In the upcoming Men, Women and Children, Jennifer Garner plays overbearing and super controlling mom Patricia Beltmeyer, who uses a GPS tracking device to keep up with her daughter Brandy (Kaitlyn Dever)'s whereabouts and also watches her every move online.
Patricia goes so far with her obsession of trying to protect her daughter that she makes Brandy give her all of the passwords to every social networking site she uses so she can check her messages and posts every day. She also forces Brandy to give her her cell at the end of each day and reads through all of her text messages as well (Can you imagine?!).
While chatting with the A-lister at the Men, Women and Children premiere Tuesday night, Jennifer let us in on a secret...one of the biggest things she learned while shooting the film was exactly what teens are talking about when they text or online chat.
"I learned a lot about what these letters mean...like DTF...POS...BRB, " Jennifer told us with a giggle at the Director's Guild of America in Los Angeles. "I didn't know what any of those things meant." This was particularly funny to her, because those acronyms stand for "Down to F**k," "Parent Over the Shoulder," and "Be Right Back."And while her and hubby Ben Affleck's kids aren't at the texting age yet, (their oldest, Violet, is 8), Jennifer still dished on whether she thought her character in the film took things too far, and if there's a happy medium between parents being over controlling and giving kids a little space when it comes to the internet and texting.
"As overbearing and awful as my character is, she does have the most normal kid in the whole movie," she said with a laugh. "So, she clearly goes too far, but I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle."
The film tells the story of a group of high school teenagers and their parents, and centers on the ways the Internet changes their relationships, communication, self-image, and love lives.Men, Women and Children, which also stars Adam Sandler, Ansel Elgort, Judy Greer and Rosemary DeWitt, hits theaters Oct. 17.