Jennifer Garner covers the May 2023 issue of ‘Allure’ magazine, lensed by Tom Schirmacher [IG]. We don’t think of Jennifer Garner going edgy, but stylist Yashua Simmons creates a modern, steely-woman vibe with Miu Miu on the cover, LaQuan Smith [yellow trench coat], Loewe, Michael Kors and more.

“It spoke to the mountain girl in me — it’s a big part of Appalachian culture,” says Garner, 51, who grew up in West Virginia and gifts one of her wood-turning bowls created at a downtown Los Angeles studio to Pergament.

Garner learned the art of word turning in preparation for her current Apple TV+ thriller The Last Thing He Told Me. 

Asked who she would be without Hollywood, Garner delivers an unexpected answer.

“I would have really liked being a minister,” she says. “My mom thinks I still will be. I grew up in such a lovely church in the United Methodist Church, and the minister was like the den parent. What I like about the study of religion, it reminds me of the study of theater . . .