Jennifer Garner has filmed all over the world — but something about Nantucket got under her skin in a way she clearly wasn’t prepared for.
The actress stars in Peacock’s new series The Five-Star Weekend, an adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s beloved novel set against the island’s beaches, lighthouses, and classic shingled architecture. In the show, Garner plays Hollis Shaw, a food influencer who gathers one close friend from each chapter of her life — played by Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall, Gemma Chan, and D’Arcy Carden — for a long weekend at her sprawling Nantucket home following a devastating personal loss.
According to Yahoo.com, speaking with ELLE Decor ahead of the series premiere, Garner opened up about what it was actually like to film on the island — and how thoroughly the experience exceeded her expectations.
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A Love Affair With the Island
Garner arrived on Nantucket having just wrapped filming in France, across both Paris and Marseille — two cities she and her longtime crew of collaborators had loved. But Nantucket, she said, hit differently. The beaches, the coastal hikes, the lighthouses, the local food, the layered history of the place — all of it came together into something that genuinely moved her. Her clearest proof of how deeply she fell for the island: she visited the Whaling Museum not once, not twice, but three times, and she was entirely unapologetic about it.
The Architecture and the Style
Part of what drew Garner in was the island’s unmistakable visual identity — the shingled exteriors, widow’s walks, beadboard interiors, and bright white spaces that define traditional Nantucket style. She noted that encountering a real widow’s walk in context — a structure built so women could watch for their husbands’ ships returning — carries a completely different emotional weight than seeing one recreated on a Los Angeles backlot.
Hollis’s Home and the Wardrobe
Garner was equally enthusiastic about the show’s production design, particularly the kitchen of Hollis’s fictional Nantucket home — bright, open, and facing the ocean with views she described as genuinely dreamlike. A second kitchen featured in Hollis’s Wellesley home carried a completely different feel, warmer and more family-oriented rather than built for entertaining.
The wardrobe was another highlight. The show’s costumes were designed by Susie DeSanto, who has worked with Garner for over 22 years, beginning with their first collaboration on 13 Going on 30. Garner admitted that Hollis’s polished, dress-forward style is quite different from her own default of overalls, a T-shirt, and sneakers — but she found herself completely in love with every single piece regardless.
Her Own Five-Star Weekend
When asked what her ideal five-star weekend would look like, Garner’s answer was immediate — she would go straight back to Nantucket with the same group of women she spent the shoot with. One particular evening stood out: the cast caught a screening of One Battle After Another, and when the audience recognized Regina Hall — whose work appears in the film — the entire theater spontaneously gave her a standing ovation.
The Five-Star Weekend is now streaming on Peacock.
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