Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer on 'Last Thing He Told Me' Finale, '13 Going on 30'

SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains major spoilers from “Souvenirs d’enfance,” the Season 2 finale of “The Last Thing He Told Me,” now streaming on Apple TV.

Jennifer Garner and Judy Greer seem destined to play frenemies for the rest of their lives. Nearly 22 years after co-starring in “13 Going on 30” — the beloved fantasy rom-com in which Garner’s body-swapped protagonist Jenna Rink locks horns with Greer’s Lucy Wyman, her childhood friend-turned-rival — the real-life best friends have reunited on screen as antagonists in the Apple TV thriller “The Last Thing He Told Me.”

“‘13 Going on 30’ is a gift forever and ever in our lives,” Garner tells Variety during a joint video call with Greer. “Gary Wenick, our angel director, gave us that gift. He and the writers and the producers all created something that let us play off each other in this super fun, frenemy way that I think will chase us forever, and we’re so happy and lucky for that. But I just know I’m better when I work opposite Judy, so I’ll always look for that chance.”

Originally billed as a limited series based on Laura Dave’s novel of the same name, the first season of “The Last Thing He Told Me” starred Garner as Hannah Hall, a woman who must overcome a difficult relationship with her teen stepdaughter, Bailey (Angourie Rice), to investigate the sudden disappearance of her husband, Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). By the end of those seven episodes, Hannah learned that, after Owen’s tech start-up was implicated in a fraud scandal, her husband disappeared to avoid exposing his true identity and to stop Bailey from being targeted by her own grandfather, Nicholas (David Morse), a lawyer for the same crime syndicate that Owen was trying to expose. Hannah eventually negotiated a deal with Nicholas to keep her and Bailey safe, forcing Owen to remain away from his family.

But, naturally, successful limited series tend to find ways to continue. The second season, based on Dave’s recently published sequel “The First Time I Saw Him,” picks up the story five years later, when Hannah crosses paths with an unrecognizable Owen at her art show. Since going into hiding, Owen has lived under another alias to gather intel about the Campano crime family — patriarch Frank (John Noble); his hot-headed heir apparent son Teddy (Luke Kirby); and his daughter Quinn Favreau (Greer), who insists that she wants nothing to do with the family business.

After a tense reunion at Hannah’s estranged mother’s (Rita Wilson) house, Hannah, Owen and Bailey work together to get Nicholas to flip on the Campanos and to gather enough evidence to take down the entire organization. Their efforts lead them in the season’s last two episodes to Paris, where Frank was planning to celebrate his 80th birthday with his children — only for him to be gunned down in a hotel lobby by an assassin who had been sent to kill Teddy for a deal gone wrong.

For most of the season, Hannah and Owen have suspected that Quinn, who runs a financial firm stateside, is the real brains to the Campano organization, not Teddy. Bailey, on the other hand, had a harder time believing that Quinn is involved, largely because Quinn was the best friend of her late mother, Kate. But in the finale, after piecing together her memories with the help of Hannah, Bailey realizes that Quinn was pushing her on a playground swing the day that Kate was killed nearby in a hit-and-run.

When Bailey and Hannah arrive to confront her in a swanky hotel room, Quinn confesses that Kate had incriminating information about the Campanos that she was planning to turn over to prosecutors. Quinn claims that she ordered a driver to come dangerously close to Quinn to scare her into silence. But when Bailey ran out into the street, the car swerved to avoid hitting her and struck Kate instead. Remarkably, Bailey tells Quinn that she forgives her because she now has another mother figure in Hannah. Quinn then decides to let Hannah, Bailey, Owen and Nicholas all go. But in the final moments of the season, Quinn — who has assumed the role of her late father — calls U.S. Marshal Maris Anderson (Michael Hyatt) to say that she needs help tying up some loose ends, posing a new threat for a potential third season.

Below, Garner and Greer open up about reuniting to play calculating women who will protect their families by any means necessary, shooting that big hotel room confrontation scene with Rice — and why Garner is executive producing a new remake of “13 Going on 30” starring Emily Bader and Logan Lerman. Also, a note! Garner calls Greer “JG,” pronounced “Jayj.”

Jen, what new layers did you find in revisiting Hannah five years after the events of the first season? What intrigued you personally about her evolution between seasons?

