After his fantastic turn inDavid Fincher’sThe Social Network, actorAndrew Garfieldspent the next few years—on the big screen at least—playing Spider-Man in Sony’sAmazing Spider-Manfilms. He spent some time on the New York stage in between, but we didn’t really get to see more of Garfield’s dramatic chops in the interim, which is why a film like99 Homesis so refreshing. FilmmakerRamin Bahrani’s dramatic thriller takes on the housing crisis as Garfield plays a man who loses his home, then ends up working for the man who served his eviction notice. He does some truly stellar work oppositeMichael Shannon, and the good news is this is only the tip of the iceberg as far as more “dramatic Andrew Garfield” is concerned.
The actor is currently getting ready to begin production onHacksaw Ridge, a World War II-set drama that will serve asMel Gibson’s first directorial effort since 2006’sApocalypto. When speaking with Garfield at the press day for99 Homes, Steve asked the actor about preparing to work with Gibson and the experience of working withMartin ScorseseonSilence:
“I think [Mel Gibson’s] an amazing filmmaker, and a really good man actually. And the story is just incredible. I’m really nervous about it, I’m gonna go and shoot it in about three weeks—I should be working on it right now in fact. I should be practicing and playing and figuring out who the hell this guy is.
It’s [about] this beautiful guy Desmond Doss. It’s a true story about a conscientious objector—he wasn’t really an objector he was a conscientious cooperator that wanted to serve in World War II but didn’t want to touch a gun, didn’t want to bear arms. He wanted to serve as a medic without touching a gun and the army tried to kind of kick him out and discharge him with a Section 8, a mental health discharge, and he fights it, and fights it, and fights it, and goes against the odds and ends up just performing miracles on the battlefield, really. It’s this amazing story of a healer, basically. This healer that was in touch with something divine, some spirit. It’s a beautiful story.”
WhileHacksaw Ridgestarts filming in a couple of weeks, Garfield most recently wrapped the lead role in Martin Scorsese’s long-developing passion projectSilence, in which he plays a 17th century Jesuit priest on a mission trip to Japan. That film is slated for release sometime in 2016 and also starsAdam Driver,Liam Neeson, andIssei Ogata.
