NEED TO KNOW
Andrew Garfield made rare comments about his girlfriend Monica Barbaro’s acting abilities in a new interview
The pair costar in Artificial, an upcoming movie centered around real-life tech company OpenAI
Garfield and Barbaro have been romantically connected since February 2025, but they have largely refrained from discussing their personal lives
Andrew Garfield may not prefer to discuss his personal life in interviews, but he’s happy to share praise for his girlfriend Monica Barbaro‘s acting abilities.
“I think Monica is a supremely talented actor,” Garfield, 43, said of Barbaro, 36, in a feature story Who What Wear published on Wednesday, Sept. 9. “I think what she did as Joan Baez [in 2024’s A Complete Unknown] — what she accessed in that project — is nothing short of transformational, extraordinary and deeply mysterious.”
Barbaro, who received an Oscar nomination for portraying Baez in the Bob Dylan biopic, has been romantically linked to Garfield since February 2025, when a source told PEOPLE the actors were “spending time together quietly” after fans spotted them at a play in London.
She and Garfield have not yet discussed their relationship publicly, but they have been seen at a number of public events since, and the two costar in one of this fall’s buzziest titles: Artificial, based on real-life tech company OpenAI. Garfield portrays the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, while Barbaro portrays OpenAI’s former chief technology officer Mira Murati.
Monica Barbaro and Andrew Garfield at Wimbledon on July 4, 2026
Credit: Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty
The movie follows Altman during a period of days in November 2023 in which he was fired by OpenAI’s board, replaced by Murati and then rehired.
“I think she is truly incredible. I could wax lyrical more, but I’ll leave it there,” Garfield added to the outlet, while discussing Barbaro.
In recent years, Garfield has made clear that he is not interested in discussing his romantic life in public. “I’ll say it on the record: it’s not something I will ever talk about,” he said most recently, in an interview with Esquire U.K. published Aug. 25. “Maybe if I’m married with kids and 10 years into the relationship I might feel comfortable saying ‘my wife and my kids’. Maybe. But maybe f—ing not!”
Back in 2024, Garfield shared the same sentiment with the American version of Esquire. “I have never, and I won’t ever, speak about or confirm or deny anything about my personal life with anyone, ever,” he said at that time.
Garfield and Barbaro costar in Artificial with Ike Barinholtz, who plays Elon Musk — a cofounder of OpenAI — as well as Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Mark Rylance and Yura Borisov, the latter of whom also plays an OpenAI cofounder and former board member Ilya Sutskever.
Artificial is directed by Luca Guadagnino (After the Hunt, Challengers) and written by Simon Rich, a former Saturday Night Live writer and screenwriter who previously wrote Seth Rogen‘s 2020 movie An American Pickle.
Barbaro herself spoke to her experience working with Garfield in a piece InStyle published on Aug. 5. “I mean, he’s one of the best actors of his generation, our generation,” she told the outlet. “I just learned a lot from his approach to the material and to developing character, and I felt very fortunate to get to witness that in real time.”
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Andrew Garfield and Yura Borisov in Artificial
Credit: Courtesy of Neon
As she told the outlet, working with Garfield made Barbaro feel she needed to prove herself in their scenes together. “Oh s—, I really have to step up my game and make sure I’m a proper, legitimate scene partner,” she added of the experience.
Artificial will make its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 5. The movie will then release in limited theaters Dec. 25 and open everywhere in January. Before that, Garfield’s new movie The Uprising is in theaters Thursday, Sept. 10.
Read the original article on People