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\n Photo: Anton Gottlob\n <\/p>\n
The first scene Andrew Garfield shot for his new movie, After the Hunt, is an explosive encounter in which his character, a Yale philosophy professor named Hank Gibson, angrily confronts a student \u2014 who has accused him of sexual assault \u2014 in front of her teacher and classmates. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, whose films are known as much for their emotional extravagance as their impish button-pushing, After the Hunt is a Me Too psychodrama that dares to grab a few third rails, and the scene features a lot of yelling and door-slamming and students tearfully cowering. Garfield was feeling the weight of taking on such a fraught character. \u201cI was very serious, just pacing around the corridors of that set,\u201d Garfield says. \u201cAnd Luca\u2019s like, \u2018Darling, are you going to be like this all the time?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The role, which sees Hank touching women creepily and flaunting his disdain for political correctness, cuts against Garfield\u2019s good-guy reputation. In person, his pleasantness comes through in gently insistent waves. He is soft-spoken and attentive and unflaggingly polite. He puts great thought into his responses to your questions, and when he\u2019s finished, he\u2019ll smile a little smile to indicate I\u2019m done talking now. May I have another? Even when he is dressed in Hollywood incognito \u2014 tinted glasses under a dark cap \u2014 his brown eyes somehow still absorb you in their benevolent depths. He says heartfelt things like, \u201cI want to know people. I want to be intimate with people, and I want people to be intimate with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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See All<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n He usually plays nice guys, too. As Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network, Garfield is a na\u00eff who gets cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars because he makes the terrible mistake of trusting his best friend. As Spider-Man, he is a boy wonder whose real superpower is how much he cares about other people. In Martin Scorsese\u2019s Silence, he is a Christian martyr with a seemingly limitless capacity for being persecuted. And in We Live in Time, he plays a father who is so supportive of his dying partner, so steadfast, so nice, that even Garfield has a few problems with him. \u201cWell, he\u2019s a bit of a pushover,\u201d Garfield admits. \u201cWhere\u2019s the guy\u2019s spine?\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re speaking at a coffee shop on a dreamy summer day in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, where he\u2019s filming another Guadagnino joint, Artificial, about the paradigm-shifting rise of Open\u200bAI. Garfield will play founder Sam Altman, whose precocious gifts could be used to obliterate humankind as we know it. Between this and his turn in After the Hunt, Garfield has started to dabble in the dark side, and he is both exhilarated and a bit nervous about it. \u201cI was intimidated by the project,\u201d he says of After the Hunt. \u201cI was intimidated by the character, which excited me. And it felt spicy. It felt very provocative as a piece.\u201d<\/p>\n \n ECKHAUS LATTA Shirt, at eckhauslatta.com. ERL Crewneck, aterl.store. THE SOCIETY ARCHIVE Pants and Belt, available upon request. The role is his finest since Saverin in The Social Network, which introduced audiences to the Garfield who has shown up in some form or another in nearly every movie since: lithe and boyish and elfin, an aspiring adult in his black blazers and dress shirts. Unlike some traditional leading men, whose sharp jawlines and cheekbones could slice through steel, Garfield has always been more fuzzy and delicate, a forerunner of the slighter male stars of contemporary Hollywood, with a long neck that makes him seem fragile, as if that pretty head might just fall off. In After the Hunt, he looks sturdier, hungrier, darkly leonine with flowing hair and a mighty beard. He acts differently, too: lordly and assertive, a rake with a Nietzschean contempt for those he perceives to be beneath him. As he says in one scene, explaining why he is so confident of his professional and personal success, \u201cOnly the thoroughbreds have a chance of winning.\u201d<\/p>\n Though careful not to conflate himself with his character, he says about Hank, \u201cI think his argument is that great things are never done in the center. They are done at the edges. And you only really become worth your salt as a human being when you go down into the depths of your own humus. It\u2019s not ascension; it\u2019s descent.