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In The Five Star Weekend, Jennifer Garner plays a celebrity chef who plans a weekend getaway with her dearest friends in the aftermath of her husband’s sudden death
The series reunited Garner with Timothy Olyphant, who she’s been friends with for three decades, and she tells PEOPLE how their real-life “trust” translated onscreen
The Five Star Weekend is now streaming on Peacock
The chemistry between Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant was truly effortless on The Five Star Weekend.
In the new Peacock series, which premiered July 9, Garner plays Hollis, a celebrity chef who brings a group of friends from every era of her life — childhood bestie Tatum (Chloë Sevigny), college partner in crime Dru-Ann (Regina Hall) and mom friend Brooke (D’Arcy Carden), along with a fourth surprise guest, Gigi (Gemma Chan) — to her family’s idyllic Nantucket home for a weekend getaway.
It’s been just six months since Hollis’ husband, Matthew (Josh Hamilton), died suddenly in a car accident, and the trip is a way for Hollis to reconnect with her loved ones, but they’re not the only ones she reconnects with. Her high school sweetheart, Jack (Olyphant), seems to be around every corner during the weekend trip, and Hollis quickly finds herself drawn back into his orbit.
For Garner, 54, and Olyphant, 58, the series was a long-awaited reunion. “He and I first worked together on an indie in New York City in the ‘90s,” Garner tells PEOPLE ahead of the show’s premiere.
Their best-known collaboration is 2006’s Catch and Release. Garner says she recently found out that the rom-com “has this whole life that I didn’t know it had, which has been very gratifying to learn.”
Timothy Olyphant as Jack, Jennifer Garner as Hollis in ‘The Five Star Weekend’Credit: Seacia Pavao/PEACOCK
Working together on The Five Star Weekend “was great,” Garner says, as the “trust and history” they share made things easy. “How fun to go in and just hit the ground running, knowing each other like we do.”
“With Tim, there was that trust there,” she shares. “I love his wife. I’ve known her forever.”
In fact, Garner, who is also an executive producer on the series, which is an adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s 2023 novel, was responsible for Olyphant’s casting to begin with — and Hamilton’s.
“Jen, in particular, with her two men, Matthew and Jack, was really interested in working with some lovely guys that she had worked with before, that she had a connection with, so that’s how Josh and Tim came about,” showrunner Bekah Brunstetter tells PEOPLE. “We were so lucky to get both of them.”
Collaborating with Garner on the producing side was “really natural,” Brunstetter adds. “She is so accessible and so warm, and there’s nothing about her that makes you feel like you can’t touch her.”
The romance was just one of the multitude of things that drew Garner to the story. “There were so many draws to doing this show for me,” the actress says.
Among those was the chance to be “part of an ensemble of female actresses who all had beginnings, middles, and ends to complex storylines with so much grist for the mill between all of them.”
Timothy Olyphant and Jennifer Garner in ‘Catch And Release’Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock
Hollis and her “stars,” as her friends are repeatedly referred to throughout the series, all have “histories that are complicated and misunderstood,” in the show, as Garner points out. Layered in the story, too, are themes of grief, motherhood, fame and, of course, romance, thanks to Mr. Olyphant.
Garner is already itching for a season 2 renewal. “My biggest hope and wish is that we get to do a second season of this show so that we can go in knowing each other as well as we do now,” she says, referring to the bond the actresses formed during production. “We became very close very quickly.”
The Five Star Weekend is now streaming on Peacock.
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