Jennifer Garner is many things, among them baby food innovator, actress, parent, and “bless their heart” energy expert. She’s been employing some of these facets in combination on the press tour for her upcoming Apple TV+ series The Last Thing He Told Me, a sort of Stepmom-meets-The Firm thriller based on the Laura Dave novel of the same name, premiering this week. (The baby food is quite good, but does not come into play here.)

Combining parent and actress, she told InStyle that the three kids she shares with ex-husband Ben Affleck will probably take a pass on watching the new series, as they do much of her work. She's a nice mom, and they'd like to continue seeing her as such, evidently.

"My kids don't love to watch me in things. They do to be supportive, but I think it's a little weird to watch your mom kiss someone or cry," she said. "It's different. They don't mind watching their dad. They don't want to see me sad and they don't want to see me in a romance. They don't love seeing me play someone else's mom, honestly. I don't know if they'll watch this." 

Admittedly, Affleck’s movies typically feature much less kissing and crying from dear old dad, though that likely means they skipped The Way Back. Watch mom cry? No. Watch dad pull off Argo’s plane diplomatic rescue moment? Presumably, that one doesn’t hit quite as close to home. 

At an event promoting the show in New York City Wednesday night attended by Vanity Fair, Garner delivered some emergency contact realness, nodding at her real-life image as reasonable, responsible mom, a role that her character Hannah also must take on in the show.

“Hannah is, above all else, she's asked to be the grown-up in the room,” Garner said. “And that is something that I think my life has asked of me at times, and it's something that I know that I can deliver on.”

Another high-profile Hollywood parent is also behind the scenes of the show: Reese Witherspoon walked the red carpet at the show’s LA premiere Thursday night, her first appearance since announcing her divorce from Jim Toth, citing “irreconcilable differences.” Witherspoon is an executive producer on the series, which is under her Hello Sunshine production umbrella. 

Witherspoon praised Garner’s “passion” for the project in a talk with Access Hollywood at the event. 

“It was so great to hear her passion. She picked up the phone, we had long conversations about it. It was the perfect part for her,” she said. “I love that she was going to be this kick-ass woman.”

In an exclusive first look at the series in January, Garner told VF that she went on a sort of letter-writing campaign for the role after learning that Julia Roberts, who was originally cast, had to drop out of the project. She was a huge fan of the book, and was determined to nab the part.

“I felt such a connection to the character, even though I’ve been a mom for a minute, I can really understand looking at the world of teenagers and feeling like, Okay, what is the path forward? What am I supposed to do? Just feeling unsure of your place in the landscape,” she said.