The Stunning Transformation Of Julia Garner

Julia Garner is a stunningly beautiful, Emmy-award winning actor whose range continuously impresses audiences as she moves from drama to horror to comedic roles with ease. Her breakthrough performance as Ruth Langmore on the hit Netflix series "Ozark" was so bold and fearless, no one would ever believe that Garner had been an exceptionally shy child.

Although Garner grew up in a supportive and artistic family, she had her fair share of challenges. A learning disability and a physical ailment left her lacking confidence, and Garner found that acting was the only way out of her awkward phase. And speaking of awkward—while she is known for her uniquely beautiful looks, her appearance wasn't always a hit with classmates or casting directors.

But Garner showed everyone. A failed audition only propelled her into a bigger role, which was the jumping-off point for many more film and TV projects. Garner's resume is impressive to say the least, and in 2025 alone she starred in three blockbuster films that left fans and critics once again in awe of her talent. Read on to learn more about the stunning transformation of Julia Garner.

Julia Garner was born on February 1, 1994 into an intellectual and artistic family in New York City. Her mother, Tami Gingold, was a successful actor in Israel who starred in a sketch comedy show similar to "Saturday Night Live" before moving to the Bronx and becoming a therapist. Garner's father, Thomas Garner, is a painter who taught art classes. Garner also has an older sister, Anna, who teaches special education and English as a second language.

"I feel so lucky that I grew up in the house that I did," Garner told The Hollywood Reporter. "It's crazy — don't get me wrong — but it's good crazy ..." The actor explained that family arguments took on the tone of group therapy sessions. "It benefited my acting, to be honest," she shared. "You can only imagine a house full of therapists and teachers."

Growing up, Garner was a fan of classic films and watched many that were perhaps a bit too mature for her age. Some of her favorites included "All About Eve" and "Rosemary's Baby," both of which she saw as a preteen. "And then when I was 12, Netflix started with the DVDs that they would send to you," Garner told The Gentlewoman. "... I remember watching 'Taxi Driver' for the first time on my laptop in bed."

Despite growing up in a household where everyone was expressive and artistic, Julia Garner was very shy as a child. Part of the issue was that she had a significant learning disability that kept her from learning how to read until she was 10 years old.

The experience took a toll on her, she admitted. "Even after I learned how to read, it still affected my confidence to the point where I was so shy," she revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. "Everything that I said, I felt stupid." On top of her learning challenges, Garner also had epilepsy as a child, and being sick so often affected her deeply. "I just shut down," she explained to W.

Thankfully, Garner was able to overcome her shyness through the acting classes she began taking. The reason acting lessons worked like a charm had to do with Garner finding a new way to express herself. "... when I took acting, I discovered that I could use someone else's lines and still express my own feelings ... I felt like I was being heard," she shared. "And not only that, I felt like I could hear myself for the first time."

With her deep blue eyes and her curly blonde locks, Julia Garner has a uniquely beautiful look. Strangely enough, she wasn't born with those signature curls; they sprouted up nearly overnight when Garner was a preteen. "When I was like 12, suddenly my roots started growing out curly and the ends were straight," the actor told The Cut. "It looked like a rat's nest — it was disgusting."

Garner went to a hairstylist who snipped off the straight pieces, leaving her with a super short cut. The transformation was so startling that her classmates didn't even recognize her. "I went to school the next day and everyone was looking at me like, 'Who's the new girl?' My best friend didn't recognize me," Garner shared. "That was one of the weirdest experiences that I've ever had in my life."

As unusual as it was to suddenly have a head of tight curls, Garner liked her new look, so much so that it paved the way for a total style overhaul. The actor leaned into the cool factor of her hairstyle and began wearing red lipstick to complement the look. "I just feel like a lot of boys were like, 'What're you wearing lipstick for? Are you trying to like, impress us?' And I'm just like, 'No, I'm wearing it for myself,'" Garner said.

