Note: This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now in theaters, and audiences have finally been able to learn all of its enticing secrets. The biggest one was the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as their respective versions of the Wall-Crawler. Marvel Studios/Sony has yet to officially confirm the actors' involvement in stills or TV spots, but multiple leaks led to Garfield being asked countless times whether he was indeed part of the project.
Garfield denied his involvement in No Way Home with the professionalism of a tied-up super-spy keeping the world's best-kept secrets. His denials reached a point where they made many question whether the film would indeed bring back any past Spider-People.
Now that we've seen the film, the cat is out of the bag, which has given Garfield the chance to openly discuss his role. But what about his multiple denials? Well, speaking with The Wrap, the actor opened up about what it was like to lie to everyone about his return:
"It was stressful, I'm not gonna lie [...] but also weirdly enjoyable [...] It was like this massive game of 'Werewolf' that I was playing with journalists and with people guessing, and it was very fun."
Funnily enough, in one of his denials during an interview with ET, Garfield referred to having to clarify his involvement in the film as playing 'Werewolf.' Little did we know at the time that he was referring to being the werewolf and not the opposite way around.
Did he ever feel guilty about it? As it turns out, he did, but Garfield explained that he put himself in a fan's situation, and imagined what he would have liked to experience as a viewer leading up to the film:
"There were moments where I was like, 'God, I hate lying.' I don't like to lie and I'm not a good liar, but I kept framing it as a game. And I kept imagining myself purely as a fan of that character, which is not hard to do. I placed myself in that position of, 'Well, what would I want to know?' Would I want to be toyed with? Would I want to be lied to? Would I want to be kept on my toes guessing? Would I want to discover it when I went to the theater?"
There was one problem with his near-flawless performance, though. No Way Home was infamously plagued by multiple leaks, and according to Garfield, he had committed to the film's secrecy to such a degree that seeing those leaks upset him:
“I worked so hard to keep it secret that I was in Atlanta shooting [...] All these leaks were happening, and I was like, 'Oh, my God, guys, what the hell is going on? I'm working so hard here to stay secret, and then here's an image of me with Tobey!' And they're like, 'No, no, we're gonna keep it quiet.' 'OK, I'll keep denying it' [...] I was happy to do it, but it was a lot of work on everyone's part. It obviously gave people a big thrill in the theater, and what more do you want from a theater experience than a thrill?"
While the surprise of Garfield and Maguire's return was spoiled long before the film, it didn't lessen the impact of their roles whatsoever.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is currently in theaters.