So I just saw Andrew Garfield.
Obviously I was excited about watching the interview because like it’s Andrew Garfield and I never got to go to any of the Hollywood Masters events last year but I guess I didn’t expect to be particularly moved or emotional after the experience.
For one thing I think he might be the best interviewee I’ve ever seen when it comes to answering the questions he’s asked. He’s like very self aware and conscious of what he’s saying but not in a way that makes it seem like he’s super rehearsed or holding a lot back, just like he’s very present in the conversation and engaged. He’s also clearly someone that has a lot going on in his mind at a time but he doesn’t go off on tangents and then leave a loose end, he will very naturally weave his way back to answering the question he was asked, or acknowledging that he can’t answer the question because he just doesn’t know how to.
He’s also incredibly complimentary. He had such good things to say about everyone he’s worked with and he used the word ‘loving’ to describe his directors so many times but it didn’t feel like a platitude like he had very specific examples of things the people he’s worked with have done to make him and other people on set feel at home and comfortable and valued. I don’t remember who he was talking about but he mentioned that one of his directors is very like childlike in the way they’ll offer criticism that would seem really harsh or insulting but they genuinely don’t mean to be rude or hurt your feelings and then they’ll move on seconds later so he shot a couple takes of some scene and the director wasn’t happy so he asked ‘what would you like for me to give you’ and the director was like ‘nothing that you’re giving me right now’ but it wasn’t in a mean way so then he was basically like ‘yeah I was sad but it was more because I really wanted to give him whatever he wanted and not because my feelings were hurt or I thought he thought I was a bad actor’. And he talked about mentors he’s had and people who have inspired him and he mentioned Rumi’s work and women he’s worked with and it was really interesting to me that he wasn’t just like ‘yeah I’ve worked with Martin Scorsese and Mel Gibson and all these white men that actors ALWAYS talk about are so incredible’.
It just seemed like he cares. Like he has a lot to say and a lot of feelings and he’s okay with sharing them. He talked about the kids from Stranger Things and how he worries about them being used, he talked about how everyone (including him) wants to know about what Kim K is wearing and how it’s weird but not in a ‘fuck Kim K’ way like he explicitly acknowledged that she’s a human being and the media obsession with her is weird but she’s not like dragging the world down or anything and that it’s interesting to just watch the world and be like ‘huh why do we care about these things this is weird’ without being like ‘MILLENNIALS ARE RUINING EVERYTHING!’ And how he genuinely wanted to get kind of more radical with spiderman because he recognises that there’s a lot about the character that is really transgressive and he wanted there to be more representation for kids outside a norm but because there’s a lot of money riding on movies like that, execs are hesitant and that was kind of disappointing to him.
He talked about playing a Jesuit priest and the work he did to prepare for that which was interesting because we’re a Jesuit institution and he talked about genius in the original meaning of the world and the value of figuring out what your genius is and he said it’s a generous act to figure out what it is and then share it with the world and I thought that was really interesting especially because the specific example he used was fashion and he explicitly asserted that there is value in fashion outside of like capitalist gain.
He just seemed genuinely happy to be there in a school asking questions and engaging with people and not trying to talk down at you like ‘I know everything listen to me talk about how great I am and everyone I know’. The way he spoke reminded me a lot of my philosophy professor from last year because he gesticulates and moves around in his seat quite a lot and he’s really quick to make a joke but then he’ll make a really affecting point about what it means to live a purposeful life and value your own instincts. It’s also really interesting to me that he can switch between accents so easily because of all the accent work he’s done for different roles but he still has a very English manner of speaking (saying jabs instead of shots, lots of saying ‘sorry’, talking about Sainsbury’s and northern English towns and then realising most people in the room had never heard of them).
Idk. He was just quite sweet and endearing and really encouraging (especially when he talked about how he was convinced that he wasn’t going to get a job after graduation and he felt like he was going to die) (and also when he talked about how he tries to step back and /notice/ his feelings and all so he can be a better artist because that’s basically what a lot of my blog and specific tags are for me) (also that part was also really funny because he was talking about how he got really sick with food poisoning and like bronchitis and he had just gotten a couple shots because he was about to travel and he said he felt like he was genuinely dying but he wouldn’t call an ambulance or anyone because he wanted to sit there and notice how he was feeling). I’m really glad I went.