It's not too much of a stretch to say 2011 will be the year of Andrew Garfield. He's nominated for a Golden Globe, the BAFTA Orange Rising Star Award and likely an Oscar for his role in "The Social Network," and is filming the part that will likely make or break his career in Marc Webb's "Spider-Man" reboot. It also helps that he was the dreamiest new Brit we met in 2010. Oh, and did we mention he and his "Spider-Man" costar Emma Stone are the two actors we were most thankful for last year?
So it's no surprise Andrew covers the February issue of Details magazine, which tries to get to the bottom of what all the fuss is about. Apparently, Andrew is trying to figure it out too. Or at least he doesn't want it to change.
"I hope this period doesn't end," he told Details. "I hope I never blow up. I hope that I have to audition for every single job I want. I hope that I'm always struggling, really. You develop when you're struggling. When you're struggling, you get stronger."
For Sony Picture co-chair Amy Pascal, it was an easy decision for Andrew to be the next Spider-Man. He already proved himself in "The Social Network," which Sony produced, and she and Marc Webb knew Andrew was their man. But Amy was in for an awkward night when she had dinner with Andrew and the rest of the "Social Network" gang at a Sony outing, and some oblivious man who didn’t know Andrew was auditioning for the role started asking her questions about the status of the film. She hedged, and he thought that meant he hadn't gotten the role.
"Andrew assumed my silence meant that he didn't get it," Amy said. "I practically broke into tears. This poor kid—who is Spider-Man—was going to be in for a terrible 24 hours."
He continued the story from there. "So I go to bed and I'm like, 'Oh well. I'm still happy to be in Cancún. I'm part of a film that I'm proud to be a part of. This is amazing. Whatever. It's fine,'" he said, then retracts that, saying, "No, of course not. I felt disappointed. I felt exposed. It was one of the most awkward f---ing things ever."
The next day he was invited to Amy's suite where Marc was waiting with flutes of champagne. "I realized immediately how much hard work it was going to be, and how much of a minefield it was going to be in terms of all the sh-- that comes with it," Andrew said. "Stuff that I would like to not have any part of. I mean visibility and being recognized walking down the street. I'm holding out a naïve and ignorant hope that it won't happen."
That means he's not up for talking about his girlfriend Shannon Woodward, who we know best as Jackson Rathbone's costar in "Girlfriend." And he's not checking what blogs or film reviews think of him since someone compared his eyebrows to those of a Neanderthal. He doesn't watch his own movies because he's afraid that, if he does, he will feel nervous about letting himself go in front of the camera like he did in "The Social Network," "Never Let Me Go" and "Boy A."
Case in point: the "Social Network" scene in which his character Eduardo Saverin finally confronts Mark Zuckerberg when he realizes he's been hedged out of the company. "That day and night of shooting was one of my favorite experiences. I was actually proud of myself because I didn't care what I was doing. I was literally not judging myself. And it was so f---ing beautiful for a second," Andrew said. "I've gone through my whole life caring deeply what people think of me. That was probably one of the first times where I didn't care for a second. And it was liberating. I felt more like a man than I've ever felt." It's performances like that which will win him an Oscar.
Are you on the Andrew Garfield bandwagon? Do you think his fears about fame are warranted? Tell us in the comments and on Twitter!
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