Andrew Garfield: "I needed to recalibrate, reassess and refill my own cup"

Garfield, 41, is back himself with a story to tell, the heartbreaking romantic drama We Live in Time. He plays Tobias, a divorcee who falls for a chef, Almut, played by Florence Pugh. “It’s a story about loss,” says Garfield, “It’s a story about the cost of loving someone and the courage to move towards a life of fullness and meaning, even if it’s a simple life, and it’s a very beautiful love story between two very simple, ordinary people. It feels like a very universal love story for everyone.”

The film comes directed by John Crowley, who previously collaborated with Garfield on Boy A, the harrowing 2007 drama that saw the actor claim a television BAFTA for his role as a troubled youngster sent to prison for a violent crime. The two projects couldn’t be more different; Boy A is stark and jarring; We Live in Time is warm and heartfelt. Ever since it received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, it’s been gaining fans in love with its frank honesty.

“I think what really attracted me about Tobias is that he doesn’t start with his emotions on his sleeve,” says Garfield. “[He] thinks that if he’s just a good boy, and he doesn’t feel too much, and if he just kind of gets on with things, keeps his head down, he will be rewarded in some way. But then [Almut] crashes into him literally, and his world explodes, his consciousness explodes, as does his heart, to the point where he’s watching her crack eggs and he’s overwhelmed by a sense of falling in love.”

Of course, true love rarely runs smoothly as We Live in Time shows. While it comes with a fractured narrative that doesn’t reveal its secrets easily, in its midst is a terrific turn from Florence Pugh, the British actress seen in everything from Dune: Part Two to Oppenheimer. “Florence is such a natural talent, such a naturally gifted actor, that you wind her up and you let her go,” says Garfield. “And I’m so lucky that she is that way, because I love nothing more than working with an actor that I can really tune into; it makes the job so much more pleasurable.”

Is We Live in Time a reaction to a dearth of romantic dramas in cinemas these days?

“I don’t know,” Garfield says, after a thoughtful pause. “I am not sure. I think maybe retrospectively, but that definitely wasn’t part of my thinking going in. But I think it makes sense that right now, there is a lack of love in cinema. There’s a lack of love in culture in lots of ways, particularly. I don’t know if it’s the same over here, but in western culture, there’s a lack of heartfelt sincerity and real connection. I think there’s a lot of division and a lot of disconnection obviously.”

He takes a breath, his mind on a roll now. “It’s much easier to find that [disconnection] and lots of anger and rage and sometimes righteous and other times not. So I do feel like maybe... because we’ve had a great success with the film in America and other territories, which was very pleasantly surprising, and I do think it probably speaks to what you’re talking about, which is a kind of universal, eternal yearning for connection, for love, for the reminder of the beauty of being alive and our interconnectedness.”

Born in Los Angeles – his father hailed from California, his mother from Essex – Garfield is that intriguing mix of American optimism and British reserve. Brought over to England when he was three, he grew up in Surrey, where he gravitated towards acting, eventually enrolling at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama. After graduating in 2004, it wasn’t long before he was gracing the stage for the National and batting Daleks in a couple of Doctor Who episodes.

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His major breakthrough came in 2007 when he starred as a disillusioned student in Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs. Since then, he’s evolved into a genuine heavyweight. But in a career that’s seen him play a Jesuit priest (Silence), Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (The Social Network) and a conscientious objector (Hacksaw Ridge), Garfield has rarely been cast in romances. Was it something he was looking for? “I wasn’t looking for anything,” he shrugs. “I was looking to sit down and look out a window. And I did. I found that for a year or so.”

The last time Garfield was on screen, it was as his iteration of Peter Parker and his superhero alter-ego in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, the highly entertaining romp that brought Garfield back to the role he played twice before, alongside other Spidey actors Tobey Maguire and current web-slinger Tom Holland. “I wasn’t against working,” he continues, “but I was definitely not in a huge rush to get back to work after Angels in America, tick, tick... BOOM!, the Spider-Man film, Under the Banner of Heaven. And losing my mother.”

Garfield’s mother Lynn died in 2019 of pancreatic cancer, back when the actor was filming evangelist biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye. It came in the midst of an intense run of work that began with his Tony-winning performance on Broadway in the 2017-18 production of Tony Kushner’s seminal AIDS drama Angels in America and continued into musical tick, tick... BOOM! and TV drama Under the Banner of Heaven, which gained Garfield an Emmy nomination for his detective investigating a murder in the Mormon community.

Is it any wonder all he wanted to do was stare out of a window? “Everything felt like it was changing, and I wanted to be present for that change,” he says. “And I think I was exhausted in a way that was energy well spent, but I definitely felt like I needed to recalibrate, reassess and refill my own cup so that I could re-engage with work in a revitalised way.”

When Garfield received the script for We Live in Time, it was enough to stir him from his period of reflection. “It came along, and it felt as easy when I read it as... 'Oh, yeah, I can imagine just stepping into the next room and sculpting this with some people.' It felt quite soothing, actually. A lovely healing kind of process.”

Did the experience give him a renewed energy for acting? “You know what? It’s funny. As soon as I got on set, my energy was renewed. I was, ‘Oh, yeah, I love this. I love this so much.’ I think the time off has given me a renewed energy for storytelling and for acting. Just waiting. Sometimes you have to just do nothing and trust that the energy will come back rather than force it. I don’t like to goose myself into anything. I feel like it’s kind of antithetical to a true creativity. And I’m lucky enough where I get to live like that. So I’m feeling much more inspired.”

Garfield recently completed work on the campus-set thriller After the Hunt, opposite Julia Roberts. It’s directed by his fellow Marrakech juror Guadagnino, the director who previously shot Timothée Chalamet to fame in Call Me by Your Name. “He’s someone who just loves to create from his own soul, and he’s not concerned with anything else,” says Garfield of the filmmaker. “He’s so prolific. So I find that very inspiring.”

While Garfield isn’t averse to the superhero universe that has so filled cinemas these past two decades, it’s clear he wants to continue seeking out auteur directors. He cites his friend Brady Corbet, whose “masterpiece” The Brutalist is a major awards contender this year. “I think ultimately, I’m looking to make things that feel very personal, but that can take on any shape or size, any medium. I’m not as concerned about the way or the how, I’m concerned about the feeling. I watched something like Brady’s work, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s the feeling.’ No matter the outcome, that’s the feeling.”

We Live in Time is now showing in UK cinemas.

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