Andrew Garfield names the one movie that makes him cry
Despite having the voice of a 13-year-old swimming champion, Andrew Garfield has established himself as one of Britain’s most in-demand actors. Born in LA to a British mother and American father, he grew up in Surrey, where he attended London’s Freemen’s School before winning a place at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of 19. Since making his screen debut in 2005’s Sugar Rush, he’s starred in such films as The Social Network, Never Let Me Go, The Amazing Spider-Man, Hacksaw Ridge, Under the Silver Lake, and Silence – the latter of which won him his first Academy Award nomination.
Garfield’s diverse career has seen him tackle some pretty harrowing subject matter. His first Scorsese film, Silence, saw him portray a Catholic missionary embarking on a perilous journey through Japan. After being betrayed, he is forced to watch as converts are tortured before his very eyes. Garfield also starred in Clint Eastwood’s Hacksaw Ridge, in which he plays Pfc. Desmond T Doss, the real-life soldier who saved 75 men at the Battle of Okinawa without firing a single bullet.
But neither of those holds a candle to the film Andrew Garfield named when asked to reveal the one movie that always makes him cry. Already slightly red in the face, he told W Magazine: “I can’t get In The Name The Father out of my head.” Discussing its emotional impact, the actor explained that Daniel Day Lewis’ performance felt like watching someone “banging their head against their brick wall over and over and over again.” The actor went on to describe the 1993 film as “compelling and upsetting and relatable and universal.”
In The Name of The Father stars Day-Lewis as Gerry Conlon, one of the four young Irishman framed by British police for the bombing of a pub in Guildford, England, in 1974 and sentenced to life in prison. It wasn’t until 1989 that it was proven that evidence in their favour had been knowingly withheld. That same year, fifteen years after their conviction, the Guildford Four had their convictions overturned.
Director Jim Sheridan tells the story with unflinching attention to detail, revealing how the British police were so fixated on finding IRA bombers that they were willing to torture their prisoners to extract confessions. In one incredibly powerful scene, a police investigator taunts Gerry by telling him: “I’m going to shoot your dad.” Day-Lewis goes on to deliver some of the finest acting of his career. It is simply dizzying stuff. No wonder Garfield weeps every time.
