Jennifer Garner seemingly made a meta joke about her divorce from Ben Affleck during her surprise cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine.
Warning: Spoilers below for Deadpool & Wolverine.
After months of rumors that she would appear in the superhero flick, Garner, 52, popped into the Marvel film to reprise her Daredevil character, Elecktra.
The joke comes during the third act of the movie, when Garner’s Elecktra shows up to take Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) into hiding to avoid Cassandra (Emma Corrin) along with other heroes like Blade (Wesley Snipes), Gambit (Channing Tatum) and Laura/X-23 (Dafne Keen).
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Elecktra explains that they heroes have chosen to flee because someone “always dies” when they fight Cassandra and her gang of villains, noting Quicksilver, Hawkeye and Daredevil as three of her victims. When Deadpool gives his deep condolences about Elecktra losing her longtime love, Electra’s reaction is less than emotional.
“It’s fine,” she says with an unaffected shrug.
Garner first played Elecktra opposite Affleck, now 51, in 2003’s Daredevil. The pair fell in love while working together on the project and tied the knot in 2005. After more than a decade of marriage and welcoming three children, they divorced in 2018.
Despite calling it quits, Garner and Affleck have managed to harmoniously coparent their kids — Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12 — over the years.
Garner’s Elecktra was one of the first rumored cameos for the third Deadpool installment, which hit theaters on Friday, July 26. It marked her first return to the character since her 2005 solo film, which was a box office disappointment.
“It’s such a shame, honestly, because once [Marvel Studios President] Kevin [Feige] took over everything there was elevated: the writing, the direction, the comedy inside of the stories they were telling,” she told The Hollywood Reporter of the film in 2021. “And I did not have that experience.”
Garner’s career, of course, has still skyrocketed over the past decades. After finishing up her run as secret agent Sydney Bristow in ABC’s Alias, which ran for 105 episodes from 2001 to 2006, she went on to star in movies like Juno, Love Simon, Valentines Day, Dallas Buyers Club and Family Switch. She also appeared in The Adam Project, which costarred Reynolds and was directed by Shawn Levy, the director on Deadpool and Wolverine.
Garner and Affleck, meanwhile, have remained amicable in the real world. A source told Us Weekly exclusively last month that Garner has even been “encouraging” Affleck to work through his marriage troubles with second wife Jennifer Lopez, whom he wed in July 2022. (Garner, for her part, has been dating boyfriend John Miller since 2018.)
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As for Affleck and Garner returning to their Daredevil roles for future standalone films, the chances are unlikely. Affleck has expressed his disdain for the film throughout the years, and has since moved on to playing another superhero for the DC universe: Batman.
Charlie Cox also took on the mantle of Daredevil for the 2015 Netflix series, later appearing in various other Marvel projects like Spider-Man: No Way Home and She Hulk. In July 2022, it was announced that Cox’s version of the character would get his own Disney+ series. Affleck has seen the new iteration of the character — and had nothing but praise for what Cox has brought to the table.
“I hate Daredevil so much.” Affleck told TimesTalk in 2016. “The Netflix show does really cool stuff. I feel like that was there for us to do with that character, and we never kind of got it right. I wanted to do one of those movies and sort of get it right.”
Deadpool and Wolverine is now playing in theaters.