Julia Garner thrived in her acting classes, but when she set out on auditions she found that mainstream TV was not exactly her niche. At 15, she tried out for a Nickelodeon show, and the audition went terribly. "The casting director stopped me in the middle," Garner told The Hollywood Reporter. "She was like, 'Honey, you're great, but you shouldn't be here.'"

Garner had her theories about why she wasn't chosen for that particular part. "I was too natural maybe in terms of acting," she mused. "I was just too weird-looking." But her natural talent and interesting look ended up serving her well in the long run. That same casting director suggested Garner would be a good fit for indie films, and that's where her career took off.

In 2011, Garner landed her first feature film role in the indie hit "Martha Marcy May Marlene" alongside Elizabeth Olsen and Sarah Paulson. She was just 16 at the time, and learned a lot from the experience. "I didn't know what I was doing," she shared on "Collider Ladies Night." "I learned how to be on a movie set."

Following the success of "Martha Marcy May Marlene," Julia Garner continued to appear in a string of indie films including "Electrick Children," "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," and "We Are What We Are." In 2015, Garner landed a starring role opposite veteran actor Lily Tomlin in the film "Grandma," about a teenager seeking help from her grandmother after becoming pregnant.

If her first movie taught her a lot about the filmmaking process, working Tomlin's stunning transformation on screen was a masterclass in acting. But Garner didn't want to pepper her co-star with questions; she was happy to simply observe. "Just watching her work ... seeing how she prepares before. It was just amazing," Garner told IndieWire.

A lot of the film's appeal rested on the chemistry between Garner and Tomlin, which seemed to come naturally. The actors didn't have much time to prepare, but somehow they made the magic happen. "We had a week of rehearsal before shooting, and just hearing how Lily is going to approach the character and how I approach the character, we kind of just talked about that," Garner explained.

Julia Garner continued working steadily in films and on the TV series "The Americans" before landing her much-lauded role as Ruth Langmore on "Ozark." As soon as she read the script, she knew how badly she wanted the part. "I remember thinking, 'Oh my God, this character is amazing,'" she told The Hollywood Reporter. "'There's so much to it. If I don't get this, I don't think I can watch this show.'"

The series took place in the Ozark region of Missouri, as its title suggests, and Garner was determined to get the very specific accent right. "A month before I got the job, I started talking in a Missouri accent," she shared with The Cut. "I would go to restaurants and order my food in the accent and kind of get used to it. I got so comfortable that it was like second nature to me."

While the actor was diligent in doing her homework, she had a moment of hesitation during the audition process. None of the other actors up for the role were reading the lines with a Missouri accent and Garner wondered whether she would come off as too precocious for doing so. "I was like, oh my God, I'm going to be that actor that is super annoying, so actory," she shared with The Hollywood Reporter. She did the accent regardless of her misgivings, and was certain she hadn't nailed it. Garner even called her mother to tell her so. "'Yeah, I'm not getting this. This is a nope,'" she recalled saying. But the showrunners loved her, as did viewers once she appeared onscreen, and her performance ultimately garnered her an impressive three Primetime Emmy awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

While Julia Garner was enjoying new success in her acting career, her personal life was flourishing as well. The actor began dating musician Mark Foster, lead singer of the band Foster the People, after meeting at the Sundance Film Festival. 

The pair dated for 10 months before Foster proposed in a very romantic way. The couple had taken a road trip to Flathead Lake in Montana ahead of Garner filming season three of "Ozark." The alone time was just what they needed, and Foster surprised Garner with a poem and a proposal while out in the wilderness. "He read me a poem he had written to me, and when he finished, he dropped to a knee and asked me to marry him," the actor shared with Vogue.

Garner and Foster couldn't decide whether to have a lavish ceremony or to elope in Vegas, and finally chose to tie the knot at City Hall in New York City. While it may not sound like a fairy tale wedding, the location was special because Garner's parents had gotten married there 40 years prior. The reception took place at the Public Hotel and the couple's first dance was to an original song that Foster penned himself. "It was very surreal, and the most beautiful present I've ever received," Garner revealed. "It felt like I was floating up in the air—it was the most magical moment I've ever had."

