Sony officially announced British actor Andrew Garfield as the new face of Peter Parker for the Marc Webb-director reboot, back in July. And now speaking with Jay A. Fernandez of
THR | Risky Business on his experience at the Telluride Film Festival, Fernandez gets a few answers from Garfield, on his future as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, approaching the role, and prep work.
Have you been prepping for Spider-Man?
"I have been waiting for this phone call for 24 years, for someone to call me up and say, "Hey, we want you to pretend to be a character that you’ve always wanted to be all your life, and we’re going to do it with cool cameras and cool effects and you’re going to feel like you’re swinging through New York City. Do you want to do that?" [laughs] “Let me just consult with my seven-year old self and see what he thinks...” So my seven-year-old self started screaming in my soul and saying, This is what we’ve been waiting for. Like every young boy who feels stronger on the inside than they look on the outside, any skinny boy basically who wishes their muscles matched their sense of injustice, God, it’s just the stuff that dreams are made of, for sure. It’s a true [frick]ing honor to be part of this symbol that I actually think is a very important symbol and it’s meant a great deal to me, and it continues to mean something to people. So yeah, I feel like I’ve been preparing for it for a while. Ever since Halloween when I was four years old and I wore my first Spider-Man costume."
What's your approach to wrapping your brain around the coming shift in terms of your increased visibility with Spider-Man?
"Not to give it credence, not to give it any of my energy. Just approach it like any other job that I care about deeply. That may be naïve of me to think that I can just get away with that. But if you give focus to something, it will grow. I just want to be an actor, really. And of course all those things came into consideration when I was making the decision. But at the end of the day, I had faith that I would be able to not be defined by it. And I still have faith that I will be able to get lost in roles and just keep doing what I love to do."
Have you gotten any advice about how to balance it?
"I’ve witnessed other friends go through it, so I’m aware of the pitfalls, for sure. So I already feel as prepared as I can be, and also no advice can really prepare you for something so visceral."
Is there any other prep work you’ll need to do? Will you need to change your physicality or do training?
"I’m sure there will be a bunch of that, yeah. Flexibility is my main focus right now. Making sure that I can be as flexible as possible. It’s all kind of starting up so I haven’t really got much to say about it."
You start shooting in December, but are you planning anything else after or in the meantime?
Yeah, sure. There’s a film that I really like that I shouldn’t really talk about. I really want to do a play afterwards. I was already thinking, "How am I going to offset this experience and create equilibrium within my system after this incredibly big thing?"
Director Marc Webb & the studio are currently on the search for supporting roles, in which Ophelia Lovibond, Lilly Collins, Teresa Palmer, and Emma Roberts are being looked at for the Spidey's main squeeze. And Sony has July 3, 2012 set for Spidey's return in 3D!