Jennifer Garner returns to TV thrillers in Apple TV+‘s upcoming limited series The Last Thing He Told Me, and the first trailer reveals that her Alias co-star, Victor Garber, is also part of the already star-studded cast.
Released Thursday, March 9 by the streaming service, Garner is seen in the trailer as Hannah, a woman who must forge a relationship with her 16-year-old stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) in order to find the truth about why her husband, Owen (Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has mysteriously disappeared.
The Last Thing He Told Me is based on the acclaimed, No. 1 New York Times bestselling novel by Laura Dave. Starring and executive produced by Garner, the seven-part drama features an ensemble cast that also includes Aisha Tyler, Augusto Aguilera. Geoff Stults, and John Harlan Kim.
It is produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and 20th Television, and will premiere globally on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, April 14. Followed by new episodes every Friday through May 19.
The drama is created and adapted by Dave alongside Academy Award-winning co-creator Josh Singer. It marks the first collaboration between the married Dave and Singer, who both serve as executive producers alongside Garner, Witherspoon, and Lauren Neustadter.
The series is produced for Apple by Hello Sunshine. Who optioned the book from author Dave and serves as the studio on the project with 20th Television. Olivia Newman directs the pilot episode, with each episode being directed by women thereafter. The all-female director lineup includes Deniz Gamze Erguven, Daisy Von Scherler Mayer, and Lila Neugebauer.
Jennifer Garner on why thriller The Last Thing He Told Me is really ‘a love story between 2 women’
Jennifer Garner has lost a lot of sleep because of The Last Thing He Told Me.
First, the star would be reading the No. 1 New York Times best-selling novel with her middle child at night before bed, and as fans of the Laura Dave book can relate to, bedtime just kept getting pushed later and later because they couldn’t put it down.
When Garner learned that the show was being adapted into an Apple TV+ thriller series, she had to content herself with knowing that the lead role of Hannah had already been cast, with Julia Roberts set to headline the show. “I loved it so much that when I read it, I wanted to go back to bed knowing that there was no way I could play it. It had already been cast,” Garner tells EW.
Then, when the role suddenly became available, the star pounced. “I went for it. And I stayed up all night writing letters, like all night, like saw the sunrise, just writing and rewriting letters and sending these letters out. And then the next night, I did it again,” she says.
The all-nighter worked. Not only does Garner play Hannah in the series, which premieres Friday, but she also serves as executive producer on the show. Like the book it’s based on, the story follows Hannah, a woodturner and happy newlywed who suddenly must forge a relationship with her combative 16-year-old stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) in order to find the truth about why her husband, Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), has mysteriously disappeared.
Initially, all Hannah has to go on are her and Bailey’s memories of Owen, and a strange and frustratingly short note that simply reads, “Protect her.”
What follows is “one twist after another,” per Garner, but though the show’s bones are that of a thriller, its heart is something else entirely.
“The show is really a love story between two women: A girl who does not know how to have a mother. And a woman who does not know how to be a mother. And they start out in an adversarial role with each other, and their lives are completely blown up in such a way the stakes could not be more high. That they have to start working together as a team, whether they like it or not,” explains Garner.
The actress, who has three kids of her own, says that her character also has to bite her tongue a lot, which “feels very much relatable to anyone with teenagers.”
“Then over time, they start to rely on each other, trust each other, and become a real team,” she adds. But, naturally, she says, “the thing that is exciting is that in the middle of all of this, the stakes become more and more life and death. And it just becomes more and more propulsive as it goes on, and there’s just one twist after another. So there is a thriller, but it’s also very much a family drama.”
Now, as the series is set to finally make its debut, Garner is reminiscing about those sleepless nights that got her here.
“What Laura [Dave] wrote, you just can’t believe how many cliffhangers there are, how many times something huge lands right at the end of a chapter, and you are compelled to keep reading,” she says. “And I can only hope that we should be so lucky that people feel that way when they watch.”
Aisha Tyler, Augusto Aguilera, Geoff Stults, and John Harlan Kim also star in the series, which is co-created by Dave and Josh Singer (Spotlight). The seven-episode season will premiere globally with the first two episodes on Friday, followed by one new episode weekly through May 19 on Apple TV+.
First Look pictures
Trailer
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Source: TV Insider / ET Online / EW
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