The movie Andrew Garfield was “jealous” not to be a part of
Every actor is bound to have those one or two projects that slip through the cracks. While it’s never easy to immerse oneself in a role for months at a time, the idea of any challenge or daunting task should be seen as a way for an actor to improve their craft alongside their castmates. Although Andrew Garfield has been known to take on brilliant roles since the beginning of his career, he remembered feeling disappointed that he missed out on one heroic opportunity.
Throughout his career, though, Garfield has never been afraid to take the non-traditional route in terms of acting. Although he may have broken onto the scene when working on the David Fincher masterstroke The Social Network, the next few years would see him become one of the go-to actors of his generation when cast as Spider-Man.
Picking up from the Tobey Maguire era of the titular wallcrawler, Garfield had the chance to play the role he idolised as a kid, playing the wisecracking counterpart to what the original Raimi films had to offer. Although fans were thrilled to see one of the best superheroes in the world back on the big screen, things began to stall when working on the sequel.
After some divisive responses to The Amazing Spiderman, its sequel would become one of the strangest detours in the character’s onscreen history. Featuring a host of different villains shuffling in and out of the movie, the film culminated with one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the franchise: the death of Gwen Stacy. While Garfield had every intention of coming back for a third instalment, Sony Pictures pulled the plug before he got in front of the camera.
On the other hand, Marvel was progressing by leaps and bounds with the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from Disney. Since Sony still owned the Spider-Man character, Garfield never had the opportunity to stand alongside any other heroes from the time, only being relegated to his two films.
When talking about the different steps of his career, Garfield would go on to say that he was disappointed in not being able to contribute anything to The Avengers, telling Vulture, “Joss Whedon is a genius, and it’s an incredible cast. I was very, very jealous, and I wanted to jump on the screen and play with them. It killed me that I wasn’t in it, but I understand why, and I’m not insulted”.
By the time future Marvel projects like Infinity War came up, though, Garfield was already reinventing himself as one of the best dramatic actors of his generation, working with Martin Scorsese in Silence and playing the harrowing role of Desmond Doss in the war drama Hacksaw Ridge.
Even though The Avengers was out of reach, Garfield did get a chance to don the red-and-blue suit again, acting opposite Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire’s version of the characters in the film Spiderman: No Way Home. As much it might have stung that he couldn’t contribute to the beginning of the MCU, Garfield’s powerhouse return as Spiderman reminded audiences of what made him so endearing as Peter Parker in the first place.
