A pretty, pouty, dark-haired actress, Jennifer Garner pulled through career false starts such as the quickly-cancelled Fox series "Significant Others" (1998) and "The Time of Your Life" (1999-2000) with a memorable 1998-1999 recurring turn on The WB's "Felicity" and a supporting role in Michael Bay's epic World War II feature "Pearl Harbor" (2001), before landing her own series "Alias" (ABC, 2001- ). Born in Houston, Texas and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, Garner began appearing in television and film in the mid-1990s. The 1995 NBC miniseries "Danielle Steele's 'Zoya'" marked an early credit for the actress, who went on to star in the CBS "Hallmark Hall of Fame" productions "Harvest of Fire", a 1996 drama that featured Garner as an Amish bride, and "Rose Hill", a 1997 effort that starred the young actress as a woman who was raised by a group of 19th-century New York City street youths-cum-western frontiersmen. Also featured in the ABC miniseries "Larry McMurtry's Dead Man's Walk" (1996), Garner made her big screen debut in 1997, with roles in Agnieszka Holland's adaptation of the Henry James classic "Washington Square" as well as the modern NYC tale "Deconstructing Harry" and the comical "Mister Magoo".

Though a starring role on the series "Significant Others" seemed a promising boost to Garner's career, the twentysomething-focused drama failed to reach the same audience the creators found with their previous effort, the hit "Party of Five". Though Garner brought charming and multifaceted life to commitmentphobe Nell, the midseason series couldn't hold onto its timeslot and was quickly cancelled. Later that year, she began her portrayal of Hanna, the musician girlfriend of laid-back resident advisor Noel (Scott Foley). The recurring role got Garner some increased notice and also landed her a husband (she and Foley married in 2000), though their characters' relationship didn't last through 1999.

Though "Significant Others" didn't work out, Garner was eager to try another series, and was cast opposite popular Jennifer Love Hewitt in "The Time of Your Life", a Fox spin-off that saw Hewitt's "Party of Five" character Sarah taking on big city life in New York. Playing Romy, the would-be actress offered Garner enviable screen time and some good storylines, including a romance with a foxy neighbor (Diego Serrano), but "The Time of Your Life" was out of time by mid-2000, when it was cancelled due to unexpectedly low ratings. In 2000, Garner returned to film with a fun supporting role as the increasingly fed-up girlfriend of Ashton Kutcher's lame-brained hero in the goofy comedy "Dude, Where's My Car?". The following year she had the third female lead in the Michael Bay actioner "Pearl Harbor", playing a thoughtful military nurse stationed at the embattled site, doing her best with a disappointingly underdeveloped role.

2001 saw Garner get back on the TV series horse, starring as a graduate student with a secret life as a spy in the ABC adventure "Alias." In 2002, she earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in A Drama Series for her role in "Alias" and expanded into feature films: She had a brief but memorable turn as a beautiful fashion model with an intriguing sideline in director Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" (2002), then followed up in 2003 with the pivotal role of the martial artist and assassin Elektra, the enemy and lover of the Marvel Comics superhero "Daredevil" (Ben Affleck). A superheroic variation on her "Alias" role which also required a demanding physicality, Elektra was a part that also allowed Garner to demonstrate a range of emotion--from aloofness to love to rage--as well as her considerable star power on the big screen. Promising a smooth transition from small-screen superstar to A-list actress, Garner next signed on to star in "13 Going on 30" (lensed 2003), a sort of girl power version of "Big" in which she plays the thirty-year-old transformation of an awkward teenage girl.