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Andrew Garfield, star of The Amazing Spider-Man films, says that there was a downside to playing one of his favorite characters of all time.
Andrew Garfield, who portrayed Peter Parker/Spider-Man in both The Amazing Spider-Man films, recently described his experience acting as the web-slinging hero, the impact he knew it would have on his career and the downside to portraying one of the most popular superheroes of all time.
“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,” Garfield said in an interview with Total Film. “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….”
Garfield went on to say that “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.” Garfield is a stage actor as well, appearing alongside the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in Mike Nichols’ revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in 2012.
In regards to being a “movie star,” Garfield explained that while he “[loves] movie stars,” the idea of being one is “not for me, personally.” He stated that his intention with taking on the role of Spider-Man was to “infuse it with as much soul and universality as possible.”
“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,” he said. “So for me, it was like: How do I help to infuse it 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.”
In a 2016 interview, Garfield expressed a similar sentiment when the third Amazing Spider-Man film was canceled by Sony, saying, “I signed up to serve the story and to serve this incredible character that I’ve been dressing as since I was three, and then it gets compromised and it breaks your heart. I got heartbroken a little bit to a certain degree.”
Garfield appeared as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and reprised his role for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014. while Garfield initially signed on for a trilogy, the third installment of The Amazing Spider-Man film series was inevitably scrapped. Garfield, along with the original live-action Spider-Man from Sam Raimi’s films, Tobey Maguire, has been rumored to return for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film, but neither of the actors’ involvement is confirmed by Sony or Marvel. In fact, Garfield has routinely denied his involvement in the film, recently saying a possible leaked photo of him on the Spider-Man: No Way Home set was “photoshopped.”
Marvel released the first trailer for No Way Home, which confirmed the return not only of Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus from Raimi’s Spider-Man films but also confirmed the return of Green Goblin. It’s also been known that Jamie Foxx will return as his Amazing Spider-Man 2 character, Electro, which in part led to speculation that Garfield may appear in the film.
Spider-Man: Now Way Home starring Tom Holland as the most recent iteration of the hero, swings into theaters on Dec. 17.
Source: Total Film magazine, via GamesRadar+
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