Playing the new Spider-Man is a fantasy realised for Andrew Garfield.
The actor, currently shooting the new superhero film for Sony Pictures in Los Angeles and one of the stars of the globally acclaimed movie The Social Network, always found Peter Parker (Spidey’s secret identity) easy to relate to when growing up.
Parker was bullied at school, and so was Garfield. ‘Of course, every school has their bullies, and when you’re a kid you wish you had the power to fight them and protect other people — and yourself,’ he told me.
Getting into the action man role: New Spider-Man Andrew Garfield rides his Vespa around Los Angeles
'No, school's hard.I think everyone has been bullied at some point.Kids can be incredibly cruel.On certain days you would come home and think,'today was really horrible', so I guess I have been bullied and I think everyone has been bullied at some point by some figure in their life. I don't think anyone can escape it.'
Garfield continued:'We're incredibly cruel to each other as human beings sometimes. Bullying at schools is one of those huge issues I wish I had a solution to.I know how defining it can be to a person's life.
'What bullies don't realise is the effect he/she can have on someone throughout the rest of their life.It can form patterns in another kid and there's the trauma... It's really unfair'.
Living his boyhood dream: Andrew Garfield, seen here on the set of the new Spider-Man film with co-star Emma Stone, says it surreal to step into the iconic costume
The actor added said that often it's not the fault of the bully, who has often been bullied himself.'The bully must have learnt it from somebody else. He was bullied so he goes on to do it to others,that's the pattern', Garfield explained.
He said he wished he better understood the psychological underpinnings behind bullying.
He said, however, that it seems to be a sad part of our culture and that most adolescent boys go through it as he did.
I asked him if he wanted his bullies to see him in his Spider-Man costume so he can go,'Well ,look at me now'?
Garfield laughed and told me: 'I haven't really thought of playing Spider-Man in the context of revenge upon those who bullied me. In all serious it's not a revenge move. It's a a role.
'But as a boy I probably wished I'd been bigger and stronger to help others and myself.'
The actor, 27, said he found putting on the Spider-Man *costume for the first time exhilarating. ‘It was all so very surreal — definitely an overwhelming feeling of pure childhood joy.
Spider-Man was my favourite superhero. I guess I found him easiest to relate to. His struggle was profound, and I understood it.’
The theme of bullying finds echoes, too, in David Fincher’s film The Social Network — the tale about how the internet phenomenon Facebook was founded.
Garfield portrays Eduardo *Saverin, a Harvard buddy of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s number one daddy.
Saverin bankrolled Facebook’s first faltering steps, through astute handling of stocks and bonds. But in the film, when Sean Parker (of Napster fame) edges his way into the growing *Facebook phenomenon, he sees Saverin as an obstacle. ‘In the film, Eduardo was calculatedly bullied into leaving the company,’ Garfield told me.
‘Sean’s (Parker) perspective is that he needs mum and dad to leave so he can party . . . and Eduardo is mum and dad.’
The scene where Saverin realises he has been royally betrayed marks a highpoint of acting for Garfield, as he has to register white-hot rage and utter sadness at the same time.
Fincher shot the scene countless times and the three leads — Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake as Parker and Garfield — are excellent. Those who haven’t seen The Social *Network yet can see what I mean when it’s released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 14.
Garfield can also be seen in the heartbreaking film Never Let Me Go with Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley, which opens here on February 11.
Meanwhile, he’ll carry on filming Spider-Man until April and spend some of his spare time watching people skateboard and surf because, contractually, he’s not allowed to partake in such ‘dangerous’ pastimes.
^
t:
