Andrew Garfield Finally Opens Up About Spider-Man: No Way Home, and He Sounds Ready to Come Back

Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire are finally allowed to talk about their experience making Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Garfield is clearly the one with the most to say. He sat down for a video interview with ET and a separate print interview with Variety, and between the two he opened up about everything from why he said yes to whether he would ever wear the suit again.

This matters to fans because Garfield has always seemed like more than just an actor who showed up for a paycheck. He is genuinely one of the fans, and hearing him talk about the role this openly is exactly what people have been waiting for since the movie came out.

Garfield Says Being Asked to Return Was "Immediately Undeniable"

Garfield explained that the offer came from Amy Pascal, Kevin Feige and Jon Watts, and he said yes almost instantly. In his words to Variety, the idea "sounded incredibly fun, incredibly spiritual, trippy and thematically interesting," and on a basic level, just the thought of three Spider-Men sharing a frame was enough to hook him.

Talking to ET, he described imagining himself as a fan watching the moment happen on screen: "I was the fans in the audience watching me on the screen for the first time... like your hair your little head just explodes." He added that getting to stand next to "my actual spider-man hero" Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland, who he called "the brilliant incredibly talented heartfelt funny good sweet perfect spider-man," made him feel like the middle brother of the trio.

Garfield's Fandom Is What Sets Him Apart, and We Think It's Why Fans Want Him Back

We keep coming back to the fact that Andrew Garfield is a true, soul-level fan of Spider-Man, the same guy who once dressed up in the suit at Comic-Con to surprise a crowd. That is a big reason so much passion surrounds him specifically. It is not common for someone to be both a die-hard fan and part of the franchise itself. We recalled watching a separate interview with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst where the host said he had read about 150 issues of Spider-Man, and Maguire admitted he had not really read the comics that closely himself. Garfield is clearly in a different camp, and you can see that on his face.

Garfield Frames the Story as a Spiritual Journey About Loneliness and Brotherhood

Garfield went deep into the thematic side of the character in both interviews. He said Spider-Man is archetypally isolated, and that isolation is something audiences around the world relate to as they figure out their own "giftedness" and "ordinariness." In No Way Home, he said, that lifelong loneliness "suddenly gets broken open" as the three Peter Parkers realize they were never actually alone, calling it a kind of "strange peter parker spider-man support group." He talked about mentorship, about being the older brother trying to protect the younger one, and about the strange experience of watching someone you love walk down a path you already walked and knowing where it leads.

We loved how heady he got about it. He is clearly a very serious actor about his craft, and breaking the character down in such an emotional, almost spiritual way tracks with everything he has done since, including his work on Tick, Tick... Boom.

Garfield Says He Snuck Into a Theater on Opening Night With Maguire

Garfield revealed he watched the movie in a theater on opening night wearing a baseball cap and a mask, and that Maguire was right there with him without anyone in the crowd knowing. He called it "a really beautiful thing to share together," and said it helped build a real brotherhood with both Maguire and Holland around an experience the three of them uniquely share.

Garfield Says He Is "Very, Very Open" to Playing Spider-Man Again

Asked directly if he would put the suit on again, Garfield said, "never say never," adding that the character is always going to be meaningful to him because it comes back to service, to Peter Parker serving humanity and the greater good. His exact words: "if there's a way for me to continue to add to the legacy of that character in a way that feels like it's of service... I'm open, of course, I'm very very open." That is about as close to a yes as he can give right now.

We are genuinely more excited for future Garfield Spider-Man than for Maguire or Holland at this point. His personality has fit Peter Parker since Amazing Spider-Man, and after seeing his evolution from Amazing Spider-Man 2 into No Way Home, we want to see more of that arc played out, especially the rage-filled backstory he referenced.

Garfield and Maguire Actually Shot Together for Two Weeks, Not on a Green Screen

Garfield confirmed to Variety that his and Maguire's scenes were not some green screen setup shot separately. "We were shooting for two weeks, Toby and I," he said. He explained the production kept a skeleton crew and bare minimum participation to protect the secret, though he admitted the secret did eventually get out anyway.

Garfield Says His Spider-Man Got to Save a Relationship and Heal His Own Trauma

Garfield described the emotional core of his arc plainly: his Spider-Man got to potentially save his younger counterpart's romantic relationship, and in doing so healed the most traumatic moment of his own life. In his words, it meant "getting a second chance at saving Gwen." We saw that coming as soon as the film set it up, but hearing him call it the biggest thing for him confirms just how central that moment was.

Garfield Shared Fun and Deeper Behind-the-Scenes Moments With Maguire and Holland

Garfield said the first time all three were in the suits together was hilarious, describing it as "just three ordinary dudes" hanging out until the fan in him kicked in and he realized they were all doing the classic Spider-Man pointing meme in costume. He mentioned comparing notes on suit logistics, joking that he has small zippers in his suit to free his hands for his phone while Holland had to use his nose because he could not access the same access point. Beyond the jokes, he said they also had deeper conversations about their individual experiences with the character.

Garfield Says Amy Pascal Had a "Revelatory" Reaction Having Produced Nine Spider-Man Films

Garfield noted that Amy Pascal has now been involved in nine Spider-Man movies, including Into the Spider-Verse, and that watching all three live-action Peters together was described as a revelatory and profound experience for her, realizing how much time and life she had given to the character.

Garfield Improvised the Line Where He Tells Maguire and Holland He Loves Them

Garfield confirmed that a moment in the film where he looks at Maguire and Holland and tells them he loves them was not scripted. "There's a line I improvise in the movie... that was just me loving them," he said. We think that moment shows how thin the line was between Garfield and the fictional Peter Parker he was playing, and it looked like it genuinely caught Holland and Maguire off guard on camera.

We Think Garfield's Personal Investment Echoes What Robert Downey Jr. Did With Iron Man

Given how strong Garfield's connection to the character is, we think it resembles what Robert Downey Jr. brought to Iron Man, reportedly rewriting some of his own lines to make the role more personal. If Garfield does return, we would expect him to keep shaping the character in that same way, and based on how Feige described the conversation starting with "where would you want to see this character," it sounds like Feige is genuinely open to that kind of collaboration.

Garfield Calls the Whole Experience a "Redemption" That Left Him Grateful and Joyful

Asked about the redemption narrative around his casting, both commercially and within the story, Garfield said he is "just really really grateful" to have tied up loose ends for his version of Peter. "It was joyful and a feeling of closure for me," he said, adding that there were unanswered questions from where his Peter was left and that stepping back in let him get some healing for that character.

Garfield Lays Out What It Would Take for Him to Return Again

Garfield said he would be "definitely open" to coming back if it felt right, and that he would try to borrow Peter Parker's own ethical framework in making that decision, describing Peter as "a working-class boy from queens that knows struggle and loss and is deeply empathetic." He said he would need to feel very sure and certain in himself before stepping back in.

We Want an Amazing Spider-Man 3 as a Prequel to No Way Home

Our own pitch after hearing all this: we think the story to tell is essentially the Amazing Spider-Man 3 that never happened, functioning as a prequel to No Way Home. That timeline took a very different course than Maguire's, since Gwen's equivalent loss did not play out the same way MJ's death did for Maguire's Peter. We would love to see that dark journey into rage and back out toward the more grounded, redeemed version of Peter we glimpse by the time he shows up in No Way Home.

Would you want a full Amazing Spider-Man 3 that finally shows Garfield's Peter's darkest chapter before he shows up in No Way Home?