Off camera, Andrew Garfield is living between dreams

Andrew Garfield

The "tick, tick… Boom!" actor tours the new Soho.Home.Studio in New York as he talks through his career, from the stage to the silver screen

By Landon Peoples   Photographs by Emmanuel Monsalve   Video by Josh Etheridge   Creative direction by Daniel Arroyo   Styling by Roberto Johnson

Andrew Garfield’s first big paycheck came from a Doritos commercial; $2,000 for two days of work. In the advertisement, Garfield plays the air guitar on top of newspaper stands, using the chip as his pick. The British actor was fresh out of drama school and ‘ready to do anything,’ as he tells us from a couch in Soho.Home.Studio’s new New York storefront. Garfield, now a best-actor hopeful for his latest role in tick, tick… Boom!, has since paid his dues.

‘I've had a taste of the finest kind of acting cuisine,’ Garfield says, citing his first film, Lions For Lambs, in which he was directed by Robert Redford and starred alongside Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise. ‘From then, it was very, very hard to look back.’ And he’s right: Garfield then hit super-stardom when he played Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man, an iconic role that has fans speculating he’ll reprise in the upcoming No Way Home chapter later this month. He's also recently impressed audiences with his portrayal of Jim Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Garfield insists, however, he’s (still) living between dreams.

Andrew Garfield

‘The older we get, our priorities change; dreams get realised (or missed) and new dreams emerge. Right now, I’m in a very grateful, satiated place. I’ve achieved a lot of what I wanted to. It culminates with [tick, tick… Boom!]. And I’m really not sure what’s next. I don’t know what I want to do now. Maybe it’s more about ordinary life. And because I’ve worked really hard to establish myself in what I do, I think I need to work just as hard at just being – maybe having a family or, you know, kind of settling into myself in a different way.’

Andrew Garfield
Andrew Garfield
Andrew Garfield

To play Jonathan Larson, the playwright who brought us Rent (and the original musical the Lin Manuel Miranda-directed film is based on), Garfield had to tap into his triple-threat status and take up piano and singing lessons. Larson, who died at age 35, celebrated the shortness of life – and how vital it is to live fully. Garfield felt a kinship with his character, referring to Larson as a long-lost brother. He had to call upon ‘an extra version of himself’ and develop ‘a sense of total wildness, confidence, and abandon’ to convince viewers that he was fit to embody a type of chosen artist of this lifetime.

Andrew Garfield

The result is more than just being a natural at the craft that he considers ‘saved his life,’ or that his Larson is an example of an actor finding something within themselves they didn’t know existed – he’s just really that good. ‘I think some people have a misconception of what acting is, that it’s about pretending to be someone else or about being a good liar. I don’t see it that way. I see it as a real devotion to truth, actually.’

Andrew Garfield

As Garfield waltzes through Soho.Home.Studio’s new store in the Meatpacking District, which is on display in the video above, remnants of Larson’s talents peek through, as Garfield free falls onto beds and couches, dances with cocktails, and plays a melody from ‘30/90’ (a song from the film) from memory. If tick, tick… Boom! celebrates what it means to throw caution to the wind and really go for it, then its release and Garfield’s spot-on portrayal of the legendary composer couldn’t have come at a better time - as an entire generation comes to terms not with life as we know it, but life as it is.

Andrew Garfield
Andrew Garfield

‘Everything has shifted, y’know. The metabolism slows down at the end of your 30s, you start to lose relationships in your life, people start to pass away, and then suddenly, your perspective on life is that much more based in reality. You’re no longer under the illusion that this is forever. So, be here – be present, fully. And while you’re awake, be alive and bring all of yourself into the world.’

tick, tick… BOOM! is out now, worldwide, on Netflix. The Eyes of Tammy Faye is out in theatres in the US, and releasing in the UK, on 4 February, 2022.

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