Jennifer Garner: Hannah has grown into motherhood. She’s become a mom, and she really understands like she never has before what it’s like to live your life in service to someone else. Because she’s exploring this whole other side of herself, when she meets back up with her mom in Season 2, while she’s not open to [a reconciliation] in the moment, I think it rests in her mind differently than it would have without having Bailey present. [She’s realizing] just how complicated and how full life is, how much there is to learn and grow from.

I really love that she holds her own. She doesn’t run right into Owen’s arms. Even if she has imagined running into his arms a million times, she’s living her pain and her hurt, and he has to deal with it. She’s not apologetic for it. She also owns her leadership and her family in a way that I don’t think she did before. She was discovering it on the fly in the first season, and in the second season, she’s like, “I’ve got this. Give me a shot. I know how to handle this. Stay out of my way.”

Despite how competent she is this season, Hannah feels particularly vulnerable when she comes face-to-face with Quinn, who turns out to be a formidable foe. Jen, as an executive producer, how did you pitch the role to Judy?

Judy Greer: I made her act out every scene that I would be in ahead of time.

Garner: In a bathing suit.

Greer: Yeah. I’m just kidding.

Garner: No, I knew that there was this role. [Quinn] had been described to me. It seemed like someone who was super complicated and would play a large role in the family, the whole season and their futures. It just seemed like a playground role for Judy. I wouldn’t want to bring her anything that she wouldn’t have a blast doing, so that was enough for me. I knew we would have a couple of good scenes. I didn’t know that they would be in Paris!

I didn’t have to pitch Judy to anyone. Everyone’s like, “Can you get her? I mean, we should be so lucky.” But I did go with my hat in my hand to Judy and say, “Friend…” I think if anything, [the producers] just assumed, “Well, we can’t get Judy, so who could we get?” Sometimes, I feel like that happens in casting. They don’t go to people because they have pre-conceived notions of what that person will want to do. Just being on the producing side a few times, I feel like, “Oh my gosh, do you guys really not just go [and ask]?”

Greer: Yeah. When they’re like, “Oh, we want someone like you,” and you’re like, “What? I could do it!”

Garner: I’m like, “Me. I know someone like me.”

Judy, what did you find most compelling about the character?

Greer: This role is something that I don’t really often get to do and get seen for, really. It took a really good friend who knows me to pitch me for this, and then I met with [co-showrunners] Josh [Singer] and Aaron [Zelman]. We had breakfast, and they pitched me the season and how it would look, and I was blown away. It was the strength and the power of this character. I’ve been joking that I’ve been a lot of sad moms lately, and so I was really excited to play someone who had some secrets, who’s a boss. It’s nice when a friend can say, “Hey guys, she could do this. You should have her do this.”

What do you think Hannah and Quinn see in each other that makes them such formidable adversaries?

Garner: They have a thing where they look at the other and say, “Don’t bullshit me. I can see there’s more going on. Don’t just tell me some stupid, inane version of what you want me to believe when I can so clearly see what you’re playing at.”

Greer: Yeah, like, “It takes one to know one.”

Garner: Game recognizes game.

Greer: Yes, which is so something we say all the time. We joked on set that these two women would be really good friends, and in another TV show, it would be really fun to see them teaming up to kick ass. But I think there’s chemistry between these two characters because they’re both strong, they both have very specific needs and wants, and they both will protect their family no matter what. So they’re playing on a very equal playing field; they’re very similar in a lot of ways.

Garner: Except that Quinn is Machiavellian. They’re not that much alike! Quinn’s not a good person.

Greer: What are you talking about? [As Hannah] you beat up a lot of people, and you have to trick a lot of people to get answers.

Garner: Girl, you sent them to kill me!

Greer: Did I try that, really? Maybe you’re right. But the whole thing about protecting the family that I’ve been talking about — that’s really similar. We’ll stop at nothing to get what we want.

Judy, how did you make sense of Quinn’s motivations over the course of the season? Why is she, as Jennifer has described, so Machiavellian?

Greer: She was tricky to dig into in the beginning, because she has so many secrets. I really try hard to have compassion for the characters I play and to see a way in that makes me fall for them and forgive them for their transgressions. With Quinn, I didn’t do the first season, obviously, but I could feel how there was a little bit more freedom. Sometimes, Josh would be like, “Oh, Laura just wrote this great chapter where Quinn does this, but we’re not going to do it in the show. But I just want you to know about it.” And I’m like, “Oh, but can’t we just read it?”

