Andrew Garfield Reveals Why Spider-Man Role Damaged Him

At the end of 2021, Marvel Studios will bring arguably its biggest blockbuster solo event in history with its team-up with Sony Pictures for Spider-Man: No Way Home. The Multiversal thrill-ride will open the door to endless possibilities for MCU storytelling with three generations of Spider-Man films all coming together in this one epic adventure.

Along with returning MCU characters like Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, MCU fans will find themselves in a blast to the past with iconic villains like Alfred Molina's Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, amongst others. This excitement is only compounded by the potential inclusion of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's web-slingers, although Marvel and Sony are avoiding that topic at all costs for now.

This is especially true for Garfield, who has made the Spidey rounds for most of the past year while doing promotional rounds and interviews for other new projects. He's also taken a look back at his time playing Peter Parker on numerous occasions, both the good parts of it and the bad.

Peter Parker Broke Garfield's Heart

Marvel

In an interview with The Guardian, former Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield revealed how his time playing the web-slinger broke his heart, as he mentioned in quotes from 2017.

"I got my heart broken a little bit."

Garfield explained how his time in the role forced him to grow up, looking back on how the experience may never have been "pure" with professional reputations and so much money at stake:

“I went from being a naive boy to growing up... How could I ever imagine that it was going to be a pure experience? There are millions of dollars at stake and that’s what guides the ship. It was a big awakening and it hurt."

The actor touched on how much the Spider-Man character meant to Marvel fans, particularly at events like San Diego Comic-Con, although he saw it becoming muddled by external forces like "test groups" that took the heart out of it.

He also commented on how the financial bottom line affected the entire endeavor, even taking his comments to the dramatic side for a moment:

“Comic-Con in San Diego is full of grown men and women still in touch with that pure thing the character meant to them. [But] you add in market forces and test groups and suddenly the focus is less on the soul of it and more on ensuring we make as much money as possible. And I found that – find that – heartbreaking in all matters of the culture. Money is the thing that has corrupted all of us and led to the terrible ecological collapse that we are all about to die under.”

Following these remarks, he let out a laugh at the way he told this story, although it did still make a mark on his psyche:

“I’m just kidding, I’m just kidding! I mean, it’ll take a bunch of years before that happens.”

The Joy Taken Out of Spider-Man

Andrew Garfield has never been one to hide his passion for playing Peter Parker and Spider-Man, which he had the opportunity to do in 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man and its 2014 sequel. However, that also came with a dark side to the role, which was mostly caused by many expectations from the studio as well as fan hopes for the movies.

These quotes seem to look at the movie industry as a whole past the Spider-Man movies, although the aspects he touches on are amplified to new levels in the superhero film genre.

Garfield had the chance to show how much he loved playing Spider-Man during his four years in the role, though he learned that this was only a small part of taking on the responsibility for a major Hollywood blockbuster. The actor still put his heart and soul into giving fans the best wall-crawler he could, but he hasn't been shy about sharing the negatives of the experience along with the positives.

While Garfield's return in Spider-Man: No Way Home is still a real possibility, it will be some time until his next round as Spider-Man is set into stone.

Spider-Man: No Way Home will make its way into theaters on December 17, 2021.