\u201d It\u2019s an interesting remark from someone whose characters have often aspired to the highest of ideals: kindness, loyalty, even saintliness. They\u2019ve also rarely managed to be all that memorable. Hank Gibson feels like the crucial element that has been missing from a repertoire that has largely hit a single nice note. It suggests that perhaps it\u2019s not possible to be a viable leading man without at least a hint of the menace lurking beneath.<\/p>\n \n GAP Shirt, at gap.com. Garfield is not the only actor going against type in After the Hunt, which revolves around an ambiguous, drunken encounter between Hank and Maggie Price, played by Ayo Edebiri. Maggie says Hank violated her, Hank denies it, and caught in between is Alma Olsson, who is both Maggie\u2019s mentor and Hank\u2019s colleague and confidante. Alma is played with regal ferocity by Julia Roberts, who swears like a sailor, drinks like a fish, and stalks her classrooms like Lydia T\u00e1r, hurling insults at the coddled students who get under her skin and offend her brilliant mind with their pat ideas about social justice. Edebiri is her principal opponent, both sympathetic and frightening, a victim-cum-terrorist who weaponizes all the narrative devices of racial and sexual oppression to raze her elders\u2019 lives to the ground.<\/p>\n The movie is the first time Garfield and Guadagnino have collaborated, but they have been circling each other for a long time. \u201cHe asked me to do I Am Love,\u201d Garfield tells me, referring to Guadagnino\u2019s ravishing 2009 picture showcasing Tilda Swinton as an older woman who discovers her true self in an affair with a younger chef. Garfield was to play her son. \u201cI think he was on a layover with Tilda at Heathrow,\u201d he says. \u201cHe asked me to have a meeting with them in this departure lounge. It felt surreal and decadent and very Luca, retrospectively. I wanted to do the film, but I didn\u2019t have the time to learn Italian.\u201d<\/p>\n When I ask Guadagnino about the actor\u2019s moody brooding on set, he tells me, \u201cI love intensity, but at the same time, I want to make sure what I do comes across in a light way.\u201d He adds, \u201cI realize we must have brought Andrew to a very thoughtful place, so I dared to say, \u2018Hey, Andrew, is there something I can do to relieve your tension?\u2019 It was more about my concern that something was wrong with him.\u201d<\/p>\n \n ACNE STUDIOS Jacket, at acnestudios.com. OFFICINE G\u00c9N\u00c9RALE Shirt, at officinegenerale.com. GAP Shirt, at gap.com.\u00a0 Guadagnino is a slyly provocative filmmaker, but After the Hunt is his first proper foray into the politics of identity after a series of movies that were simultaneously bold in their declarations and limited in their scope. The title of I Am Love is in essence an argument: that who we are lies dormant within us, waiting for a sensual spark to erupt through the strata of class, smash through conventions, and emerge into the light. Call Me by Your Name captures the world-reorienting moment when we admit that we have fallen in love and that this other person, of all people on earth, has come to represent our tastes and predilections and innermost desires \u2014 it could have been called I Am You. Love triangles are a common theme: The three tennis players at the center of Challengers might have been different people altogether, the film posits, if their relationships had only been configured differently.<\/p>\n After the Hunt reckons with how the external markers of identity define us, often over our protests \u2014 how maleness and whiteness, say, can be both a source of privilege and used against a person in the zero-sum battles of the culture wars. Or, as Guadagnino tells me, \u201cI like the idea of power as a key to understand character and using character to understand the power that underlies our way of being.\u201d The locus of these tensions is Alma, who is torn between her sympathy for her fellow woman Maggie, her intellectual affinities with (and sexual attraction to) Hank, and her own towering academic ambition<\/a>, which itself is considered a defect because of her gender. But for all their bravado, all three characters stagger across the movie blindly, blown about by forces they don\u2019t quite comprehend. In such a bewildering environment, Guadagnino asks, when the sense of self is at odds with how the world perceives that self, who can say who Alma or Hank or Maggie really are?