In 2022, Julia Garner took on a high-profile project as the star of the Netflix miniseries "Inventing Anna." In the series, Garner portrayed 'fake heiress' Anna Delvey, the young woman who faked her way into New York's upper echelon by pretending to be a German heiress.

Because the character was based on a real person and required learning yet another new accent, the project was particularly challenging. "This is probably the hardest job I've ever done," Garner told Elle while filming the show. The accent was hard to nail because it was a hybrid of German and Russian with a dash of English. And Garner had only three weeks to perfect it. "It was a lot of pressure," she explained. "I knew at the outset this was the hardest accent I'm ever going to do in my career."

In preparation for the role, Garner met with Delvey in prison which was an interesting experience. Garner found that the real Anna Delvey had a sense of humor she wanted to capture for her portrayal. "She's very funny ... so I knew there had to be that comedic aspect to the show," the actor said. "Very funny, very likable, and she wanted to talk, as much as she was able to." The one thing that seemed to throw Garner for a loop was the fact that Delvey, who was convicted on multiple larceny charges, didn't appear as though she thought she did anything wrong. "I don't think she sees a difference between being hungry, and being ambitious," Garner said.

For years there has been talk of a biopic about pop icon Madonna's life in which Julia Garner was set to star. In 2023 it was announced the project had been scrapped, but a year later it seemed the film was moving forward after all. In May of 2025, there was news that the project had taken on a different shape and would be featured as a limited series on Netflix.

While it is unclear whether Garner will still be on board to portray the pop superstar as of this publication, she did get the chance to appear onstage alongside her during a 2023 concert. Garner was a guest judge during the Vogueing portion of the show, and fans caught footage of the two women dancing and cavorting onstage, having a great time.

Garner was decked out all in black, rocking pearls and looking very much like Madonna in her "Like a Virgin" era. It was clear as to why Madonna would want Garner to play her, and fans hope it will eventually come to fruition.

Julia Garner conquered the horror genre early on in her career with films like "We Are What We Are" and "The last Exorcism Part II." In 2025, she returned with a vengeance, starring in two blockbuster hits, "Wolf Man" and "Weapons." Garner explained during her interview with "Collider Ladies Night" that the part of acting in horror movies that surprised her was the level of emotional stamina required. "... you expect it but you don't really know until it happens," she said.

Garner went on to say that acting in the horror genre helped build her confidence in her craft. "I think you become a more confident actor after an experience like that ... doing acting in horror is not easy," she shared.

Despite the difficulty level, horror movies can be a lot of fun to film. For Garner, making "Wolf Man" was particularly enjoyable because she got to reunite with actor Christopher Abbott, with whom she shared the screen in her first film, "Martha Marcy May Marlene." "I did my first feature with him, so it was really nice reconnecting with him," Garner said during an appearance on "Today."

2025 was a big year for Julia Garner fans, as the actor starred in yet another hit, Marvel's "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." The star-studded cast included Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss Bachrach from "The Bear," Joseph Quinn, Natasha Lyonne, and Vanessa Kirby.

In the film, Garner plays the Silver Surfer, a casting choice that received backlash from fans when it was first announced. Many thought that a male actor should be playing the role, but Garner set the record straight. During an interview with BBC News, the actor explained that her Silver Surfer was based on the 1968 comic in which Shalla-Bal is featured as the female counterpart of Norrin Radd's Silver Surfer. Beyond that clarification, Garner shared her reaction upon hearing the backlash. "Oh well, you know ... I was like, 'I'm just going to still do my job."

Ahead of the film's premiere, Marvel released a clip of Garner as the Silver Surfer, and her voice ended up going viral on TikTok. Only Garner wasn't aware of it until her friends filled her in, as she didn't have the app. "... my friends were sending me all these TikToks and I couldn't even open it." Garner shared with Entertainment Tonight, adding, "I'm just happy that people are liking it."