Earlier this year, Peacock released The Five-Star Weekend, an 8-episode drama based on Elin Hilderbrand’s 2023 best-selling novel of the same name. The series starring Jennifer Garner went onto becoming Peacock’s most watched scripted series ever. The series was renewed for a second season. Awards Central had the pleasure of sitting down with Garner to discuss her character on the show and more.

What is The Five-Star Weekend about and who stars in it?

A food blogger, Hollis (Jennifer Garner) tries to combat the loss of her husband, Matthew (Josh Hamilton) by recreating a five-star weekend getaway at her house on Nantucket with four friends from different stages in her life: her childhood friend, Tatum (Chloë Sevigny), her college friend, Dru-Ann (Regina Hall), her motherhood friend, Brooke (D’Arcy Carden), as well as a woman, Gigi (Gemma Chan), whom she recently met online. As the five friends spend the weekend together, they mature in ways they could never imagine as boundaries are pushed and secrets are exposed.

The Five-Star Weekend | Jennifer Garner Interview

Ricky Valero: One of the things I find fascinating about Hollis is that she’s so good at creating this beautiful life for everyone else, whether it’s through food, entertaining, or her public persona. But when it comes to confronting her own pain, she’s struggling. Do you think Hollis has spent so much time creating the appearance of a perfect life that she’s lost sight of what actually makes her happy?

Jennifer Garner:  Yeah, great question. I do think that that is true of many people who look perfect on the outside. Why do they need to look so, so perfect? What is going on that they are having trouble confronting? I like just being a little bit messy. I always say I’m happy and dumb, but I’m not dumb. I—I’m just being silly, but I’m also happy and messy. Um, but I’m not always happy. I’ve gone through my things too, and when I do, I kind of wear it on my sleeve. It’s not… There’s… Rarely a big secret, whereas Hollis can keep things confined, and she thinks she’s got it under control until she doesn’t. 

Valero: One of the things this story explores is that grief doesn’t have an expiration date, and moving forward doesn’t necessarily mean moving on. Through playing Hollis, did you find yourself thinking differently about how we give people permission to grieve, particularly when the world around them expects them to get back to normal?

Garner: Yeah, it, playing Hollis, did put me right in the middle of the heart of a woman’s grief. And to be honest, it was surprising because even though I knew what the story was, I read the book, I read the scripts, and I was doing… Until you’re actually shooting those scenes, it’s very easy to, or at least for me, it was very easy to be distracted by the beautiful clothes and the beautiful food and the sumptuous sets, and then all of a sudden it would be like, “Oh, no, wait, this is not that show.”

It may have that element, but there’s a whole other side to it, and that is this woman just trying to escape a grief that cannot be run from. And I think that’s true for everyone, and playing Hollis was a great reminder that people are more than what they show you. People have a lot more going on. All of us do. Everyone does. Even at those of us who are, you know, messy and happy, there’s probably more going on if you really dig deeply enough. And I think we all just have to give each other grace. That’s always been my belief.

Valero:  I think one of the scenes, obviously the impactful scenes, is kind of when she eventually loses her shit. You know what I mean? What’s that preparation process like getting into that headspace of someone who’s just ready to kind of almost explode?

Garner:  Yeah. I spent a semester of college at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Institute in Connecticut, and it was a great semester for me. I didn’t even know that I was going to try to be a professional actor at the time. And I learned a lot of technique that semester, and it’s something that you always work on, right? But one of the things that we did there is we had a mask class, and it was like you sit with the mask and you’re imagining, like, you’re really trying to visualize what your character is feeling, thinking, doing, or about to do.

And in this case, it was always, like, waving goodbye to somebody on a boat that you’re never going to see again. And that’s it. There are no words. There’s nothing. It’s just what can you convey, because it’s so true in all of you that you can’t help but show through this blank mask. That was brought to mind the day we were shooting the scene where Hollis, for lack of a better term, loses her shit, because I felt like I was coiled in a ball, kind of waiting for something to overcome me in a way that there was no other option but destroy the kitchen, which is not something that I’m comfortable doing as a person whatsoever.

It was just like trying to imagine Hollis’s reality and l- until it crystallized into something that had to be acted on. What really affects me when I watch the scene, though, is the women cleaning up after and the way they loved her, and that is what makes me emotional—just those friendships.

The Five-Star Weekend is streaming on Peacock.