Andrew Garfield

Andrew Garfield Bio

Andrew Russell Garfield (born 20 August 1983) is an English and American actor known for his work across superhero blockbusters, independent dramas, and Broadway theatre. His accolades include a Tony Award and a Golden Globe Award, alongside nominations for two Academy Awards and three British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA). Garfield gained international recognition with his role as Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network (2010) and later as Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man series. He has also received critical acclaim for performances in Hacksaw Ridge, Tick, Tick… Boom!, and The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022, cementing his standing as one of his generation’s most versatile leading men. His career has spanned stage and screen, with work that ranges from intimate character studies to large-scale franchise films.

Early Life and Background

Andrew Russell Garfield was born on 20 August 1983, in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Lynn Garfield, was from Essex, England, and his father, Richard Garfield, is from California. Richard’s parents were also from the United Kingdom, and the family moved from the United States to the United Kingdom when Andrew was three years old. He was raised in Epsom, Surrey.

Garfield is Jewish on his father’s side and has described himself as a Jewish artist. His paternal grandparents were from Jewish immigrant families who had moved to London from Poland, Russia, and Romania, and the family surname was originally Garfinkel. In April 2025, Garfield appeared on the British television program Who Do You Think You Are? and uncovered his Jewish roots in Kielce, Poland.

Garfield attended Priory Preparatory School in Banstead and later City of London Freemen’s School in Ashtead. He was a gymnast and a swimmer during his early years, and he originally intended to study business. At the age of 16, a friend convinced him to take theatre studies at A-level, sparking his interest in acting. He went on to train at the Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, where he studied for three years. His first job was at Starbucks, where he was moved between three separate establishments in Golders Green and Hendon.

Path to Celebrity

Garfield began taking acting classes in Guildford, Surrey, when he was nine and appeared in a youth theatre production of Bugsy Malone. He joined a small youth theatre workshop group in Epsom before studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Upon graduating in 2004, he began working primarily in stage acting, winning a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best Newcomer for his performance in Kes at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. He also played Romeo at the Royal Exchange the following year and won the Outstanding Newcomer Award at the 2006 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

Garfield made his British television debut in 2005 with the Channel 4 teen drama Sugar Rush and appeared in series three of the BBC’s Doctor Who in 2007. In October 2007, he was named one of Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch. That same year, he made his American film debut in the ensemble drama Lions for Lambs, starring alongside Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford. These early roles set the stage for his breakthrough in British television and film.

Andrew Garfield Career

Early Career (2004-2011)

Garfield’s early career was defined by stage work and a series of small but notable screen appearances. In 2007, he portrayed a notorious killer trying to rebuild his life after prison in the Channel 4 drama Boy A. The role earned him the 2008 BAFTA Award for Best Actor, establishing him as a serious dramatic talent. Critics praised the intelligence and sensitivity of his portrayal, with The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern calling his performance phenomenal.

In 2008, Garfield had a minor role in The Other Boleyn Girl and was named one of the Shooting Stars at the Berlin International Film Festival. He held supporting roles in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and the Red Riding television trilogy in 2009. In 2010, he co-starred opposite Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley in Mark Romanek’s dystopian drama Never Let Me Go, winning the 2010 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor. The same year, his supporting turn in The Social Network brought him wider recognition and several major nominations.

Breakthrough (2012-2016)

Garfield was cast as Spider-Man and Peter Parker, opposite Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, in Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), a reboot of the Spider-Man film series. The film earned a worldwide total of $752,216,557, and Garfield’s performance was generally well received. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw labelled his portrayal the definitive Spider-Man, and he went on to reprise the role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

In March 2012, Garfield made his Broadway debut as Biff Loman in the revival of Death of a Salesman, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play. In 2016, he starred in two major films: Martin Scorsese’s drama Silence and Mel Gibson’s war film Hacksaw Ridge. For Hacksaw Ridge, in which he portrayed World War II combat medic Desmond Doss, Garfield received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film earned over $175.3 million worldwide.

Notable Works and Milestones

Garfield’s signature work spans the Spider-Man franchise, the Academy Award-nominated Hacksaw Ridge, and the musical drama Tick, Tick… Boom!. His awards include a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for Angels in America and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Tick, Tick… Boom!. He has earned two Academy Award nominations and three BAFTA nominations, marking him as one of the most decorated actors of his generation.

Andrew Garfield Award Nominations

Andrew Garfield has earned nominations across film, television, and stage throughout his career. His major film nominations include the Academy Award for Best Actor for both Hacksaw Ridge (2017) and Tick, Tick… Boom! (2022), as well as BAFTA Award nominations and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for The Social Network. On television, he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Under the Banner of Heaven (2022). On stage, Garfield was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Death of a Salesman in 2012, and for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for Angels in America in 2017.

Andrew Garfield Awards Won

Garfield has won several of the most respected awards in the entertainment industry. In 2008, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his performance in Boy A. In 2010, he received the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for Never Let Me Go. His portrayal of Jonathan Larson in Tick, Tick… Boom! earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in 2022. On stage, he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Prior Walter in Angels in America in 2018.

Andrew Garfield Family

Garfield’s parents are Richard Garfield, his father, and Lynn Garfield, his mother. His parents ran a small interior-design business. His mother was also a teaching assistant at a nursery school, and his father became head coach of the Guildford City Swimming Club. Garfield has an older brother who works as a doctor in the National Health Service (NHS) at Royal Brompton Hospital. His mother, Lynn, died of pancreatic cancer while he was filming The Eyes of Tammy Faye, shortly before production began on Tick, Tick… Boom!. Garfield has spoken publicly about his grief in interviews with Anderson Cooper on CNN and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Personal Life

Garfield holds dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom, and his primary residence is in North London near Hampstead Heath. He has described himself as an agnostic pantheist while also identifying as Jewish. In 2011, he began dating his The Amazing Spider-Man co-star Emma Stone, and they were together until 2015. Since early 2025, Garfield has been in a relationship with actress Monica Barbaro. In 2011, he became the ambassador of sport for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, and in October 2023, he was a signatory on an open letter by Artists4Ceasefire calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war.