Andrew Garfield

Andrew Russell Garfield (born 20 August 1983) is an actor with dual citizenship of the United States and the United Kingdom. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Surrey, Garfield began his career on the U.K. stage and in television productions. He made his feature film debut in the 2007 ensemble drama Lions for Lambs. Garfield first came to international attention in 2010 with supporting roles in the drama films The Social Network, for which he received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, and Never Let Me Go, for which he received a Saturn Award. His performance as Spider-Man / Peter Parker in the superhero film The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), a reboot of the Spider-Man film series, was generally well received. Garfield reprised his role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was released in 2014. He has also done considerable work on stage, most notably his performance in the role of Biff in the 2012 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, co-starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. Garfield's performance earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play. Early life Andrew Russell Garfield was born in Los Angeles. His mother, Lynn (née Hillman), is from Essex, England, and his father, Richard Garfield, is from California. Garfield's paternal grandparents were also from the United Kingdom. His parents moved the family from Los Angeles to Britain when he was three years old, and Garfield was raised in Epsom, Surrey, in a middle-class home. Garfield has described himself as Jewish. His paternal grandparents were from Jewish immigrant families who had moved to London from Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia, and Romania), and the family surname was originally "Garfinkel". Garfield's parents ran a small interior design business; his mother is a teaching assistant at a nursery school, and his father became head coach of the Guildford Swimming Club. He has an older brother who is a doctor. Garfield was a gymnast and a swimmer during his early years. He had originally intended to study business, but became interested in acting at the age of sixteen. Garfield attended Priory Preparatory School in Banstead and later City of London Freemen's School in nearby Ashtead, before training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, from which he graduated in 2004. Career Garfield began taking acting classes in Guildford, Surrey, when he was twelve, and appeared in a youth theatre production of Bugsy Malone. He also joined a small youth theatre workshop group in Epsom, and began working primarily in stage acting. In 2004 he won a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best Newcomer for his performance in Kes at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre (where he also played Romeo the year after), and won the Outstanding Newcomer Award at the 2006 Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Garfield made his British television debut in 2005 appearing in the Channel 4 teen drama Sugar Rush. In 2007 he garnered public attention when he appeared in the third series of the BBC's Doctor Who, in the episodes "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks". Garfield commented that it was "an honour" to be a part of Doctor Who. In October 2007, he was named one of Variety '​s "10 Actors to Watch". He made his American film debut in November 2007, playing an American university student in the ensemble drama Lions for Lambs, with co-stars Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. "I'm just lucky to be there working on the same project as them, although I don't really expect to be recognized later by audiences," Garfield told Variety in 2007. In his review for The Boston Globe, Wesley Morris considered Garfield's work "a willing punching bag for the movie's jabs and low blows". In 2010, Garfield co-starred opposite Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network, a drama based on the founders of Facebook. On his character, Garfield remarked that "No one knows who Eduardo Saverin is, and I don't either. Of course, the fact he's a real-life human being, breathing on this Earth somewhere, creates a whole new dimension to my approach because you feel a greater sense of responsibility". Initially, the film's director, David Fincher, had met with Garfield under the auspices of him playing Mark Zuckerberg, having been referred to him by Mark Romanek. However, Fincher did not like Garfield for the part as he found Garfield's "incredible emotional access to his kind of core humanity" better tailored for the role of Saverin. Garfield's performance was very well received; he earned wider recognition and numerous nominations, including BAFTA nominations for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Rising Star, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. Mark Kermode of the BBC expressed his surprise that Garfield had been overlooked for an Academy Award nomination, opining that "everyone knows he's one of the very best things about the Social Network". Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern thought the role was portrayed with "great subtlety and rueful charm". Rolling Stone said Garfield delivered "a vulnerability that raises the emotional stakes in a movie", and proclaimed: "Keep your eyes on Garfield — he's shatteringly good, the soul of a film that might otherwise be without one." He received similar plaudits of the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, and The New Yorker. The Amazing Spider-Man In 2010, Garfield was cast as Spider-Man / Peter Parker, opposite Emma Stone as his love interest Gwen Stacy, in Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of the Spider-Man film series. Garfield saw his casting as a "massive challenge in many ways", having to make the character "authentic" and "live and breathe in a new way". Garfield described Peter as someone he can relate to and stated that the character had been an important influence on him since he was a child. For the role, Garfield studied the movements of athletes and spiders and tried to incorporate them, did yoga and pilates in order to be as flexible as possible, and drew from his life experiences as inspiration. Garfield admitted to shedding tears and trying to imagine "a better actor in the suit" upon first wearing his costume. When filming, Garfield explained that he had four months of training and described his physical roles on stunts as challenging and exhausting. Released in July 2012, The Amazing Spider-Man earned a worldwide total of $752,216,557. Garfield's performance was generally well received. The Guardian '​s Peter Bradshaw acclaimed his portrayal as the "definitive Spider-Man", Tom Charity of CNN commended his "combination of fresh-faced innocence, nervous agitation and wry humor", and Peter Travers, writing in Rolling Stone, said Garfield gave a stellar performance. Associated Press' Christy Lemire elaborated that Garfield's Spider-Man gave the film a "restless, reckless energy and a welcome sense of danger." Garfield reprised his role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). Personal life Garfield maintains dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2009, he told the Sunday Herald that he "feels equally at home" in both the United States and the United Kingdom and "enjoys having a varied cultural existence". Garfield customarily gives interviews about his work, but does not publicly discuss details of his private life. Garfield dated actress Shannon Woodward from 2008 to 2011. In July/August 2011, he began dating hisThe Amazing Spider-Man co-star Emma Stone. After Stone was cast in The Amazing Spider-Man, which was confirmed in October 2010, Marc Webb, the film's director, noted that the chemistry between Garfield and Stone made her the clear choice. That chemistry inspired their off-screen romance.