So because of that, I felt like Quinn was mine — I hope Laura Dave doesn’t read this! I feel like Quinn belongs to me, which made me really love her and see that she’s, yes, Machiavellian. It’s funny when Jen says that because I’m like, “This woman is trying to survive. She is trying to protect. She is trying to see a way out.” It was so different from anything I’ve played recently that I really wanted to bring her to life in a way that maybe the audience would be like, “Yeah, I get why she’s doing that.” It’s no fun to just be a bad guy. You’ve got to have some heart behind it. There’s a reason. Anyway, I fell for Quinn and I felt really protective of her.

Quinn’s big secret, of course, is that she was indirectly responsible for killing Bailey’s mom Kate. You have both spoken in other interviews about how difficult it was for you to not break out into a fit of giggles on set this season, but that this was one of those rare instances where you had to step into your own corners to get into character. What do you remember from the process of shooting that finale confrontation?

Garner: For me, just watching Judy all day stay in this place of [going] from calm to near hysteria, to fear, to rage, to explosion, I was like, “Wow, that’s insane.” And then Angourie, for whom I feel not just tenderness, but I love her and would do anything to protect her as a person and her emotional state and well-being. I wanted to be like, “Can Angourie be done with this scene? Judy and I, we can do it, but can Angourie be done?” Because it was so emotional and hard. Angourie has lived [as] Bailey and talked about her mother, and she as a person is so tied to her family and to her mom, who’s also named Kate. The work for her was so effortless and so painful, and JG just never gave it up. She killed it. So I was like, “I’m sorry, I need to do a take where you just let me be emotional for a minute, and then I will calm down and just bear witness to what’s actually going on. But I can’t watch this and not react to what I’m seeing.”

Greer: That’s pretty much how it went for me too. We fucking got everything out of that scene that was ever in there, or that could ever be in there. There’s so many scenes in that scene, and to have Jen and Angourie but also just the space and the time [to play]. Just technically speaking, we were not rushed and we got to explore all these different things. And, yes, it was really fun to watch this epiphany for Bailey, who for two full seasons has been just wanting to know this one question, like, “What happened to my mom?” I felt really happy for her that she got that answer, but it was a lot!

Garner: It was on a Saturday — and it was the whole day.

Greer: Was it a Saturday? No wonder we were crying so much.

Garner: Yeah. The whole crew was crying.

Greer: We were exhausted. I kind of fantasize about getting scenes like that.

Judy, why do you think Quinn chooses that moment in the finale to reveal what happened to Kate?

Greer: Bailey really gets to Quinn. For whatever sprinkling of sociopathy that Quinn might have, seeing her dead best friend’s daughter, who looks just like her best friend, standing in front of her cracks through a little bit. Quinn for a time really does believe that she is safe and out of the family, and so much happens in this season with her brother, with her father, with her bank deal [gone wrong]. She is pushed against a wall, and doesn’t have any other options, and she just puts all of her cards on the table in that big scene in the hotel room in Paris. Sometimes, in putting it all out there, you actually regain control, because now everything’s on the table. After that scene, [she has] that cathartic feeling of, “Well, I don’t have to hide anything anymore. Everyone knows everything, so now I can just begin again.”

The finale ends with Quinn seemingly taking the reins of the family business: She walks into her late father’s office, takes a seat at his desk, and then calls a U.S. Marshal to help her tie up some loose ends. Have you had any specific conversations about what a potential Season 3 would look like?

Garner: I know there is a conversation about what a third season would be, should people watch this season enough to merit another season. It’s a very fast-moving season that really focuses on Hannah, Bailey and Quinn, but with all the other characters as well.

Greer: They told me what that would be, and I don’t want to give anything away for a potential Season 3, but I think tying up loose ends is pretty obvious. Quinn is going to have to clean house so that she can take over the company in her way. That’s what I was playing. She’s going to have to make some changes in the family business, and she’s going to have to start fresh. But revenge is so interesting. It’s so tricky because this isn’t about money, this isn’t about drugs — this isn’t necessarily even about business. This is about family and what these people did to her family. You can make more money, you can get more business, but that is something I don’t believe Quinn can ever let go of.

Actors work with a lot of people during their careers, but the sad reality is that many of those relationships do not last after the end of a project. You two, on the other hand, have continuously made efforts to stay in each other’s lives. Why do you think your friendship has endured over the decades? Is it because you are similar people or work similarly?

