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Even the world\u2019s most successful people had to get their foot in the door somehow\u2014billionaire Warren Buffett<\/a> got his start selling<\/a> Coke bottles door-to-door. Jeff Bezos once flipped burgers at<\/a> McDonald\u2019s. And award-winning actress Jennifer Garner<\/a>, whose organic food brand, Once Upon a Farm<\/a>, just went public<\/a> at a $724 million valuation, had a similarly humble start: At a low-paying New York theater, she earned just $150 a week as an understudy.<\/p>\n \u201cI just realized that I liked drama \u2026 At the time, I planned a career in the theater; I didn\u2019t even consider film or TV,\u201d Garner told the Independent. \u201cI certainly never expected to be in front of a camera one day of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Garner said she was \u201ca total snob\u201d and only wanted to do theater\u2014until the paychecks came in and she realized that film paid more. Her first shot at the big leagues was the 1995 television movie Zoya.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I moved to New York and was trying to get a job onstage, and was broke and got offered a TV movie,\u201d Garner told the Independent in a 2009 interview<\/a>, \u201cI was like, \u2018Hot dog, put me in front of that camera. Let\u2019s do it!\u2019 And now that it has continued to evolve, I still love my job.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet Garner had to scrape to get by while her career was gaining steam in the 1990s. On top of doing her acting work, Garner even babysat the<\/a> daughter of late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert. And even when the money started rolling in a bit more, she stayed frugal, spending her first Hollywood paycheck on essentials.<\/p>\n \u201cI took a couple of thousand dollars and put it away in a retirement account that I still have. I think it\u2019s now worth like $2,005,\u201d Garner said in a 2015 interview<\/a> while promoting the film Danny Collins. \u201cI used that money to help me pay first and last month\u2019s rent and an apartment finder\u2019s fee for my first real apartment with my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long for Garner to move from the stage to the screen, desperate for steady pay\u2014and the sacrifice paid off.<\/p>\n Over the past three decades since, Garner has become a mega-celebrity from Hollywood hits like 13 Going on 30, Juno, and Dallas Buyers Club.<\/p>\n Garner starred in a slew of TV shows, Law & Order among them, before uprooting her life and heading to the movie capital of the U.S.: Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Garner made her foray into film with Rose Hill, also taking on a number of roles in movies like Pearl Harbor, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and Valentine\u2019s Day. Post\u2013New York, she\u2019s also continued her work in television, including spy thriller Alias.<\/p>\n This year, Garner is welcoming a slew of new projects: The actress is slated to star in Netflix<\/a> comedy One Attempt Remaining, and the second season of her Apple<\/a> TV thriller The Last Thing He Told Me premieres later this month.<\/p>\n Aside from the entertainment industry, she\u2019s made a name for herself in the food business.<\/p>\n Garner took home $1 million last year in her role as cofounder of Once Upon a Farm and as \u201cFarmer Jen,\u201d the company spokesperson; she is expected to earn<\/a> $2 million to $3 million in annual compensation through 2028.<\/p>\n The food company she scaled with Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz started trading as OFRM this<\/a> past Friday at $18 a share, raising $198 million and hitting a whopping $724 million valuation.<\/p>\n Garner joined Once Upon a Farm as a cofounder and chief brand officer in 2017, just two years after Curtis created the nutritional baby food brand.<\/p>\n And after taking the brand public last week, business boomed, and so did Garner\u2019s role in the operation; she will serve on the new public company\u2019s board of directors while maintaining her role as \u201cFarmer Jen.\u201d At the time of the company\u2019s IPO, Once Upon a Farm boasted<\/a> $200 million in annual sales, according to its S-1 filing, offering its products in 19,000 stores.<\/p>\nGarner\u2019s 30-plus years of success across Hollywood<\/h2>\n
Now, Garner\u2019s making a name for herself as \u2018Farmer Jen\u2019<\/h2>\n