Andrew Garfield has been ducking questions concerning the upcoming film Spider-Man: No Way Home but still has time to talk about his own Amazing Spider-Man films.
While promoting his new film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the actor opened up about playing Spider-Man and being critical of his performances. Speaking with Total Film, Garfield was asked if the love he had for playing Spider-Man stemmed from early childhood admiration.
“That was absolutely it. I don’t know about reincarnation, and if there is one opportunity for me to be alive, and I get offered the opportunity to do a prolonged dress-up as my favorite character of all time, there’s no way I can say no,” says Garfield. “And, yeah, the only thing that I knew was going to be a challenge was the fame aspect, and I knew that a lot of good would come with that as well.
“I knew it was going to provide a gilded prison,” he continued. “As a creative person, I knew I would have to balance it out with theatre and with waiting for the right movies to come along, that would make sure that I stayed an actor, rather than this idea of a movie star. I love movie stars. I love The Rock. I fucking love Tom Cruise. This is in no way a detriment to them.”
When asked about preparing for the role, Garfield added: “My intention… I started studying myth, which is the basis of comic-book films and comic books generally. And you go, ‘Oh, right. The responsibility of modern filmmakers is the same as the person telling the story around the campfire.’ Stories are the things that remind us of who we are as human beings, and we actually have an opportunity to provide deep wisdom and medicine, and guidance. So for me, it was like: How do I help to infuse this with as much soul and universality as possible, knowing that millions of young people are going to be watching? So it’s not an exercise in selling t-shirts and mugs and Happy Meals, but it’s giving young people the opportunity to feel their own extraordinariness, and their own ordinariness, and seeing someone who’s just like them struggle with those two things living inside of themselves. So for me, it was about that. And then, you know, there’s everyone else that’s serving their own masters.”
Finally, Garfield left the interviewer stunned when asked about his Spider-Man role and how he felt about the performance. When asked if he was “dissatisfied with the movies,” Garfield offered up a different take, responding that: “I’m very rarely satisfied with how something turns out. I suffer from that kind of queer, divine dissatisfaction that most creative people have. I remember watching The Social Network for the first time, and me and Jesse were like, ‘Oh, we hate this shit. We hate it.’ Everyone around us was going, ‘What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s incredible.’ We were like, ‘No. I ruined it. They should have cast someone else.'”
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If rumours are to be believed, we’ll be seeing Garfield back as the web-slinger alongside Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland’s Spideys this December in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighborhood hero is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a Super Hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.
Spider-Man: No Way Home sees Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home) directing Tom Holland (Spider-Man), Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Zendaya (MJ), Marisa Tomei (Aunt May), Jacob Batalon (Ned Leeds), Tony Revolori (Flash Thompson), Jamie Foxx (Electro) and Alfred Molina (Doctor Octopus).
