Andrew Russell Garfield (born 20 August 1983 in Los Angeles, California) is an English-American actor. With a dorky smile, a friendly disposition, and heaps of talent, it's not hard to see why Garfield is one of the most sought after actors working today.
Garfield was born in Los Angeles, to a British mother and an American father, and is of English and Polish Jewish descent. He has spent most of his life in the UK and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. If you're on TV Tropes at all, you've probably seen him in a television show or two. With a BAFTA for his performance for Boy A, it was strange that Hollywood didn't pay that much attention to him in the earlier years of his career.
That is until he burst onto the scene with his performance as Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network and as Tommy in Never Let Me Go, both released in 2010. (Also in 2010, he starred in a delightful short film called I'm Here. Trailer here👁 Image
) Showing some amazing skill and giving some wonderful and heart-wrenching performances in both of his films, Hollywood has taken notice.
His Star-Making Role was Spider-Man in the short-lived The Amazing Spider-Man Series. He then appeared in historical dramas such as Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge and Martin Scorsese's Silence. When he is not on the screen, he has been known to take on theatre roles such as Prior Walter in Angels in America, for which he won a Tony Award.
Selected filmography:
- Doctor Who (2007) as Frank ("Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks")
- Trial and Retribution (2007) as Martin Douglas
- Boy A (2007) as Jack Burridge
- Lions for Lambs (2007) as Todd Hayes
- The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) as Francis Weston
- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) as Anton
- Red Riding (2009) as Eddie Dunford
- Im Here (2010) as Sheldon
- Never Let Me Go (2010) as Tommy
- The Social Network (2010) as Eduardo Saverin
- The Amazing Spider-Man Series and Marvel Cinematic Universe as Peter Parker / Spider-Man
- The Amazing Spider-Man 1 (2012)
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
- 99 Homes as Dennis Nash
- Hacksaw Ridge (2016) as Desmond Doss — Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
- Silence (2016) as Sebastião Rodrigues
- Under the Silver Lake (2019) as Sam
- The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) as Jim Bakker
- tick, tick... BOOM! (2021) as Jonathan Larson — Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
- Under the Banner of Heaven (2022) as Detective Jeb Pyre
- We Live in Time (2024) as Tobias Durand
- After the Hunt (2025) as Henrik Gibson
Tropes associated with his work:
- Approval of God: Like his predecessor as Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire, he is supportive of Tom Holland, his successor to the role.
- Creator Backlash: Although he enjoyed portraying Spider-Man, he doesn't seem particularly proud being in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. He told interviewers about What Could Have Been prior to some Executive Meddling in the editing room, and actually blew off a dinner meant to announce the third movie👁 Image
. - Fake American: Although American-born with an American father, he was raised his entire life in Surrey, predominantly speaks with an English accent, and identifies himself as British. He's played plenty of Americans, including Spider-Man.
- Irony as He Is Cast:
- Two of his most prominent roles, Hacksaw Ridge and Silence, have him playing a devoted Christian, but Garfield himself is actually very Jewish, and even then by his own admission a Jewish Agnostic.
- He was also cast as Jonathan Larson, the composer who famously made RENT and trained singer in tick, tick... BOOM! despite the fact that before being cast, Andrew never had any professional music experience.
- Lying Creator: For months leading up to the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, he insisted as hard as he could at every opportunity that he wasn't in the movie, which after its release he jokingly called the greatest performance of his life. Though he soon discovered the downside of it, as he then had to keep on saying he wouldn't be making any further appearances in the MCU, while also acknowledging the fans were completely justified in not believing a word he said on the subject.
- Manly Tears: One of his specialties: he pulls it off marvelously.
- Promoted Fanboy:
- To the point that he actually shed tears when he got to wear the Spider-Man suit for the first time.
- He also admitted to being a massive fanboy of Tobey Maguire, to the point of reciting his lines from Spider-Man 1 and repeatedly calling him "My Spider-Man" in interviews. He got to play his version of Peter Parker/Spider-Man alongside Maguire's incarnation in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
- Romance on the Set: He dated Emma Stone, his co-star in The Amazing Spider-Man Series, for four years before they broke up in 2015.
- What Could Have Been:
- He auditioned for the role of Erik Lehnsherr in X-Men: First Class before Michael Fassbender was cast.
- He was cast as the Monster in Guillermo del Toro's upcoming adaptation of Frankenstein, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced by Jacob Elordi.