stepped into it.

With Garner out, Kerry Washington took over the role. The cast also includes Gillian Anderson, Steven Yeun, Luis Gerardo Méndez and Adriana Paz.