Greer: We do work really similarly. In fact, this show has reminded me of how similar we work.

Garner: I take that as a huge compliment.

Greer: Oh my God. I feel like we’re kind of the same, because we like to have fun and make people happy and have a good time, and going to work should be a joy if we’re so privileged. But we also really care about the work. We know when to fuck around and when we have to go be alone in the corner.

Garner: And it’s funny, because we separately work with the same acting coach. It’s Nancy Banks — we love Nancy. We actually got to meet with Nancy together and work through these scenes together when normally each of us would be doing it independent of anyone else being there, so that was cool.

I think, first of all, “13 Going on 30” is a gift forever and ever in our lives. Gary Wenick, our angel director, gave us that gift. He and the writers and the producers all created something that let us play off each other in this super fun, frenemy way that I think will chase us forever, and we’re so happy and lucky for that. But I just know I’m better when I work opposite Judy, so I’ll always look for that chance.

Greer: Me too!

Garner: I know she is going to show up, and I don’t want her to disappoint her. I just want her to feel, at the end of the day, like, “OK, my friend’s not an idiot.”

Greer: Oh my God.

Garner: You know what I mean though, JG? You do that.

Greer: Yeah, I feel the same. I’m like, “I want to impress her. I want her to be like, ‘Yeah, that’s right. That’s my fucking friend. Look at her!’”

Jennifer, you are actually executive producing a “13 Going on 30” reboot for Netflix. When the news first broke a couple weeks ago, a lot of people who grew up with your film, myself included, wondered why anyone would try to mess with perfection. Did you feel any resistance about giving up an IP that holds such significance to you personally and professionally?

Garner: It’s the first of many, many times that someone has brought [a reboot] up to me, so it started to feel like — I don’t want it to happen without me participating. Jenna is so close to me, but there’s a musical [adaptation] happening that’s going to be in Toronto. There was a TV show that I was a part of working toward that never really got off the ground — again, in a very executive producorial capacity, not to be with me [reprising Jenna]. And, in this case, of course, I said I was interested. And then I got the script, and the young actress who would play the girl going through this, the woman going through this, she’s really magical — and I want to watch her do it. I mean, why should it just be me? Why can’t magic strike twice? Why can’t she have an incredible experience with it in a way that audiences can relate all over again?

I grew up watching — what’s it called, with the twins at camp?

Greer: “The Parent Trap”?

Garner: Yes! The original “Parent Trap” was everything to me. It’s so good. And when I heard they were doing a remake, I was like, “How can you mess with ‘Parent Trap’?” And then my kids watched the remake of “Parent Trap” a hundred thousand times, and I love every frame of it so much. And it’s like, “Well, OK, sure. Why not? Go for it.”

Judy, what was your reaction to learning that there was a “13 Going on 30” reboot in the works?

Greer: I just found out a little while ago. My reaction is kind of like Jen’s. It’s been ours for so long. Let’s let someone else have a crack at it. I have mixed feelings about all of the remaking of everything, but my feelings aren’t about what is being remade. It just sometimes makes me sad when I think of all my friends who are screenwriters that have scripts piled up on their desk, and I’m like, “Really? Another [remake]? But it has nothing to do with “13 Going on 30.” I’m just like, “Oh God, is the well dry?”

But when you think about the movies that they are remaking, they’re movies that were so successful and so beloved. A movie like “13 Going on 30” has brought so much joy to so many people. I am very happy that movies that are being remade now are, for the most part, these sort of happy, loving, feel-good stories, because we really need them right now. I am thrilled that they would make a movie again like “13 Going on 30,” and I hope that it leads to more romantic comedies being made, more comedies being made. I hope it leads to more feel-good movies that studios are spending money on and that more people go see them. I love horror, but right now we need some love in our life.

The plot details for the new “13 Going on 30” are under wraps, so it is unclear if there will be a completely new, original story or if there will be some kind of connective tissue between both films. Are there any plans for either of you to appear in this new film? And Jen, have you spoken with Mark Ruffalo, the Matty to your Jenna, about the reboot?

Garner: Right now, that isn’t the plan.

Greer: I would do literally anything that Jennifer Garner asked me to do. And since she’s the executive producer, she would be my boss again, and I would do whatever she wanted me to do.

Garner: And no, I have not spoken to Mark about it. But I’ve talked to Judy!

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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