50 interesting facts about Jennifer Garner: a member of the Pi Beta Phi national sorority, first met Ben Affleck on Pear Harbor set

American Actress Jennifer Garner got her first major role on the hit show Felicity, and was subsequently cast as the star of the ABC television drama Alias. Here are 50 interesting facts about this beautiful and talented actress.

1. Jennifer Garner was born on April 17, 1972 in Houston, Texas.

2. Garner grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. Her mother is Pat, a retired English teacher, and her father, Bill, a former chemical engineer.

3. One of her favorite things to do as a child was to dance. She was so good at it that she devoted nine years to studying ballet.

4. Overall, she had a pretty strict upbringing. She was not allowed to wear make-up or a bikini, she went to church every Sunday, and waited at least until the age of 16 to be allowed to get her ears pierced, which, she later joked, made her family "just a step away from being Amish."

5. Jennifer Garner attended George Washington High School in Charleston and graduated in 1990.

6. Garner played the saxaphone in her high school band.

7. Growing up, she dreamt of becoming either a teacher or an author.

8. She attended Denison University where she began studying chemistry.

9. However, she later changed to a drama major when she found that her passions for the stage were stronger than her love of science. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama.

10. In the fall of 1993, she studied at the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut.

11. Garner is a member of Pi Beta Phi national sorority.

12. In 1994, Garner appeared in Atlanta productions of two Shakespeare plays, The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream, by the Georgia Shakespeare Company.

13. She then headed to New York City to pursue her passion for acting full time. During the first nine months Jennifer was there, she couldn't afford a place of her own and paid a woman $400 a month to let her sleep on a futon in her kitchen. At the time, she was only making $150 per week as an understudy in a Broadway production of "A Month in the Country".

14. She was then cast in her first television role as part of a made-for-television movie Zoya, based on the Danielle Steel novel. In the late 1990s, she made brief appearances in individual episodes of Spin City and Law & Order while also securing roles in two short-lived television series, Significant Others and Time of Your Life.

15. Her first major break was as the "best friend" of Keri Russell in the TV series Felicity.

16. She met her first husband Scott Foley on set and they got married in 2000.

17. That same year, Garner starred in her first movie as Ashton Kutcher's girlfriend in Dude, Where's My Car?

18. In 2001, Jennifer Garner appeared as the supporting character of a nurse in the big-budget epic Pearl Harbor, which ironically starred her future husband Ben Affleck.

19. Jennifer Garner's real break came with the lead role in Alias , an action/thriller/drama/mystery TV series J.J. Abrams created before Lost. The show was a hit and went on for 5 years (2001-2006).

20. During the show, she learnt martial arts and taekwondo. While she performed many of the action sequences during the series herself, the dangerous explosions and complex fights were handled by her stunt double, Shauna Duggins.

21. Jennifer made her directorial debut in 2005 with the Alias episode "In Dreams."

22. In the summer of 2003 Jennifer recorded a recruitment video for the Central Intelligence Agency.

23. Jennifer Garner filed for divorce in May 2003, citing irreconcilable differences, and the two were officially divorced on March 30, 2004. Following her separation, Garner dated her Alias co-star Michael Vartan from August 2003 to March 2004.

24. She was nominated multiple times for both Emmys and Golden Globes for her performance as Sidney Bristow and won a 2002 Best Actress Golden Globe.

25. Garner's salary for the show began at $40,000 an episode and rose to $150,000 per episode by the series' end.

26. After the initial success of Alias, Garner made a big screen cameo in the Steven Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can in 2002; Spielberg had seen her on the show and wanted her to play that small role.

27. In 2002, Garner topped the Maxim Hot 100 list

28. However, she was not yet considered a big screen actress until her role as Elektra Natchios in the action movie Daredevil (2003), which was an adaptation of the comic book.

