Jennifer Garner [1] doesn't like not being nice. And she has to be not nice — a lot — on her new HBO series [2], Camping [3]. In it, Garner stars as Kathryn Siddell-Bauers, a high-strung LA mom facing health issues. And marriage issues. And control issues. And — well, you get the drift.
"It was actually hard for me to lean into the cringe," Garner told a group of reporters at a press day for the show in LA this week. "I kept wanting to soften Kathryn . . . because I could see both sides of her in the words. I'd want to button the scene with a smile or just have a nice gesture, be maternal, just have something. And Jenni [Konner, cocreator and producer] was really strict with me, in a good way, to remember that I was Kathryn and not me."
Konner, who was seated next to Garner on a love seat, grinned: "It's hard to take the kindness out of Jenn Garner."
Camping, which comes from the same Girls producing partnership of Konner and Lena Dunham, sees them move their attention from 20-somethings to 40-somethings. The comedy, which premieres on Oct. 14, follows a group of friends as they come together and clash over a birthday weekend in the woods.
Konner is 47, and while Dunham is still in her 30s, she still brings plenty of her own real-life experience to bear on Camping. Notably, her own experiences with a hysterectomy and endometriosis; in fact, Dunham had to drop out of the Camping press day and premiere due to her own health complications. Garner spoke to playing Kathryn — who herself is recovering from a hysterectomy — and how Dunham informed her role. Did they talk about it together?
!["We had conversations, but I was wary of playing Lena because I already had her words. And so I ended up talking a lot to women in support groups," Garner said. "And I have friends who have personally gone through things like this, and so I kind of pulled from all different people."
Garner added that Kathryn's health problems made her empathize with a character who can, at times, be thorny and difficult.
"I have a lot of love for Kathryn. I feel like the way that Jenni and Lena wrote her, over time, you understand her more and more, and you have glimpses of who she was before her body started to kind of fail her," Garner explains. "And there are a few things that she says that are so specific and so painful, and it's a horrible thing to say. She's not a careful person. [Like,] 'I wish I had cancer so that people could see me and feel bad for me. But because I look normal, nobody gets that I'm in pain all the time.' And I think you do build up defences around that."
Garner knocked on the wooden end table to her right. "Luckily, I'm not somebody who lives with chronic pain, so I don't know. But I can understand it, and I can understand how it would change who you are over time."](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/xGGlJnh3WasABUSKQJRd8wWfVAI/fit-in/1024x1024/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-/2018/10/11/866/n/1922283/7ef6a628016465d3_530ef2895d17825fea2dbea3e9568f15ae8878f292b960aa2f6e1c1e39ddf4d6/i/We-had-conversations-I-wary-playing-Lena-because-I.jpg "\"We had conversations, but I was wary of playing Lena because I already had her words. And so I ended up talking a lot to women in support groups,\" Garner said. \"And I have friends who have personally gone through things like this, and so I kind of pulled from all different people.\"
Garner added that Kathryn's health problems made her empathize with a character who can, at times, be thorny and difficult.
\"I have a lot of love for Kathryn. I feel like the way that Jenni and Lena wrote her, over time, you understand her more and more, and you have glimpses of who she was before her body started to kind of fail her,\" Garner explains. \"And there are a few things that she says that are so specific and so painful, and it's a horrible thing to say. She's not a careful person. [Like,] 'I wish I had cancer so that people could see me and feel bad for me. But because I look normal, nobody gets that I'm in pain all the time.' And I think you do build up defences around that.\"
Garner knocked on the wooden end table to her right. \"Luckily, I'm not somebody who lives with chronic pain, so I don't know. But I can understand it, and I can understand how it would change who you are over time.\"")
"We had conversations, but I was wary of playing Lena because I already had her words. And so I ended up talking a lot to women in support groups," Garner said. "And I have friends who have personally gone through things like this, and so I kind of pulled from all different people."
Garner added that Kathryn's health problems made her empathize with a character who can, at times, be thorny and difficult.
"I have a lot of love for Kathryn. I feel like the way that Jenni and Lena wrote her, over time, you understand her more and more, and you have glimpses of who she was before her body started to kind of fail her," Garner explains. "And there are a few things that she says that are so specific and so painful, and it's a horrible thing to say. She's not a careful person. [Like,] 'I wish I had cancer so that people could see me and feel bad for me. But because I look normal, nobody gets that I'm in pain all the time.' And I think you do build up defences around that."
Garner knocked on the wooden end table to her right. "Luckily, I'm not somebody who lives with chronic pain, so I don't know. But I can understand it, and I can understand how it would change who you are over time."
Kathryn's inability to be careful with other people is central to the series, which tackles the joys — and strains — of long-term friendships.
"The show, to me, is a lot about female relationships," Garner said. "And it's a lot about just friendship over time and what friendships can go through and still be richer for it. Or what the breaking point of a friendship might actually be."
Garner said her own decades-long bonds with friends made the series ring especially true.
"I haven't had many friendships break, thank goodness, but I have had friendships endure. I can look at several girlfriends and say, 'Yes. This has been one of the dearest people in my life for 20-plus years,'" she said. "And that takes something. I can think of a time where I was selfish and injured a friendship. And it took years and years, but now, that's just a blip in the past."
But while the show tackles some heartfelt and heavy topics — infidelity, racism, midlife crises — it is, at its heart, a comedy. The campground setting raises all the interpersonal stakes as often as it provides comedic relief. And the fact that it was shot outdoors also made for a memorable experience for the cast and crew. According to Konner, there were "a million snakes" on set, necessitating a full-time rattlesnake handler.
"At one point we were shooting and in the middle of kind of an intense scene, and it was dusk or starting to be dark. And all of a sudden, in the middle of a take, Jenni, all the producers, and the script supervisors, they're all in the shot with us," Garner laughs. "We're focussed, and we're kind of like, 'What are you doing?' And they said, 'We heard a rattle!'"