<\/p>\n Garfield is clearly aware the movie risks being perceived as anti-woke, one of a number of new entertainments, such as Ari Aster\u2019s Eddington, that are treating very recent history with a revisionist eye. It is as if a growing pocket of auteurist Hollywood, bucking against the industry\u2019s championing of identity politics, is now convinced there was something extreme and embarrassing and even inhuman about that era. One could interpret the character of Hank, a libertine with large appetites and naked desires and a free mind, as a corrective at a time when disillusioned men are seeking solace in the sculpted arms of Joe Rogan and the misogyny of Donald Trump. At the very least, After the Hunt is poised to act as a stand-in for such debates, much in the way that a Sydney Sweeney ad<\/a> became a vessel for so much cultural angst.<\/p>\n \n THE SOCIETY ARCHIVE Shirt and Pants, available upon request. CARTIER Watch, at cartier.com. JIMMY CHOO Shoes, at jimmychoo.com. Garfield and Guadagnino say they are merely exploring the truth, messy as it may be. \u201cThe pervasiveness of consensus, of mainstream thought, is that things can only be said in one way,\u201d Guadagnino says. \u201cI want to say it another way.\u201d As Garfield sees it, \u201cit\u2019s the duty of the artist, and maybe one of the duties of being a human being right now, to find the thing that we point at outside of us and say, \u2018Oh, well, that\u2019s not me\u2019 \u2014 to find where that does reside in ourselves.\u201d The point of the movie, in other words, is not to claim that men like Hank have been unfairly canceled, even if it entertains that possibility; rather, it is to reflect the ugly impulses and hidden motivations within everyone.<\/p>\n Indulging in the seedier aspects of human nature required a lot of trust among the principals. \u201cI saw in Andrew a real rigor about being malleable, a determination to go wherever he needed to go,\u201d Edebiri tells me. \u201cI was quite moved by it, and it gave me the green light to go there, too.\u201d At one point, Edebiri says, Roberts joked that Guadagnino had assembled all of these incredibly charismatic, funny people to \u201cbe quite vicious to each other\u201d and \u201cdo a lot of deep staring.\u201d In an email, Roberts writes, \u201cThere is a lot of darkness to the story that we took on together and then just put away at the end of the day. All of us did that very similarly.\u201d In one particularly difficult scene, Alma and Hank confront each other in Alma\u2019s spare apartment. Garfield here is at his most dangerous and louche, waking from a nap on Alma\u2019s bed like some feral beast who has been in hibernation \u2014 pantless, his wiry chest hair peeping out from a shirt whose two halves are barely clasped together by a single button. The subsequent t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate brings Alma and Hank\u2019s latent feelings to the surface, a push-pull of revulsion and attraction, aggression and submission, that showcases Hank\u2019s wants in all their unbridled vehemence. The scene was done in one take. \u201cIt was astonishing, actually,\u201d Roberts says. \u201cPure Luca.\u201d Guadagnino says nearly the entire movie was done in one take. \u201cWhy do you need to do more?\u201d he asks. \u201cI\u2019m still trying to understand why filmmakers I admire do more takes than are needed when they have such great actors. I\u2019m of the Robert Altman school. Very swift.\u201d<\/p>\n For Garfield, the abrupt end to the shooting of that scene came as a relief. \u201cIt\u2019s a horrible thing,\u201d he says, \u201ceven if it\u2019s all make-believe.\u201d<\/p>\n \n BALENCIAGA Shirt, Pants, and Belt, at balenciaga.com.\u00a0 We leave the coffee shop and head toward Golden Gate Park, Garfield musing about the quirks of playing Sam Altman. (\u201cI keep saying \u2018like\u2019 a lot. I wonder if that\u2019s because of Sam \u2014 he says \u2018like\u2019 a lot.\u201d) The Haight\u2019s colorfully bedecked stores and restaurants are surrounded by tourists and the unhoused, like some fantasy neighborhood of gingerbread houses crossed with the fentanyl crisis. Garfield is attracting smiles and surreptitious glances and calls of \u201cAndrew, love your work!\u201d and he handles the attention, which I can attest is pretty overbearing even for a bystander, with grace and aplomb.<\/p>\n That has not always been the case. There was a time when he\u2019d hold a piece of paper with a list of charities to his face when the paparazzi were around, a quixotic attempt to remain a normal person and convince Americans there are more important things in life than celebrity. There was a time, too, when he bared his heart to the press. In an interview with this magazine ten years ago, fresh off playing Spider-Man, you can practically see him writhing as the talons of fame sink into him. \u201cI\u2019m still fucked up in my own ways, and insecure, and scared, and don\u2019t really know who I am,\u201d he said back then, an honest admission that earned him tabloid headlines like \u201cAndrew Garfield Snaps in Interview.