Early life

Garner was born in Bakersfield, California. Although she described herself as a "shy" adolescent, Garner caught the attention of a talent agent while attending a friend's bar mitzvah, and was subsequently cast in an Eggo commercial. While a student at Thousand Oaks High School, Garner was cast in director Mike Mills's short film Architecture of Assurance in 2000. Garner was a talented soccer player in high school, and had planned on pursuing it as a career before she began working as an actress.

Career

Garner had appeared in several short films before being cast in a supporting role in the television film Time Share in 2000. In 2001, she was cast in Larry Clark's controversial crime thriller Bully (2001), in which she portrayed Heather Swallers, a teenager who participates with her friends in an orchestrated murder of one of their peers; Clark cast Garner in the film after seeing her performance in Mike Mills's short Architecture of Assurance. The film, which was based on the real-life 1993 murder of Bobby Kent, received critical acclaim.

Her next major role came at age nineteen in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), in which she portrayed actress Faith Domergue, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes. According to Garner, she wore brown contact lenses to her audition in order to further embody Domergue; she has said that she tripped and fell when entering the audition room in front of director Scorsese and star DicCaprio. "I thought I'd lost the job," she recalled, "But I think it was that moment that made it work the character was someone who was trying to be much older than she was." The following year, she appeared in the comedy Man of the House, and the independent teen drama Thumbsucker (2005), opposite Lou Taylor Pucci and Vince Vaughn. She had supporting parts in the independent films London (2005) and Dreamland (2006), the latter of which earned her a Best Actress award at Method Fest Independent Film Festival, shared with co-star Agnes Bruckner.

In December 2005, Garner starred in the Off-Broadway production of Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead at the Century Center for the Performing Arts. She later appeared in two Green Day music videos, "Jesus of Suburbia" (with Thumbsucker co-star Lou Taylor Pucci) and the unreleased "Whatsername".

In 2007, Garner appeared in a lead role in the critically acclaimed drama Lars and the Real Girl as Ryan Gosling's co-worker and love interest. In 2008, she appeared again onstage in an Off -Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull opposite Dianne Wiest. She had a minor part in the comedy Taking Woodstock (2009), and in the Disney film G-Force (2009), which she followed with a supporting role in Going the Distance (2010), opposite Drew Barrymore. Between 2011 and 2012, she had a lead role as Kate Cameron on the series Pan Am.

Garner was next cast in Alexandre Aja's horror-fantasy Horns (2014) with Daniel Radcliffe, and played the title role in the Lifetime mini-series The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, opposite Susan Sarandon as her mother. She also appeared in the independent film When I Live My Life Over Again (2015) with Christopher Walken and Amber Heard.

Personal life

Garner was romantically linked to actor Johnny Galecki beginning in 2012. The two separated in 2014, but remained friends.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	Architecture of Reassurance	Heather	Short film
2000	Time Share	Kelly, the Beach Girl	Television film
2001	Bully	Heather Swallers
2002	Love Liza	Huffer Girl
2002	Hometown Legend	Josie
2002	Related		Short film
2002	Outside	The Girl
2004	Aviator, TheThe Aviator	Faith Domergue
2005	Toast, TheThe Toast	Bride
2005	Youth in Us, TheThe Youth in Us	Alicia	Short film
2005	Thumbsucker	Rebecca
2005	Man of the House	Barbara "Barb" Thompson
2005	London	Maya
2005	Piggy Banks	Archer
2006	Dreamland	Calista	Best Actress at Method Fest
2006	Return to Rajapur	Samantha Hartley/Samantha Doyle
2007	Normal Adolescent Behavior	Billie
2007	Lars and the Real Girl	Margo
2008	Red Velvet	Linda
2009	Taking Woodstock	VW girl
2009	G-Force	Marcie
2010	Going the Distance	Brianna
2011	The Lie	Brianna
2012	Neighbors	Maggie Jerritt	Short film
2013	Two Wrongs	Jenny	Television film
2014	Horns	Glenna Shepherd
2015	Americana	Kate
2015	One More Time	Corinne

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Buffy the Vampire Slayer	Kirstie	Episode: "The Body"
2001-02	Grounded for Life	Tracey	2 episodes
2002	Da Möb	Melanie Spores (voice)	Episode: "Lo Fidelity"
2003	Regular Joe	Nikki	Episode: "Boobysitting"
2004	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Brittany O'Malley	Episode: "Mean"
2009	American Dad!	Waitress (voice)	Episode: "Stan Time"
2010	My Generation	Dawn Barbuso	Main role; 2 episodes
2011-12	Pan Am	Catherine "Kate" Cameron	Main role; 14 episodes
2014-15	Looking	Megan Murray	Episodes: "Looking for a Plus-One" and "Looking for Sanctuary"
2015	The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe	Marilyn Monroe

[ Source: Wikipedia ]