Andrew Garfield did a remarkably good job of keeping his Spider-Man: No Way Home appearance under wraps, insisting repeatedly during interviews that he was not going to be in the movie. Surprisingly, even those close to him did not know, including Emma Stone. The two starred in both The Amazing Spider-Man movies and dated off-screen.
During an episode of Happy Sad Confused, Garfield told journalist Josh Horowitz Stone frequently asked him if he was in the new Spider-Man movie. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Garfield said. “She was like, ‘Shut up. Just tell me.’ I’m like, ‘I honestly don’t know.’ I kept it going, even with her. And then she saw it. She was like, ‘You’re a jerk.’”
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Garfield starred as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and its 2014 sequel, with Stone starring as Gwen Stacy. Sony Pictures planned to make an Amazing trilogy, but the third movie was canceled. When Sony and Marvel Studios made a deal to bring the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War, Tom Holland took over the part. Garfield and Stone, who shares a daughter with husband Dave McCary, dated while making the Amazing movies together.
Elsewhere in his interview with Horowitz, Garfield explained that there was one scene in the No Way Home script that convinced him to say yes. When producer Amy Pascal first approached him about making the movie, he was told it wouldn’t be just a cameo. He was going to play an important part in Holland’s journey as Peter. Pascal also said Garfield could have input into how his Peter was used. Later, Garfield saw a few pages of the script and realized he couldn’t say no.
“The main image that they pitched me was catching Zendaya, catching MJ,” Garfield told Horowitz, notes ComicBook.com. “That was the first pages I saw and I was kind of like, ‘There’s no way of not doing this,’ because that’s profound. That’s a profound moment like an older brother saving his little brother from his same fate across the universe. If that portal hadn’t been opened up. and my Peter Parker hadn’t been there at that moment, it’s arguable that he would have had the same fate. You suddenly get into this incredible cosmic, meant-to-be destined moment where I get to heal the worst trauma in my life while simultaneously saving my little brother from having to experience that same trauma. Suddenly you’re in very mythic territory, and it’s just profoundly beautiful.”
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now in theaters. Meanwhile, Garfield can also be seen in Netflix’s Tick, Tick… Boom!, which earned Garfield a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.
