Andrew Garfield is one of the finest actors Hollywood could ever lay its hands on. With his real-life personality incredibly similar to his The Amazing Spider-Man character Peter Parker, the actor has won the hearts of many with heartwarming acting skills and an enormously friendly personality.
But Garfield wasn’t like this right from the beginning. In fact, if anything, he didn’t quite find joy in being alive as a teenager and even wanted to be an idiot for a while as a youngster, as admitted by the Tick, Tick… Boom! actor himself.
Young Andrew Garfield Wanted To Be A ‘F***up For A While’ As A Teenager
As a youngster, Andrew Garfield had to live in a highly competitive environment, as shared by him during an interview with The Guardian:
“I was raised in a sports household. Very competitive with my older brother. My dad’s a swimming coach, I did gymnastics and swimming, rugby and cricket and football.”
This was the reason why he had his own epiphany as a teenager of wanting to be an idiot, even if it was for a while.
“I said: ‘I don’t want a big fat Russian gymnastics coach to be sitting on my back while I do the box splits at the age of nine. I wanna go be a punk with my friends and go skateboarding and listen to Rage Against the Machine and be a bit of a f***up for a minute.’ There was a natural inclination to own being a f****** idiot.”
Continuing, he shared how he was inspired to have come to this realization by Simone Biles, the young gymnast in her early 20s who withdrew from her Olympics finals for the sake of safeguarding her mental health.
“The fact that she decided to publicly honor her own fallibility may be the most inspiring move she could make. Most of us seeing that will go: ‘Oh my God! That means I can fail. I don’t always have to be ascending.’”
However, that wasn’t all: Andrew Garfield didn’t quite find joy in being alive even as a youngster.
Andrew Garfield Didn’t Find ‘Joy In Being Alive’ Even As A Youngster
Andrew Garfield had a tough time while he was still in school and he hardly found anything spectacular about being alive. Thus, to get him out of his own despair, his late mother encouraged him to join acting, which ended up becoming a great turning point in his life.
“What a dangerous, bold, loving, soulful thing to do. She knew I probably wouldn’t make any money from it, but she saw her son was having trouble and was not feeling a sense of joy about being alive.”
Continuing, he called it his mother’s ‘best-worst’ decision.
“And it turned out to be the best worst decision she ever made because now I’m talking to you about her and she’s embarrassed somewhere.”
Regardless of whatever reason she might have encouraged him to join theatres, fans are still grateful to her for it as, in doing so, she gifted the world with some of the finest big screen works ever created like Hacksaw Ridge and The Amazing Spider-Man film series: both of which were led by none other than the incredible Andrew Garfield.
