Tasty Crushie Tuesday: Andrew Garfield

Andrew Russell Garfield (born 20 August 1983) is an actor, of dual British and American citizenship. Born in Los Angeles but raised in Surrey, Garfield began his career in British stage and television productions. He made his feature film debut in the 2007 ensemble drama Lions for Lambs. Garfield first came to international attention in 2010 with a supporting role in the drama film The Social Network, for which he received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. His performance as Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the superhero film The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), a reboot of the Spider-Man film series, was generally well received. The sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, is scheduled for release in 2014, with Garfield set to reprise the role. He is often noted by critics for his portrayals of conflicted, complex characters.

* More info and photo after break...

Garfield was born in Los Angeles, the son of a British mother from Essex and an American father from California. His family moved to Britain when he was three years old. Garfield was brought up in a middle class Jewish home. His parents ran a small interior design business; his mother, Lynn (née Hillman), is a teaching assistant at a nursery school, and his father, Richard Garfield, became head coach of the Guildford Swimming Club. He has an older brother who is a doctor. Garfield was brought up in Surrey, England, and was a gymnast and a swimmer during his early years. He had originally intended to study business, but became interested in acting at the age of sixteen.

Garfield attended Priory Preparatory School in Banstead and later City of London Freemen's School in nearby Ashtead, before training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, from which he graduated in 2004.

Career 

Early work

Garfield started taking acting classes in Guildford, Surrey, when he was twelve, and appeared in a youth theatre production of Bugsy Malone. He also joined a small youth theatre workshop group in Epsom, and began working primarily as a stage actor. In 2004, he won an Manchester Evening News Theatre Awarder Evening News Theatre Award for Best Newcomer, for his performance in Kes at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre (where he also played Romeo the year after), and won the Outstanding Newcomer Award at the 2006 Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Garfield made his British television debut in 2005, appearing in the Channel 4 teenage drama Sugar Rush. In 2007, he garnered public attention when he appeared in the third series of the BBC's Doctor Who, in the episodes "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks". Garfield commented that it was "an honour" to be a part of Doctor Who. In October 2007, he was named one of Variety's "10 Actors to Watch", and in November 2007, made his American screen debut, playing an American university student in the ensemble drama Lions for Lambs, a film that co-stars Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. "I'm just lucky to be there working on the same project as them, although I don't really expect to be recognized later by audiences," Garfield told Variety in 2007. The Boston Globe reviewer Wesley Morris considered the actor's work "a willing punching bag for the movie's jabs and low blows." 

In the Channel 4 drama Boy A, released in November 2007, he portrayed a notorious killer trying to find new life after prison. The role garnered him the 2008 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle wrote that "there is no doubt about the intelligence and sensitivity" of Garfield's portrayal. Star Tribune's Christy DeSmith echoed Biancolli's sentiment, citing his "detailed expressions" as an example. The Seattle Times journalist John Hartl noted that Garfield demonstrated range in the role, and concluded: "Garfield always manages to capture his passion". The Wall Street Journal writer Joe Morgenstern dubbed Garfield's performance "phenomenal", assessing that he "makes room for the many and various pieces of Jack's personality". In 2008, he had a minor role in the film The Other Boleyn Girl, and was named one of the shooting stars at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2009, Garfield held supporting roles in the Terry Gilliam film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and the Red Riding television trilogy. The Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan thought that Garfield gave a stand out performance in the latter. 

Never Let Me Go and The Social Network

In 2010, he co-starred in the British dystopian science fiction drama film Never Let Me Go, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel of the same name. He said of his character, Tommy D., "There's a sense of anxiety that runs through these kids, especially Tommy, because he's so sensory and feeling and animalistic, that's my perspective of him." Garfield was attracted to the film based on the existential questions the story expresses. He called the experience of being a part of Never Let Me Go a "dream to come true". He said the scenes in which his character—unable to contain his frustration—erupts with a wail, was "intense" for him. "I think those screams are inside all of us, I just got a chance to let mine out". He won the 2010 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Tommy. Garfield, as noted by Cleveland Magazine's Clint O'Connor, gave "a terrifically anguished performance" in the film. Entertainment Weekly film critic Owen Gleiberman described his work as "spooky, haunted innocence that gets under your skin," and Tom Preston from The Guardian described Garfield's acting as solid and "at times deeply moving". In comparison to Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley, Scott Bowles, writing for USA Today, deemed Garfield "the real find" of Never Let Me Go. 

For the drama film The Social Network, released in October 2010, the actor said he felt "a greater sense of responsibility" portraying Eduardo Saverin, a real-life person. Initially, the film's director, David Fincher, had met with Garfield under the auspices of him playing Mark Zuckerberg, having been turned on to the actor by Mark Romanek, who had previously directed Garfield in the film Never Let Me Go. However, the director did not like Garfield for the part as he found the actor's "incredible emotional access to his kind of core humanity" better tailored for role of Saverin. Garfield received wider recognition and numerous nominations for his critically acclaimed performance in the film, including the BAFTA Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Rising Star, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. Mark Kermode of the BBC expressed his surprise that Garfield had been overlooked for an Academy Award nomination, "everyone knows he's one of the very best things about the Social Network". Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern thought the role was portrayed with "great subtlety and rueful charm". Rolling Stone said Garfield delivered "a vulnerability that raises the emotional stakes in a movie", and proclaimed: "Keep your eyes on Garfield — he's shatteringly good, the soul of a film that might otherwise be without one." He received similar plaudits of the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, and The New Yorker.

The Amazing Spider-Man

In 2010, Garfield was cast as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, opposite Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, in Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of the Spider-Man film series. Garfield saw his casting as a "massive challenge in many ways", having to make the character "authentic" and "live and breathe in a new way." The actor described Peter as someone he can relate to and stated that the character had been an important influence on him since he was a child. For the role, Garfield studied the movements of athletes and spiders and tried to incorporate them, did yoga and pilates in order to be as flexible as possible, and drew from his life experiences as inspiration. Garfield admitted to shedding tears and trying to imagine "a better actor in the suit" upon first wearing his costume. When filming Garfield explained that he had four months of training and described his physical roles on stunts as challenging and exhausting. Released in July 2012, The Amazing Spider-Man earned a worldwide total of $752,216,557. Garfield's performance was generally well received. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw acclaimed his portrayal as the "definitive Spider-Man", CNN contributor Tom Charity commended his "combination of fresh-faced innocence, nervous agitation and wry humor", and Peter Travers for Rolling Stone said Garfield gave a stellar performance. Associated Press journalist Christy Lemire elaborated that Garfield's Spider-Man gave the film a "restless, reckless energy and a welcome sense of danger." In March 2012, Garfield made his Broadway theatre debut as Biff Loman in the revival of Death of a Salesman. The actor, according to The New York Times's David Rooney, "exposed the raw ache of Biff's solitude", and received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play nomination for his performance in the role. He felt that it was a responsibility to reprise his role in the The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which is slated for release in May 2014, and that he does not take it lightly. Garfield is also scheduled to star in the Martin Scorsese film Silence based on Shūsaku Endō's 1966 novel of the same name. Production is scheduled to begin in June 2014. The actor is set to play Father Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit priest in the 17th century who travels to Japan.

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