Welcome to my first of hopefully many blog posts, be gentle.
Throughout the listening of many podcasts we've heard of Alex and Rories favourite male actors that are so absolutely charming and just fill you with confidence that their upcoming movie is going to be great, better known as "Man Crushes": here are mine. (I don't apologise if this gets a bit creepy, but I will warn you!)
Andrew Garfield (yes he has the same name as the animated Cat lets get that out of the way now!)
I first locked eyes with him in the Social Network, a movie that I really enjoyed, his seemingly somewhat comic relief role got me laughing but I wasn't completely hooked until I saw this, his great display of acting chops in this scene just utterly sold me:
The Films
After this fantastic display I had to find out more. I ventured to Screened's wiki, looked at his back catalog and decided to dive in. I was glad to see we had history. He was in an episode of Doctor Who (A series I'm a great fan of) a while back and i'd also seen him in an obscure British TV drama called Sugar Rush. Which I'd seen a few episodes of but barely remember; expect for a faint image of Andrew Garfield in a café?
I decided to pick his award winning role in Boy A to watch first. Which was maybe a mistake starting the show with a show stopper after all but I couldn't of know what was going to hit me. I won't go into too much details because you all deserve to see it with fresh eyes. He defiantly preformed an award winning performance, not in long time has a film character connected to me and crushed me like in this film, it really reminded of why I love films so much. His performance is hard not to be empathetic towards but in a sense of how real it feels not because the character is any less than us but because how similar he is, deep down the character is a lost boy, something I think we all feel at times. There's more layers I could dig into but I want to go to sleep tonight.
After Boy A I knew he was something special and I needed more, so I checked out another highly regarded film he was in; Never Let Me Go.
I probably did myself a disservice seeing these two very differently handled films in tone and direction so close after another. I was expecting more Garfield, but at the forefront of this film was Carey Mulligan, not a bad thing per-se but she's a girl and this is a no girls allowed feature! It had less of an impact on me as Boy A had, but it was nothing to do with the Actors, they played their parts perfectly and Andrew Garfields work in Boy A glimmer's through in occasions. A large enough portion of the film has child actors playing a younger Garfield and Carey Mulligan, they are great and their childlike characteristics can be seen in older Tommy's (Garfield role) naivety more obviously his rage spouts but most importantly their mannerisms. In a nice coincident the Characters he plays in both films share very similar theme, lack of parental support and how it can affect a child. It was nice to see this link but Garfield got to completely inhabit his role in Boy A, probably considering he's the main character.
Him
Its great loving an actor because he's a brilliant actor but its even better knowing that he is a smart and nice guy. I'm only going off interviews and videos but he seems to genuinely care about the films he takes part in, have a look at this and tell me he's faking it!
Its hard to find interviews before The Social Network but here are some I like.
WARNING: NEVER LET ME GO SPOILERS
Looking into the future
Things are looking great for Garfield, he is Peter Parker and in the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man movie. And if writing this article and watching his films has taught me anything its that he is absolutely perfect for this role. Nobody can bring the kind of gravitas to an awkward, lost teenager role like Andrew Garfield, his performances in The Social Network and to a lesser extent The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus proves he can pull of the comedy that fans of Spider-Man love. Also him currently dating Screendedpup's favourite Emma Stone hopefully is a good indication of chemistry between the characters in the film. I remain very optimistic about Andrew Garfield, every movie he decides to take and my man crush grows larger everyday.
If you'd like to see more please leave a comment and give me feedback, thanks!
Question of the Blog: Who is your biggest Actor man crush and why?
