Andrew Garfield Discusses ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ Regrets, Admits Films Broke His Heart

When Andrew Garfield was originally cast to play Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man franchise back in July, 2010, it was believed that the British actor would go to portray the webbed-wonder for many more films to come.

Things didn’t quite work out that way, though. Because when 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released to mediocre reviews and failed to match the original’s gross of $757.9 million, instead just grossing $709 million, the decision was made to take the franchise in a different direction. Unfortunately for Andrew Garfield that direction no longer included him, and he was replaced by Tom Holland in the role.

It’s been over two years since The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released, but Andrew Garfield is still clearly struggling to deal with the failure of the franchise. Garfield made this perfectly clear while talking to Amy Adams as part of Variety’s annual Actors On Actors discussions series.

At first, though, Garfield made sure to point out that he learned a tremendous amount while working on The Amazing Spider-Man films, which were directed by Marc Webb and saw him co-star with Emma Stone, Sally Fields, and Martin Sheen.

Andrew Garfield admitted,

“There were great things about it, I got to work with incredible actors, a really great director… I learned a lot about what feels good and what doesn’t feel good, and what to say ‘yes’ to.”

But then the revelations soon began to emerge, as Andrew Garfield, who is still only 33-years-old, explained that he felt a little bit out of his depth with the studio mechanics and political games that needed to be played in order for the film to succeed. Garfield confessed,

“There’s something about being that young in that kind of machinery which I think is really dangerous… I was still young enough to struggle with the value system, I suppose, of corporate America really, it’s a corporate enterprise mostly.”

This then provoked Andrew Garfield to admit that, looking back, he found the entire experience of making The Amazing Spider-Man a little out of his comfort zone. Especially since the film’s first intentions weren’t “story and character.” In fact, all in all, Garfield admitted that he got his heart broken a little bit by what he ultimately produced as Spider-Man. Garfield remarked,

“There’s something that happened with that experience for me where story and character were actually not top of the priority list, ultimately. And I found that really, really tricky. 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 my heart. I got heartbroken a little bit, to a certain degree. Not entirely.”

This isn’t the first time that Andrew Garfield has opened up about the failures of The Amazing Spider-Man over recent weeks. While recently taking part in an actors roundtable with the Hollywood Reporter Andrew Garfield responded to a comment from Dev Patel by again discussing his disappointment with the Amazing Spider-Man films. Garfield confessed,

“I love what you just said, that you were looking at a stranger and feeling like you were perpetuating something that’s toxic and something that’s shallow and something that has no depth, no matter how much depth was attempted.”

“Spider-Man was my favorite superhero, my first superhero costume when I was a 3-year-old at Halloween… I was like, there’s millions of young people watching who are hungry for someone to say, ‘You’re OK. You’re seen very deeply.’ And more often than not the opportunity is not taken, and it is absolutely devastating and heartbreaking because there is so much medicine that could be delivered through those films.”

Things are looking a little up for Andrew Garfield, though, because his performances in Hacksaw Ridge and Silence have seen him touted for awards season contention in the Best Actor categories.

[Featured Image by Sony]