The actor Andrew Garfield called “America’s dad”
Between a heartbreaking performance as Peter Parker, his acclaimed depiction of Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network, and a leading role in a Martin Scorsese epic, Andrew Garfield has firmly secured his place as one of the darlings of modern Hollywood.
Starting out acting in theatre in his youth, Garfield, like many future British stars, landed a role in Doctor Who in 2007 before making his feature film debut in the same year. Starring alongside acting giants Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise in Lion for Lambs, Garfield began to carve out his own place in Hollywood.
Since then, Garfield has taken on beloved roles in indies such as Never Let Me Go and 99 Homes, a starring blockbuster role in Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man, and even dabbled in musicals with the recent Tick, Tick… Boom. Despite acting opposite some of the greats, he’s yet to come face to face on screen with one of his own biggest heroes: Tom Hanks.
While picking out five movies that influenced his own career in an interview with Aframe, Garfield named Penny Marshall’s beloved Big, which starred Tom Hanks as a 12-year-old boy who accidentally wills himself to become “big”, inhabiting an adult’s body. The film marked the first time a woman had taken on a so-called “blockbuster”.
Speaking about the influence of the movie, and particularly of Hanks, on his career, Garfield shared how the actor defined his childhood: “Tom Hanks is a big influence on me as an actor. [He is] someone that I grew up watching from Big to Splash to Joe Versus the Volcano, and then as he started to leave the more comedic roles behind and going into Philadelphia and Cast Away and Forrest Gump.”
Garfield even dubbed him “America’s dad”. It’s not an unfounded claim – Hanks has been a mainstay in Hollywood for as long as many of us can remember and has become a familiar presence on screen. Garfield also noted, “The everyman quality that he has is just his goodness that emanates from every pore.”
Hanks certainly has often taken on roles with a quality of goodness and comfort, only enhanced by his tender approach to acting. From taking on almost every role in The Polar Express to voicing Woody in Toy Story to a recent collaboration with beloved auteur Wes Anderson, Hanks’ presence on screen has a unique Hollywood-esque yet everyman, fatherly quality to it.
With a gentle disposition, much like Hanks, Garfield looks set to follow in his footsteps.
