The actor Quentin Tarantino said would never stop: “You don’t have to prove nothing to nobody”
Having worked with several of the biggest actors of multiple generations, Quentin Tarantino is pretty well-qualified to pass judgment on who could potentially enjoy an infinite amount of time in the cinematic spotlight.
Whether it’s established veterans, current A-listers, or superstars-in-waiting, the filmmaker has collaborated with a cavalcade of favourites from the past, present, and future of Hollywood, even if his claims on which performer was going to remain gainfully employed for the rest of their life didn’t come to fruition in quite the way he’d imagined.
With Harvey Keitel, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Austin Butler, Bruce Dern, Samuel L. Jackson, Sydney Sweeney, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, John Travolta, and Kurt Russell just a select few of the era-spanning thespians to have popped up in his movies, he’s in a decent enough position to comment.
What might come as a surprise is that the subject of his unrestrained praise was the headline attraction in an episodic espionage series where he played a villain in a recurring guest spot across several seasons. Not that being small screen genre fare should detract from what Jennifer Garner brought to Alias by any stretch, especially when she earned a Golden Globe win and four Primetime Emmy nominations for her star-making role.
At the time, Tarantino was blown away by her ability to execute the show’s intricate fight scenes while “doing all this dramatic stuff,” as he explained to Rolling Stone. “When I met her, I said, ‘Just so you know, you’re gonna work forever. You don’t have to prove nothing to nobody no more.”
Roles in Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor, Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, and beloved comedy 13 Going on 30 coming at the height of Alias had Garner marked out as the industry’s next big A-lister, but in a cruel twist of fate being handed top billing in her very own blockbuster ended up doing much more harm than good.
Garner has admitted that Elektra was damaging for her career, and the only reason she made the superhero spinoff was because it was a contractual obligation after she’d signed on to star opposite future husband Ben Affleck in Daredevil. Not that she’s ever fallen off the map in the strictest sense, but neither did she reach the heights predicted at the early years of the millennium.
Tarantino was correct in a roundabout way, though, with 2008 being the only year of the 21st century where Garner hasn’t received a screen credit in a feature or TV show. There’s even the slightest hint of cruel irony that the very genre that pumped the brakes on her ascension is one the two-time Academy Award-winning writer and director doesn’t care for in the slightest.
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