29. While on set, she was involved in a potentially serious accident on the set of Daredevil when, entangled in wires with her arms stuck and unable to move while doing a flip, she came crashing towards a wall "head-first with such velocity, that [she] was about to smash [her] head into the wall". During an interview, she said "out of nowhere comes this 6 ft. 4 in. red devil (Ben Affleck) who just kind of put his arms out and shouts: 'I've got her!' I'm telling you, it was like, 'I've got my own superhero.'"

30. For several weeks while filming Daredevil, Jennifer worked seven day weeks, spending Monday to Friday in Los Angeles filming Alias, and then flying to New York at weekends to shoot her scenes for Daredevil.

31. Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck fell in love on set and made their first public appearance together at the Boston Red Sox's opening World Series games in October 2004. Ben is from Boston and is a huge baseball fan.

32. To prepare for her role in 13 Going on 30 in 2004, Jennifer had a sleep-over party with 13-year-olds.

33. On her 33rd birthday, Ben Affleck proposed to her with a 4.5 carats (900 mg) diamond ring from Harry Winston.

34. The happy couple got married on June 29, 2005 in a private ceremony in the Caribbean which was officiated by family friend and Garner's Alias co-star, Victor Garber. Jennifer was four months pregnant at the time.

35. At their wedding, she wore a dress by Vera Wang and Ben Affleck wore Hugo Boss.

36. Ben and Jennifer have three children: daughters Violet Anne Affleck (born December 1, 2005) and Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck (born January 6, 2009), and son Samuel Garner Affleck (born February 27, 2012).

37. Jennifer's hometown of Charleston, West Virginia threw a Jen and Ben "Baby Shower Night" (July 9, 2005) with all the gifts going to charity.

38. She is 5' 8" (1.73 m) tall.

39. In 2006, Jennifer sang the song My Heart is So Full of You on the charity album Unexpected Dreams - Songs From the Stars.

40. She was set to star with Adam Sandler in Reign Over Me (2007), playing the role Liv Tyler did, before dropping out a few weeks before filming began.

41. In 2007, both Jennifer and Ben Affleck appeared in a video called "Project Phin: Clean My Ride, Flex My Fuel", designed to lobby Congress on the the provision of automotive biofuels and increases in fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks.

42. In 2007, Garner co-starred with Ellen Page, Michael Cera and Jason Bateman in the indie comedy, Juno. The film won more than 45 awards, including an Oscar for Best Screenplay and a Grammy for the motion-picture soundtrack. Garner's role as an adoptive mother also earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

43. She registered to vote in the 2008 Presidential election under her married name of Jennifer Affleck, and not as Jennifer Garner. Away from showbusiness, she prefers to be known as Jennifer Affleck.

44. At the end of January 2009, Jennifer and her older sister, Melissa, both had their ears pierced during a visit to a medical center in Santa Monica, California. Although this was the third time Jennifer had pierced her ears, it was the first time that Melissa had pierced hers.

45. Unfortunately, she has had a determined stalker from 2002. Steven Burky was eventually arrested in December 2009 after violating a 2008 restraining order. In 2010, he was ruled insane and sent to the California state mental hospital with a court order to stay away from the Affleck family for 10 years if released from the hospital.

46. She believes the paparazzi should not be taking photos of celebrity children and has campaigned for laws to protect her children from paparazzi. "There's an idea that because our pictures are everywhere that we are complicit in it. When really what happens is they're waiting outside our door every single day. My kids take karate for example, and we have our classes at the same time every week. So the guys know when we have karate, and so 20 of them wait there for us every single class. So that's a lot of energy coming at little, little kids."

47. People named her one of 2012 Most Beautiful at Every Age.

48. In addition to her daily workouts, Jennifer is a strict believer in a nutrition plan that recommends eating every three hours. The meals, which Jennifer usually makes herself, include small servings of proteins and high-quality carbs.

49. Jennifer Garner appeared in the a public service announcement for the Ban Bossy campaign in 2014. Other stars in the PSA include Jane Lynch, Diane Von Furstenberg, Condoleezza Rice, Nascar champ Jimmie Johnson, and more.

50. Jennifer says that she is often mistaken for former Power Ranger and Felicity co-star Amy Jo Johnson.