Andrew Garfield was famously cast as Peter Parker for 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man. The movie was a success in Sony's eyes and went on to spawn a sequel. It was around that time that the studio began to formulate all sorts of grand plans for its Spider-Man universe, but those ambitions all came to a screeching halt when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed, and the character was rebooted into the MCU with the Tom Holland version that fans know today.
So, Andrew Garfield went on with his career while the MCU Web-slinger did his thing, teaming up with the Avengers and so on and so forth. However, when it came time for the third Marvel Studios/Sony Spider-Man solo film, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and Marvel wanted to explore a team-up of their own with a Multiversal twist, thus bringing back Garfield and original cinematic Spider-Man Tobey Maguire for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The movie, which has been a runaway success by essentially every metric, sees Holland's Peter Parker in over his head before Maguire and Garfield arrive on the scene. But Garfield had some reservations about reprising the character in the first place.
Andrew Garfield Tells All About Spider-Man
While on The Graham Norton Show, The Amazing Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield talked about reprising his Peter Parker role in Spider-Man: No Way Home, even mentioning how the concept of the Marvel Studios film was "a stupid idea" at first.
Garfield started by saying that it was the "sweetest thing ever" being asked back as Spider-Man:
"It's so cool, yeah, I mean, you know, I finished playing Spider-Man, I'm far too old to be playing Spider-Man now, but they asked me back and it's the sweetest thing ever. Because I put that to bed, I'm good, I'm done, that's lovely. And Tom Holland is just the best, so I just kind of became a fan again."
Garfield continued, saying he's "gotta do it" if Tobey Maguire was also involved:
"They asked me to do it, and Tobey was doing it and I'm... if Tobey's doing it then I gotta do it.... He's my Spider-Man. I would practice his lines in the mirror when I was in drama school.
He also remarked on his newfound friendship with Tobey Maguire and the now-famous "sneaking into a No Way Home screening" story:
"We became friends and we snuck into a theater in Los Angeles on opening weekend. We were just, y'know, two middle-aged white guys in baseball hats and masks."
When Norton questioned whether he felt returning to the character was risky, Garfield admitted that he initially thought bringing back his Spider-Man was a "stupid idea" given the risk of failure and having "thirty-eight year old man in [Spider-Man] spandex:"
"It was a stupid idea... A really scary thing to attempt, especially just the costume. Thirty-eight year old man in spandex."
The Return of the Amazing Spider-Man
Andrew Garfield certainly speaks with a fondness for the role and character and was obviously honored to have the opportunity to reprise it.
The actor is, of course, a longtime Spider-Man fan, and one can clearly see his zeal in not only his two solo Spider-Man films but especially in No Way Home. Garfield's Peter's energy is unmatched in the film, as he nails each and every scene with his excited demeanor and emotional gravitas. Certainly, he was not "too old" to be playing Spider-Man as he initially feared.
Now that the Spider-Man threequel is out for all the world to see, diehard fans have been clamoring to see more of Garfield's take on Spidey, popularizing their movement with the MakeTASM3 hashtag, TASM3 meaning The Amazing Spider-Man 3, the film that was abandoned when Sony rebooted the franchise again.
Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: No Way Home swung into theaters in December 2021 and will seemingly stick around in cinemas for a while longer, as the digital home release date is set for March 22, 2022.
