“The legacy is huge”: the 2007 role Andrew Garfield called “an honour”
Whatever they’re feeding Andrew Garfield, they need to make it public, because despite being over 40 years old at the time of writing, the handsome chap still looks like he could be in his mid-20s.
When he played high-schooler Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man, he was almost 30, but his youthful complexion makes it easy to forget that he’s actually been on our screens for over two decades.
British teatime TV viewers will have been aware of Garfield since 2007, although they might not know it. The star landed himself a small role on Doctor Who, in the two-parter ‘Daleks in Manhattan’/’Evolution of the Daleks’, where he played Frank, a young man living in the slums of 1930s New York City, who, alongside the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and his companion Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), goes to battle with the four last survivors of the Dalek race, who are searching for a way to fuse themselves with human beings.
Doctor Who was one of Garfield’s first big TV appearances, right up there with an art documentary in which he played ‘Boy with Fruit’. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live in 2012, he looked back fondly on his time in the ‘Whoverse’ and looked forward to the next era of the long-running show.
“The history of Doctor Who and the heritage and legacy of Doctor Who is huge,” he explained. “It was an honour to be a part of that show, absolutely. And I’m so happy that everyone is now seeing Matt Smith for the incredible actor and Doctor that he is.”
Matt Smith, who appeared alongside Garfield in a trio of plays at the National Theatre in 2006, took over the role of The Doctor in 2010. He was the 11th actor to officially play Gallifrey’s favourite son, although his actual number is much higher, owing to the inception of the show being 1963.
The Doctor’s backstory with Smith became very confusing during the four years Smith helmed the show before ‘regenerating’ to Peter Capaldi’s version. He certainly has a following among Whovians of a certain age, but his era was seen as a significant downgrade from the Tennant years; you could even trace the downfall of the show back to his tenure.
Garfield is far from the only famous face to have cropped up in Doctor Who prior to hitting the big time. Daniel Kaluuya appeared in a special episode in 2009, while Carey Mulligan starred in the fan favourite episode ‘Blink’. Karen Gillan played Matt Smith’s first companion, the venerable Amy Pond, before she made a name for herself in Hollywood. Then there are all the stars who can be spotted in the show’s original run.
With the future of the show currently hanging in the balance, it’s important to remember just how important Doctor Who has been to not only the British acting scene but to culture in general. Andrew Garfield might have gone on to bigger and better things, but it’s clear he still has a place in his heart for the pokey little BBC sci-fi show that helped him get a foot in the door.
