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
Architecture of Assurance. Her next major role came at age 19 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 to further embody Domergue; she has said that she tripped and fell when entering the audition room in front of Scorsese and DiCaprio. "I thought I'd lost the job," she recalled, "But I think it was that moment that made it work [because] the character was someone who was trying to be much older than she was." 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, co-starring with
America Ferrara,
Eddie Kaye Thomas, and
Ari Graynor, among others. In 2008, she appeared again onstage in an off-Broadway production of
Anton Chekhov's
The Seagull opposite
Dianne Wiest, as Nina. Garner was next cast in
Alexandre Aja's horror-fantasy
Horns (2014) with
Daniel Radcliffe, and played the title role in the Lifetime miniseries
The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, opposite Susan Sarandon as her mother. She also appeared in the independent film
One More Time (2015) with
Christopher Walken and
Amber Heard. Between 2014 and 2015, she had a guest-starring role on the
gay-themed series
Looking, playing the sister of the lead character, Patrick Murray. In 2019, Garner had a supporting part in the action film
Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and also starred as a lead opposite
Jennifer Carpenter and
Morris Chestnut on the series
The Enemy Within. ==Filmography==