It\u2019s true enough: Foy and Garfield \u2013 cast in Faraway Tree as a pair of benevolent parents who move their family to a ramshackle countryside fixer-upper \u2013 have been through the mill lately. Foy comes to this off the back of films like H is for Hawk<\/a> (a heart-rending drama about grief), All of Us Strangers (another heart-rending drama about grief), and Women Talking (a biting drama about sexual assault). Garfield, meanwhile, has recently been seen playing a predatory college professor in the spiky After the Hunt<\/a>, and the husband of a woman with cancer in the superlative weepie We Live in Time. Even in the all-action Spider-Man: No Way Home, his remorse-addled superhero was doing a hell of a lot of crying.<\/p>\n Faraway Tree, then, was a welcome sojourn in more frivolous surroundings. Adapted and updated from the classic children\u2019s novel by Enid Blyton, the film follows the Thompson family: Polly (Foy), Tim (Garfield) and their three kids (Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Billie Gadsdon and Phoenix Laroche). Exploring the local woods, the children come across a transportive tree that\u2019s home to magical eccentrics, among them the elfen Silky, played by Nicola Coughlan, and the blustery Moonface, played by Nonso Anozie. <\/p>\n Written by Paddington 2\u2019s Simon Farnaby, it is a gentle film, filled with colour and charm. What tears it does shed are mostly happy ones. \u201cIt\u2019s a warm hug in a warm bath… consensually,\u201d laughs Garfield. \u201cSpiritually.\u201d<\/p>\n Garfield and Foy are speaking to me on a three-way video call, sat on their respective sofas. They are in breezy spirits, cracking jokes and riffing off one another\u2019s answers. It\u2019s an ease that comes from a long, settled familiarity: the pair first worked together a decade ago, on Breathe, a biopic about disability activist Robin Cavendish. (At the time, Garfield was fresh off an Oscar nomination for the war drama Hacksaw Ridge, while Foy was halfway through her reign on The Crown as a young Queen Elizabeth.) \u201cWe had such a special, important time on Breathe together that reuniting felt really right,\u201d says Garfield. \u201cThere\u2019s a level of trust and care there, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019re breezy, too, in Faraway Tree \u2013 Garfield in full-bore goofball-dad mode, Foy still good-humoured but with a teflon competence. \u201cComedy is not something that comes naturally to me,\u201d she admits. \u201cI can be silly, and take the piss out of myself, but I\u2019m not very good at delivering a punchline. I don\u2019t have any pretensions of thinking I\u2019m good at it. I mean, I felt I was quite straight in the film.\u201d <\/p>\n Garfield rushes to correct her: \u201cOh, you\u2019re very funny in it.\u201d She definitely had her moments, I agree. Foy smirks. \u201cAre they intentional, though, we ask ourselves…\u201d<\/p>\n At least Garfield has more practice when it comes to comedy: he was funny, in a schlubby, dank-smelling sort of way, in the mischievous neo-noir Under the Silver Lake, and has twice hosted Saturday Night Live. But Faraway Tree was its own new frontier. \u201cIt\u2019s the good fortune of ageing,\u201d he says, \u201cand being here longer on this planet, and weaving through opportunities of work, and not-work… You realise what you do on set is much less important than what you previously imagined it to be. Not in a kind of negative way, and actually in a very liberating way \u2013 where you go, \u2018I\u2019m gonna try this, and I\u2019m gonna try that, and we\u2019ll maybe do another take, and maybe we won\u2019t.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Both actors seem to light up when they speak of their child co-stars. \u201cThey\u2019re the least precocious children you could ever meet,\u201d says Foy. \u201cSo grounded.\u2029It\u2019s like being around animals: the baggage isn\u2019t there in the same way. They were professionals, but they were also children.\u201d Garfield looks genuinely perturbed as he considers the prospect of reuniting with the kids at the premiere. \u201cI\u2019m terrified of anyone\u2019s voice having dropped,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, they\u2019re just going to be really tall. I don\u2019t want it.\u2029I don\u2019t want any facial hair on that boy\u2019s face.\u201d<\/p>\n Shooting Faraway Tree made Foy, 41, reflect on her own child \u2013 the daughter she shares with her ex-husband, the actor Stephen Campbell Moore. Her parenting, she says, involves a \u201cmuch more shouty\u201d approach than that of her onscreen counterpart. For Garfield, 42, it was a prompt to ruminate on his own childhood. Born in California, the future Spider-Man grew up in (friendly neighbourhood) suburban Surrey. He has no children \u2013 yet. \u201cI\u2019m just in awe of the process,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd Claire\u2019s an incredibly good mother. But it\u2019s definitely all part of my education, and I\u2019m sure that will go out the window as soon as I\u2019m lucky enough to do it myself. I\u2019ll be the most shouty of all the shouting people.\u201d<\/p>\n Foy jumps in: \u201cShouting\u2019s really great and good.\u2029It gets a bad rap, but really, it\u2019s great.\u201d \u201cYou got your headline,\u201d drawls Garfield.