Jennifer Garner, star and producer of ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’: ‘I’m comfortable making decisions’

When Owen disappeared, Hannah was adrift, caught in that kind of grief where sadness, fury, and desperation all blur together. Today, five years later, she has learned to live without him — and to become, once again, another version of herself. But is she really without him? Will Owen remain missing? And who is Hannah now?

A three‑year break isn’t something the actors are used to, given their history with long, fast‑paced, many‑episode series: Jennifer Garner with Alias two decades ago; Nikolaj Coster‑Waldau with Game of Thrones. Filming the second season of The Last Thing He Told Me came as a surprise, since they didn’t even know there would be one when they wrapped the first.

“This isn’t, you know, like my usual TV experience, where you had a couple of months off. You’d run off, do a movie, and come right back and it was like you never left,” says Garner.

Coster‑Waldau adds that they were used to “a six‑month gap, but this one was very long… although it doesn’t really feel that way, actually,” he reflected. “In a way, just like in the story, there’s a five-year gap between the end of the first season and the beginning of the second. So it made sense that Angourie [Rice, Garner’s on-screen stepdaughter] could play a girl her own age. It was perfect. And of course, for these characters, there’s a lot of water under the bridge.”

“It’s a joy working with them because everything runs perfectly — there are so many women in charge and it runs like clockwork,” says Garner.

That position has allowed her to make decisions — casting decisions, for example. She was the one who chose to bring in Rita Wilson to play her mother on the show, and Judy Greer, a good friend and her co‑star in 13 Going on 30, as a mysterious family friend.

When asked about the advantages and drawbacks of contributing both capital and creative input to the series, Garner replies: “I guess there’s a lot of stress. I can only think of one perk, which is that I got to have a bit of a say in casting. That meant bringing in Rita Wilson. And it meant bringing in Judy Greer. And I will say that I think I did a very good job as associate casting director,” she laughs.

“Yes, I think I’m comfortable making decisions,” adds Garner, in reference to this new role in Hollywood, where she has worked for more than three decades. “I’m a 53‑year‑old woman. I’ve been around. I’m comfortable saying yes or no and standing by what I say. But it wasn’t all on me. I was very much just part of this chorus of incredible people in charge."

In the series, pain and loss are explored hand in hand with love — whether romantic or familial. With Rice as her stepdaughter, Wilson as her mother, and Greer lurking in the background, the four actresses form a powerful quartet surrounding Coster‑Waldau in his flight and his grief.

“This season we really see the theme of generational trauma,” Garner says. “We meet my mother, played by Rita Wilson… Oh, she’s fantastic, isn’t she?” She insists, delighted with her choice. “We see the pain of my childhood with her and what that’s done to Hannah, and it helps explain why she is the way she is. We see Owen, we see these other families, we see their history, and we flash back in time to understand it. That’s how pain is passed down.”

“With Hannah and Owen,” Coster‑Waldau adds, “there’s so much love, so much passion, so much history and the hurt is right there as well. It’s that knot of feelings where the easiest thing, and what you really want, is to just push the other person away. But you can’t, because love is so important — it’s what we all want at the end of the day. To give and to receive it.”

Both Coster‑Waldau and Garner began their careers in the mid‑1990s, when being in your fifties meant something very different from what it does today. The Texas‑born actress is 53; the Danish actor, 55 — but their roles are worlds apart from what actors their age, with long careers and adult children, would have played 30 years ago.

Have the actors themselves experienced those second chances — the feeling of having a brand‑new chapter to open in their own lives? “That’s part of the fun of being an actor, for me,” Coster‑Waldau says happily. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next year or in two years.” He pauses. “There’s definitely a theme in this — second chances and forgiveness. What can you forgive in this season? In our lives, yes, I think we all have, I’ve had, hundreds of chances.”

“And we’re lucky we’ve both been around a long time,” adds Garner.

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