You’d presume that being Spider-Man would be spectacular. The fame, the adoration, the cool suit, no wonder Doctor Octopus stole his body (well done for those who got the reference to an eight-year-old comic). Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield has confessed, though, that the role comes with its downsides.
While appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show, Garfield admitted that he struggled with the sudden fame of playing the world’s most famous superhero. “I was young. I was 25, 26–even though that’s, you know, arguably an adult,” he explained. “When I was 26, no, I was not an adult. It was just a lot to hold. I struggled to hold it all. I kind of rejected it a lot.”
“The work was fine. It was the attention that I struggled with, to be honest,” he said later in the interview. “The visibility. The being known. The not being able to walk around the street and have a relationship or have a meal with people. I found that quite intrusive and quite difficult. It was straight after the film came out. Everything just kind of flipped.”
Garfield’s comments are a powerful reminder that while most people would trade their back teeth for fame, it’s a double-edged sword. The lack of anonymity puts real pressure on people to always be “on” for the cameras and fans.