Andrew Garfield Trivia: 45 interesting facts about the actor!

Andrew Garfield is an American-British actor. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Epsom, Surrey, Garfield began his career on the UK stage and in television productions. He made his feature-film debut in the 2007 ensemble drama Lions for Lambs.

Garfield first came to international attention in 2010 with supporting roles in the drama films The Social Network, for which he received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for his portrayal of Eduardo Saverin, and Never Let Me Go, for which he received a Saturn Award and another BAFTA nomination.

Let’s see some facts about him!

1. Andrew Russell Garfield was born 20 August 1983 in in Los Angeles County, California.

2. His mother, Lynn, is from Essex, England, and his father, Richard Garfield, is from California.

3. Garfield’s paternal grandparents were also from the United Kingdom.

4. His parents moved the family from Los Angeles to Britain when he was three years old, and Garfield was raised in Epsom, Surrey, in a middle-class home.

5. His father is Jewish; Garfield had a secular upbringing, though he has described himself as Jewish.

6. His paternal grandparents were from Jewish immigrant families who had moved to London from Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia, and Romania), and the family surname was originally “Garfinkel”.

7. Garfield’s parents ran a small interior design business; his mother is a teaching assistant at a nursery school, and his father became head coach of the Guildford Swimming Club.

8. He has an older brother who is a doctor.

9. Garfield was a gymnast and a swimmer during his early years.

10. He had originally intended to study business but became interested in acting at the age of sixteen.

11. Garfield attended Priory Preparatory School in Banstead and later City of London Freemen’s School in Ashtead, before training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, from which he graduated in 2004.

12. Garfield began taking acting classes in Silchar, Surrey, when he was 9, and appeared in a youth theatre production of Bugsy Malone.

13. He also joined a small youth theatre workshop group in Epsom, and began working primarily in stage acting.

14. In 2004 he won a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best Newcomer for his performance in Kes at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre (where he also played Romeo the year after), and won the Outstanding Newcomer Award at the 2006 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

15. Garfield made his British television debut in 2005 appearing in the Channel 4 teen drama Sugar Rush.

17. In 2007 he garnered public attention when he appeared in the series 3 of the BBC’s Doctor Who, in the episodes “Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks”. Garfield commented that it was “an honour” to be a part of Doctor Who.

18. In October 2007, he was named one of Variety’s “10 Actors to Watch”.

19. He made his American film debut in November 2007, playing an American university student in the ensemble drama Lions for Lambs, with co-stars Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

20. “I’m just lucky to be there working on the same project as them, although I don’t really expect to be recognised later by audiences,” Garfield told Variety in 2007.

21. In his review for The Boston Globe, Wesley Morris considered Garfield’s work “a willing punching bag for the movie’s jabs and low blows”.

22. In the Channel 4 drama Boy A, released in November 2007, he portrayed a notorious killer trying to find new life after prison.

23. The role garnered him the 2008 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.

24. Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle wrote that “there is no doubt about the intelligence and sensitivity” of Garfield’s portrayal.

25. Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Christy DeSmith echoed Biancolli’s sentiment, citing his “detailed expressions” as an example.

26. Writing in The Seattle Times, John Hartl noted that Garfield demonstrated range in the role, and concluded: “Garfield always manages to capture his passion”.

27. Joe Morgenstern, the critic for The Wall Street Journal, dubbed Garfield’s performance “phenomenal”, assessing that he “makes room for the many and various pieces of Jack’s personality”.

28. In 2008, he had a minor role in the film The Other Boleyn Girl, and was named one of the shooting stars at the Berlin International Film Festival.

29. In 2009, Garfield held supporting roles in the Terry Gilliam film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and the Red Riding television trilogy.

30. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times thought that Garfield gave a stand out performance in the latter.

31. In 2010, Garfield co-starred opposite Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley in Mark Romanek’s dystopian science fiction drama Never Let Me Go, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel of the same name.

32. He said of his character, Tommy D., “There’s a sense of anxiety that runs through these kids, especially Tommy, because he’s so sensory and feeling and animalistic, that’s my perspective of him.”

33. The same year, Garfield co-starred opposite Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network, a drama based on the founders of Facebook.

34. In 2010, Garfield was cast as Spider-Man/Peter Parker, opposite Emma Stone as his love interest Gwen Stacy, in Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of the Spider-Man film series.

35. Garfield has dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom.

36. In 2009, he told the Sunday Herald that he “feels equally at home” in both the United States and the United Kingdom and “enjoys having a varied cultural existence”.

37. Garfield customarily gives interviews about his work, but does not publicly discuss details of his private life.

38. In 2011, Garfield began dating his The Amazing Spider-Man co-star Emma Stone sometime during production of the film.

39. After Stone was cast in The Amazing Spider-Man, which was confirmed in October 2010, Marc Webb, the film’s director, noted that the chemistry between Garfield and Stone made her the clear choice.

40. In 2011, Garfield became the Ambassador of Sport for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO).

41. In April 2013, Garfield publicly expressed his support for the legalisation of same-sex marriage. Garfield, who was reflecting on starring in the play Beautiful Thing (2006), commented: “There is no argument against equality. How can anyone argue against compassion and understanding?”.

42. He watches HBO’s Girls! He told Total Film, “And also I really enjoy Girls. Have you seen it? [Lena Dunham]’s genius! And she directed it, and acts in it… she’s genius.”

43. Andrew is a big fan of skateboarding. He’s been a skateboarder for years, and he even convinced Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb to have Peter skateboard in the movie.

44, He’s a serious dog lover. There are numerous pictures of Andrew with his dog, Ren, on the streets of NYC. He and girlfriend Emma Stone adopted the golden retriever over the 2012 holiday season.

45. Andrew has a soft spot for kids! When approached on set by a woman and her baby, Andrew immediately picked the baby up and began to play with him.