Jennifer Garner Talks Parenting Older Kids: It's 'Hard' to 'Be a Teen Right Now' (Exclusive)

Garner plays a stepmother named Hannah in her new Apple TV+ series The Last Thing He Told Me

Jennifer Garner is getting candid about parenting teenagers.

The mom of three told PEOPLE on Thursday night during the premiere for her new show The Last Thing He Told Me at Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles that she understands just how hard it is to be a teen in this day and age.

"I just have a huge heart for teenagers," said Garner, 50. "I love them. I love what they're going through. I see how hard it is to be a teen right now."

The actress, who plays a stepmother named Hannah in her new Apple TV+ series, inspired by the novel of the same name by Laura Grace, said that parenting her own children is a different experience from the one she's had on the show.

"The teenager in the story, Bailey, played by the beautiful Angourie Rice, she's a whole other ... she's mean," Garner continued. "My kids aren't mean — they're teenagers, but they're not mean. Not to me."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Related: Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's Kids: Everything They've Said About Parenting

"So that was funny. Just a different layer of teen to deal with," she added.

Garner — who is mom to daughters Violet Anne, 17, and Seraphina Rose, 14, plus son Samuel Garner, 11, all of whom she shares with ex-husband Ben Affleck — said the key to supporting her kids as they navigate this phase of their life is just being open to learning new things.

"I mean, I'm learning as much from them, or more from them, than they'll ever learn from me," the Yes Day star said.

The Last Thing He Told Me is about a woman who must forge a relationship with her 16-year-old stepdaughter (Rice, 22) to find her husband who has mysteriously disappeared, per a description from Apple TV+.

The 13 Going on 30 actress, known for being a relatable mom, said in a recent interview with InStyle that it was "very difficult" for her to "play a character who's not maternal at all."

"I've played a mom quite a bit, and that is actually lovely, because it's very easy to slip into mothering some awesome young actor, and then you build a relationship under it, so at the end, you're quite close," she added.

Working with Rice required them to "become a team," Garner told the publication, after initially being "almost adversarial at the beginning of the series."

"We had to build trust, a partnership, become a team — whether we liked it or not — until we were legitimately close," she said. "It was nice to have our real relationship build slowly over time — that our trust built over time, just like Hannah and Bailey."

The Last Thing He Told Me is now streaming on Apple TV+.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.