The film debut of Andrew Garfield (Los Angeles, California, 40 years old) alongside Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Tom Cruise in Lions for lambs (2007) already anticipated a brilliant career for an actor allergic to being typecast. Only five years after that premiere, Garfield was already a global star, a direct consequence of becoming part of the Hollywood superhero club. In his case, like Spider-Man. Despite having built a versatile career with room for all types of roles, for many he remains the most endearing Spider-Man.
With each new release, the actor assumes new records and at 40 years old he is a sure value for producers and directors in their films. Supported by critics and loved by the public, he can be the perfect companion for new generation actresses, such as Florence Pugh or Daisy Edgar-Jones, but also a co-star capable of being on par with stars like Julia Roberts. He will begin working with her this summer, the start date of Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, the thriller After the Huntso and as posted a month ago The Hollywood Reporter. And, as is usual in the Italian’s films (just look at the promotion for Challengers, his latest title), the film is sure to get people talking. Discreet, but always present on the red carpet, Garfield faces a new professional stage and with a Tony Award, a Bafta, a Golden Globe and two Oscar nominations to his credit, he makes it clear that he is not afraid of challenges.
Andrew Garfield was born in the so-called mecca of cinema, but at the age of three the family moved to Great Britain, the place of origin of the actor’s mother and his paternal grandparents (his father, Richard Garfield, is from California). There he spent his first years. Nothing in his life suggested that he would become an actor, since what sparked his interest as a child and adolescent were sports. It was thanks to his mother that he discovered theater, the common entry point into acting for young people without connections to the film or television industry, and everything changed. “She had the courage to see that she was going through a difficult time. I was an athlete, but everything fell by the wayside (…) I suffered three concussions playing rugby, I was not doing good times in swimming. “I simply stopped growing,” he was honest in a long interview on The Irish Times. Her mother, who died in 2019, encouraged her to find her place through acting.
While earning a living with student jobs in supermarkets and Starbucks, he began participating in small local plays. “I realized I needed to be on stage with these weirdos and lunatics who created worlds out of nothing. It was exactly where I wanted to be,” she said about her beginning. Her training at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama at the University of London soon bore fruit. At 23 she shone with her first leading role in Boy A, a film about second chances in which he put himself in the shoes of a young man who has just been released from prison for a crime committed during his childhood. With his performance he won the 2008 Bafta awards, winning the award in the category of best leading actor.
The ‘Spider-Man’ boom
That recognition could have been the beginner’s luck if it weren’t for the years that followed: before he was thirty he achieved a prominent role in The social networkDavid Fincher’s film inspired by the origin of Facebook and became one of the most popular titles of the 2010s. It was 2012 when the boom of Spider-Man. “I felt a certain danger in terms of fame and exposure,” the actor said in GQ about what it meant to accept that role at only 26 years old, prevailing in the casting to names like Joe Jonas or Josh Hutcherson. The media interest was not only due to his work; During filming he entered into a romantic relationship with Emma Stone, who played Gwen Stacy in the story.
The couple dated for four years, until 2015, with few public appearances, beyond those required by the promotion. “There is a lot of love and respect between us. “I am his biggest fan as an artist,” he said in 2017 to make clear the good relationship that exists after the breakup. Despite the good reception of the first film Spider-Man, titled The Amazing Spider-Manthe second installment, The Amazing Spider-Man: The Power of Electrodisappointed fans and did not gross the expected box office, which put an end to Garfield’s story as Spider-Man (in 2021 he returned with a small appearance in Spider-man: No Way Home, starring his successor, Tom Holland). Of course, his love affair with blockbusters did not end there.
Years after the world discovered him on the big screen in a war-themed film, Garfield returned to star in a war film in To a man (2016). Under the orders of Mel Gibson, the British-American gave life to Desmond Doss, a military doctor who refused to kill and was awarded the United States Medal of Honor. During the preparation of the character he lost almost 20 kilos of weight. A physical effort rewarded with his first Oscar nomination. That same year, in addition, he premiered Silenceby Martin Scorsese. In it he became a 16th century Portuguese Jesuit, a character linked to the world of religion, a very recurring theme in his latest works. In Tammy Faye’s eyes (2021) we could see him as a televangelist alongside Jessica Chastain, while in the series By heaven’s command (2021) plays a devout detective with a crisis of faith. And it is rumored that he could repeat with Scorsese in The life of Jesusa film inspired by the life of Jesus Christ but set in the present day.
Go for the big prizes
In 2017, having become one of the stars of the moment, Garfield made a rare decision among actors at the peak of success. He left Los Angeles and temporarily moved to London to head the work Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s cult play that addresses the AIDS pandemic. In 2018, she debuted on Broadway with the same play and received a Tony Award, the first of her career. As the interpreter himself has explained, doing this project was a before and after in his life. “After finishing my mother got sick. And it was like ‘okay, she was preparing me for something.’ The person who gave me existence no longer exists. I felt like everything was connected. “She died young, at 69 years old,” he told the magazine. GQ. Among the audience for that play was the versatile Lin-Manuel Miranda, who did not hesitate to propose Andrew Garfield for the lead role in his first film as a director, the musical Tick, Tick… Boom! The performer mourned the death of his mother during filming, becoming “a place where I could continue singing his unfinished song,” he said in an interview. The film, inspired by the life of playwright Jonathan Larson, was quite a challenge, since Garfield had never sung professionally. Once again, his performance swept the critics, taking home his first Golden Globe and his second Oscar nomination.
An early millennial, Garfield does not have social networks and has always shown rejection of the overexposure intrinsic to his profession, considering that in the industry, where he enjoys a privileged position, “people are rewarded with money and fame and, ultimately, with the right amount of emptiness for a self-centered life. “There is a part of me that will always want to get rid of all that,” he commented on Guardian years ago. He prefers that his name be related to his work and not so much to his personal relationships, as has recently happened following his courtship with Kate Thomas, who works as a “spiritual mentor” and defines herself as “professional witch.” Of course, the actor has known how to take advantage of the interest that he arouses and has been one of the few performers based in Hollywood who has openly positioned himself against Israel’s attacks in Gaza. Garfield, whose father’s family is Jewish, signed a petition backed by 55 actors and actresses last October in which they addressed Joe Biden to call for an immediate ceasefire.
In the last two years, the pace of work has slightly slowed down, a time of rest that precedes a near horizon full of projects. In addition to the rumored film about the life of Jesus Christ and the thriller Along with Julia Roberts, he will once again share the screen with Daisy Edgar-Jones, his partner in the series By heaven’s commandin Voyagers, the love story between astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan and writer Ann Druyan. With Florence Pugh she will work in the romantic comedy We Live in Time and, like the restless actor who is reluctant to be repetitive, among his next releases he sneaks in The tree far far awaybased on the children’s book by Enid Blyton and with Claire Foy completing the cast.
