Andrew Garfield Is 'Definitely Open' to Returning to the Role of Spider-Man If It 'Felt Right'

"If there was an opportunity to step back in and tell more of that story, I would have to feel very sure and certain in myself," Andrew Garfield said in an interview published Thursday

By

Dan Heching

Published on January 7, 2022 12:08 AM

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Marvel's latest Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Andrew Garfield has at long last publicly addressed his return to the role of Spider-Man.

The actor, who made a surprise appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home — in which his Peter Parker/Spider-Man from the Amazing Spider-Man movies returned for an extended cameo alongside current franchise star Tom Holland — spoke with Variety about his potential future as the infamous webslinger.

"I mean, yes, [I would be] definitely open to something if it felt right," Garfield, 38, said in an interview published Thursday.

After remaining famously tight-lipped about his return alongside fellow former Spidey Tobey Maguire, Garfield appeared in much of the film's second half, in a plot involving multiple Spider-Man universes converging on current star Holland's world.

"We were shooting for two weeks, Tobey and I, but I think we managed to achieve something that is not just showing up and going, 'Hi! Bye!' " Garfield told the publication.

Garfield last appeared as the hero in 2014, in Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man 2. While the first entry in that series, 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, was well received, the mixed reaction to the sequel caused any hopes for a third film to be scrapped.

But now, thanks to the enthusiasm surrounding his surprise return to the franchise, fans have been clamoring for more Garfield in the red and blue suit. Both Maguire and Holland have had three entries in their respective franchises, while Garfield only got two.

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"Peter [Parker] and Spider-Man, those characters are all about service, to the greater good and the many," Garfield said.

"He's a working-class boy from Queens that knows struggle and loss and is deeply empathetic. I would try to borrow Peter Parker's ethical framework in that, if there was an opportunity to step back in and tell more of that story, I would have to feel very sure and certain in myself."

The prospect of his return would indeed be exciting to Marvel fans, considering the low point in which his Spider-Man found himself at the end of Amazing Spider-Man 2 — namely, the death of Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone).

It was this plot point, in fact, that ultimately convinced Garfield to return for No Way Home.

"There was so many unanswered questions for my Peter, where we left it. I got to step back in and get some healing for him," he told Variety.

Much of that healing came from his character's opportunity to save MJ (Zendaya), the love interest of Holland's Peter Parker, as she falls in the final act of the new film.

"My Spider-Man got to save his younger brother's romantic relationship, potentially. And to heal the most traumatic moment of his own life through doing it for his younger brother," Garfield said. "Making sure that he didn't have the same fate, there's something cosmically beautiful about that. It meant getting a second chance at saving Gwen."

"I will say the image of my catching [Zendaya's] MJ — that was really beautiful and it kind of sold me on the whole thing," he added.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is currently in theaters, where earlier this week it passed 2018's Incredibles 2 to take the No. 10 spot of highest-earning movies of all time at the domestic box office.