A tour de force actor capable of portraying both the zany and the conventional. An inventive performer with impeccable grace and gravitas in any scene they’re in –an artist sporting a pure soul with a passion for love. There are only two people in the world that fit the bill, and they’re both named Andrew. Today, I’m taking a break from professing my love for Andrew Scott, and instead, I’m penning a love letter to the one and only Andrew Garfield.
I love you. I’m so sorry; I had to get it out of the way, I couldn’t play it cool. I fold immediately under any pressure. I’ll try to remain more composed for the rest of this article. Anyways, I loved you before any of these fakers (Burnt X’s beloved readers) ever did. I watched the 2017 Hollywood Reporter Roundtable Interview during the pandemic, and I fell in love with Andrew Russell Garfield. The real Andrew Garfield fans and I had to pull the bandwagon over to let the dilatory lot on after they saw you in Spider-Man: No Way Home and discovered what we (stans) already knew, that Andrew Garfield is a shot of espresso bathed in sunlight.
If you were to cut Andrew Garfield’s chest open, you would find the biggest heart in the world. Seriously, have you heard this guy talk about anything at all, ever? Every time he opens his mouth, floating stars and hearts begin to swirl around him as he generously gives a piece of his infinite heart to this cold and dark rock. Whether it is examining his romantic relationships or speaking about the relationship between him and his mother, he serves as a shining example of fulfilled and unconditional love. Speaking about a bully who picked on him when he was a child, Garfield explains to Stephen Colbert (linked below) that he used to defend the bully, believing “hurt people, hurt people”. He learned to love others unconditionally from his mother, much to the chagrin of the bully. His love for others is also found in the unconfirmed fan theory that Garfield built a handmade chair for his former partner, Emma Stone. The dual-citizen actor continually proves he is as loving as he is talented.
Every character with the gift of being imbued by this talent has their truth expressed beautifully with a vulnerability to all of the senses. Whether it’s playing a Jesuit priest in Martin Scorsese’s religious epic or losing himself Under the Silver Lake, this cat cannot miss. Then, of course, his performance as Eduardo Saverin back in 2010 thrust him into the spotlight, serving as the audience’s anchor to Eisenberg’s arrogant and cold Mark Zuckerburg and Justin Timberlake’s narcissistic, eccentric portrayal of Sean Parker. Proving himself to be a talent capable of keeping up with director David Fincher’s exhausting number of takes and finding the rhythm of infamous screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s sped-up script, he then went to bigger and New York-ier skies.
His next big role was as Peter Parker in Sony’s reboot of Spider-Man in 2012. In a role that he was cut from too soon, Andrew’s Peter Parker finds himself haunted by his relationship with his father and grounded by his love for Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy. While their love on-screen was also real off-screen (as is the case for all three live-screen depictions of Spider-Man and their love interests), TASM’s love story remains the best part of his portrayal. While the two films rank lower with critics than other takes on the web-slinger, I maintain that Garfield’s nuanced performance allows the audience to more deeply connect with the character as compared to Tobey Maguire’s campy 2000’s films and Tom Holland’s contemporary take, which is constantly drowned out by other characters in the MCU franchise. And who can disagree with his ideological take on the character: “What I believe about Spider-Man is that he does stand for everybody: Black, white, Chinese, Malaysian, gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. He will put himself in harm’s way for anyone. He is colourblind. He’s blind to sexual orientation, and that is what he has always represented to me. He represents the everyman, but he represents the underdog and those marginalised who come up against great prejudice which I, as a middle-class straight, white man, don’t really understand so much.”
Recently, Andrew Garfield held a nomination for an Oscar for his role in tick, tick… BOOM!. Training with a vocal coach for over a year, Garfield was snubbed when the Academy did not recognize his powerful and complex capture of playwright Jonathan Larson. However, I can assure you, he is a future Oscar winner, having already won a Tony, BAFTA, Golden Globe award, and previously been nominated for the Oscar in 2017.
A laugh-filled with innocence and intelligence. A smile too big for his face. A voice so full of passion, it could make this entire article sound good. But, at the end of the day, perhaps there is nothing more alluring than Andrew Garfield’s spirit. The comfort and trust one can feel when watching him in interviews or on the big screen– it’s a feeling. You can feel his flaws, his restricting idealistic tendencies, and his overanalysis of the little things. You can feel his pain, his joy, and his truth, but you know it’s only a fraction of the whole picture. When you hear his voice come through the IMAX speakers for your fourth viewing of Spider-Man: No Way Home, you know what to expect, but you can’t prepare for the palpable passion he has for his art form. He can express anything he feels, and he frees those listening with the truth. Nothing sums up the loveliness of the “agnostic pantheist” more than Stephen Colbert going in for a second kiss with him.
Thus concludes my love letter both to and about the singular Andrew Garfield. May he serve as a beacon of light and truth during these trying times. Moreover, note that Andrew Garfield’s personality type is INFP, as according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test, and guess who also happens to be an INFP… me. I. I..saac. Author Isaac Hermosillo. So, scientifically speaking, if you now love Andrew Garfield or were already loving him before reading this, you are now welcome to love a shorter, fully-American INFP, should you be prone to any impulses that arise in you at any time.
Featured Image By Francessca Conde