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not quite an elephant in the room \u2013 or even an elephant lurking, muted, on a fourth Zoom screen \u2013 but sooner or later, we have to talk about Enid Blyton. Even during her lifetime, Blyton\u2019s books were criticised for their racism, classism, and sexism, problems that make modern adaptations something of a fraught proposition (though that hasn\u2019t stopped people from trying). Farnaby\u2019s script takes a knowing, dismissive approach to Blyton\u2019s bigotry, acknowledging it and, in places, revising it. <\/p>\n At one point, Bennett-Cardy\u2019s sullen teen remarks to Silky that feminism clearly hasn\u2019t made it to the Faraway Tree. \u201cI think it\u2019s responsible, what Simon and the creative team have done,\u201d says Garfield. \u201cI mean, the other option is to stay true to outdated ideas.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to speak for Enid Blyton now,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cI\u2019m sure if Enid Blyton was alive now, her great-great-grandchildren would say to her, \u2018Well, this has changed, and there\u2019s more awakedness to this not being very kind, and this being exclusionary, and this being othering, and this being not acceptable to treat other human beings in this way. And I would hope that she would be, like, \u2018Yeah. Fair enough.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n I think that there\u2019s an integrity and a community that is forged in the UK, which is really, really, really special<\/p>\n Claire Foy<\/p>\n There is, he adds, a \u201cpurity and a sweetness in the essence\u201d of Blyton\u2019s writing, despite its objectionable flaws. \u201cAnd I think what Simon\u2019s done, very elegantly, is really focus on growing and watering that essence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s more of a question for Simon Farnaby, to be honest,\u201d says Foy. \u201cBut, you know, as actors, me and Andrew have the responsibility of choosing to be part of things that we think have integrity and a moral compass. And sometimes, you\u2019re going to get that wrong. But I certainly think that The Magic Faraway Tree\u2019s heart is in the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to disagree that the film is hitting all the right notes. And its paean to the virtues of technology-free atavism feels particularly timely. \u201cI do think it\u2019s a bit of a mission statement,\u201d says Garfield, \u201cfor a more nature-based future. I feel like more parents and young people are waking up to think, \u2018Oh, something\u2019s really off here. I need to go and sit under a tree for a bit.\u2019 I think that instinct is very alive in most people, whether conscious or not. It just takes a little more work now, because we\u2019ve been captured.\u201d He starts laughing at his own phrasing. \u201cCaptured and imprisoned! Our attention has been hijacked and held to ransom.\u201d<\/p>\n Watching Garfield and Foy interact with each other, as two inimitably British actors who both broke into Hollywood at a similar time, there is a real sense of kinship \u2013 that these are peers in the richest sense of the word. \u201cI\u2019m very proud to be part of the community of actors and creators in the UK,\u201d says Foy. \u201cI think that there\u2019s an integrity and a community that is forged here, which is really, really, really special.<\/p>\n \u201cI think people think of \u2018Hollywood\u2019, in inverted commas, as a place,\u201d she continues. \u201cAnd if you\u2019re making films, you\u2019re just in a series of different places with a series of different people. And hopefully, throughout mine and Andrew\u2019s careers, we\u2019re going to keep interweaving, and spending time with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Acting, she says, is a rare profession in which people\u2019s worlds can collide repeatedly, sometimes over the course of a lifetime. \u201cYou know those groups of actors you hear of, like the Dames, who are in and out of each other\u2019s lives for years in a professional capacity? There\u2019s a love there, and a feeling of growth, watching someone go through life \u2013 not just as an actor, but also as a human being. And it\u2019s a very unique experience, I think, to have that within work.\u201d<\/p>\n Foy smiles again. Garfield smiles again. Maybe the next time their paths cross, it\u2019ll be back in more lachrymose circumstances \u2013 I reckon they\u2019d be a good fit for a modern, even sadder reboot of Marley and Me. But for now, the grass is green. The sun is out. And these two actors are basking in it.<\/p>\n \u2018The Magic Faraway Tree\u2019 is in cinemas from 27 March<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-340899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Friends](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/TMFT_01746-(1).jpeg\")
Friends reunited: Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield in \u2018The Magic Faraway Tree\u2019 (Entertainment Film)<\/p>\n![\"Country](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/251002_the_magic_far_away_tree_reel_1_grade_RECUT_no_logos_007_0013902_Claire_Andrew.jpeg\")
Country living: there\u2019s a \u2018purity and a sweetness in the essence\u2019 of Blyton\u2019s writing, says Garfield (Entertainment Film Distributors)<\/p>\n![\"Garfield](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/TMFT_00609.jpeg\")
Garfield and Foy on set: it\u2019s hard to disagree that the film is hitting all the right notes (Entertainment Film Distributors)<\/p>\n![\"Garfield](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/breathe-6.jpg\")
Garfield as Robin Cavendish with Foy as his wife Diana in \u2018Breathe\u2019 (2017) (Embankment Films)<\/p>\n