\u201d He has learned how to take control of his story, declining to divulge any details about his relationship with Monica Barbaro<\/a> (who also stars in Artificial). He seems at peace, actually, even if he has a habit of casing his surroundings for overeager fans like a spy watching for an enemy agent on his tail.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m happy because it feels that I\u2019m on the edge of something,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t know what edge I\u2019m on yet, but it\u2019s definitely an edge.\u201d It\u2019s a strange thing to say about a man who is 42 years old, but, like actors before him who have left their boyish personas behind as they transition to more serious work, Garfield seems like he has grown up. His earlier roles frequently involved an innocent awakening to the world\u2019s horrors, whether it was Saverin realizing he has been outplayed by rivals who are more ruthless and cunning, or We Live in Time\u2019s Tobias understanding that we do in fact all die. It is only in Spider-Man that the process of maturation is treated as ennobling and fun. With his determination to push himself into uncomfortable places, it\u2019s as if Garfield is acknowledging that being a man is about much more than losing the boy inside us \u2014 that it\u2019s about managing the sometimes voracious needs that materialize alongside empowerment.<\/p>\n \n MIU MIU Jacket, Pants, and Shoes, at miumiu.com. Not to mention ambitions. Altman exerts a ghostly presence over our conversation, just as the shadow of his company and its brethren darkens the Northern California landscape. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to do this interview because I\u2019m getting ramped up to start playing Sam,\u201d Garfield says, \u201cand it\u2019s important for me to make it as truthful and as absurd as possible. I get taken over by the grip of creative responsibility when I start a project, so it\u2019s hard to split my focus.\u201d At one point, he breaks off a thought and starts staring at his wrists. \u201cSam does this weird thing with his hands when he talks. It\u2019s like, palms up, but it\u2019s a limp-wristed palms up, so I\u2019m just thinking about that.\u201d For research, he is reading Karen Hao\u2019s Empire of AI and watching a lot of podcasts. He is leery of AI \u2014 \u201ccurious but horrified\u201d \u2014 and the implicit assertion that everyone has to \u201cget on this steamroller or be flattened.\u201d<\/p>\n When I ask him if he is worried AI will take over the acting business, producing a more handsome version of Andrew Garfield who speaks with Andrew Garfield\u2019s voice and replicates his mannerisms, he says his main concern is losing the real-world joys of his work. \u201cJust the pure pleasure of getting together with a band of idiots and trying to make something that we all inject our souls into,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like, what is it \u2014 what does dialectical mean?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen two things oppose each other and they synthesize,\u201d I reply.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. It felt like one of the most beautiful dialectical experiences. And it\u2019s there for us all the time. You and I having this conversation,\u201d he says. He describes a lunch where he and his friends were arguing about some subject, only for one member of the party to spoil it by getting the answer from ChatGPT. Another of his friends, crestfallen, said, \u201cOh, it\u2019s the end of discussion. It\u2019s the end of debate. It\u2019s the end of discovery for human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe debate is the point, right?\u201d I say. \u201cThe answer is not the point \u2014 the point is to try to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExactly,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n MAGLIANO Jacket, at magliano.website. GAP Shirt, at gap.com. HERM\u00c8S Bag, at hermes.com. GABRIELA HEARST Shoes, at gabrielahearst.com. Production Credits<\/p>\n Photography by Styling by Digital Tech: Photo Assistant: Styling Assistants: Grooming: Tailor: Production: The Cut, Editor-in-Chief The Cut, Photo Director The Cut, Deputy Culture Editor The Cut, Photo Editor The Cut, Fashion Market Editor Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now<\/a>
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\n Photo: Anton Gottlob\n <\/p>\n
\n Anton Gottlob<\/p>\n
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