Andrew Garfield Breaks Silence on Why He Returned for Spider-Man: No Way Home

01/06/2022 09:49 pm EST

Despite spending several interviews trying to convince fans that he "hadn't gotten a call" from Marvel and Sony, Andrew Garfield finally got his chance to return as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Garfield's original tenure as the web-slinging hero was unceremoniously cut short after just two movies, as the lackluster reviews for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and success of the MCU led Sony to pursue a creative partnership with Marvel Studios. More than seven years after he last played Spider-Man, Garfield took the opportunity to try again and bring some more depth to the role he never got to finish. He's now opening up about why he made the decision to don the mask once more in No Way Home.

"I wasn't expecting to ever have a conversation again about potentially playing Peter Parker. I felt very excited to just to be a fan again," Garfield told Variety. "But I got this call from Amy Pascal and Kevin Feige and Jon Watts with this idea. It was immediately undeniable. It sounded incredibly fun, incredibly spiritual – trippy and thematically interesting. On a base level, as a Spider-Man fan, just the idea of seeing three Spider-Men in the same frame was enough."

"The pitch was really, really enticing," he continued. "They said, 'You played this character in your way and what would you want to explore if you had an opportunity? If you were dumped into this other universe and faced with this younger you and this older you, how will you respond?'"

The creative team behind No Way Home asked Garfield what he wanted for his Peter Parker's return to action, and for the actor, it was all about sharing experiences with his counterparts. Garfield started looking at the three Spider-Men as brothers, with his version falling in the middle of the family.

"We talked a lot about mentorship. We talked a lot about brotherhood and about what it is to be the older brother, younger brother and the middle brother. There's also a thing of seeing someone you love walking down a path that you've already walked down, and you know it doesn't lead the place where you ultimately meant to go," the actor explained.

"That character is isolated in his emotional experience and physical experience. But what happens when that aloneness gets blasted open, and you come to realize that you've never been alone and there are other brothers going through the exact same thing? That's a big spiritual journey to go on, man. And then we just milked out all the fun that we could possibly have."

What did you think of Garfield's Spider-Man return? Do you want to see more of his Peter Parker in the future? Let us know in the comments!

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