Andrew Garfield Says Lying About No Way Home Was The Right Thing To Do

Andrew Garfield says that lying about his appearance in the most recent MCU film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, was "absolutely" the right decision. No Way Home is the 27th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe following the release of Eternals in November and marked Tom Holland's third solo-outing as the iconic web-slinging hero after 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming and 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home. He was joined by returning cast members Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, and Marisa Tomei, with Doctor Strange stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Benedict Wong also featuring. Along with Garfield, the film saw multiple other actors from Sony's Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man films reprise their roles including the likes of Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, and Tobey Maguire, to name a few.

The story of the film picks up immediately after the events of the mid-credits scene from Far From Home, when Spider-Man's real identity as Peter Parker was revealed to the public by Mysterio via J. Jonah Jameson. Following this public revelation, Peter turns to the Sorcerer Supreme who helps him make his identity secret again with the use of his magic. However, the plan backfires as the spell goes completely awry, allowing villains and other characters from alternate realities to enter their universe, including Maguire and Garfield's versions of Peter Parker.

In a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, Garfield gives his thoughts on why denying his presence in Spider-Man: No Way Home was "the right thing to do." He mentions that while fans may have expected to see him in the film, there would be a "scintilla of doubt" in their minds when they walked into the theatre for the screening. He also says that the moment would still prompt enough excitement when it finally arrived regardless of audience expectations. He continues by expressing his delight in lying about the role, stating that it gave him "fun things to talk about," including the bit which involved "Photoshop." Check out his full quote below:

"Even if the majority of people were like, 'we're pretty sure this is going to happen,' I think even when you're pretty sure something is going to happen psychologically, and you want it to happen, when it comes to the moment where you're about to find out if it's going to happen or not, suddenly a weird self-preservation thing comes in where you start to live with the idea of it not happening. And then that just ups the want for the thing to happen, so there's a real kind of fun chemical thing that gets created in you. Even with the people I think were pretty sure it was going to happen, I'm sure there was a little scintilla of doubt as they were walking in to see Spider-Man: No Way Home which allowed them to release and say, 'Yes, it happened!' I think it was the absolute right thing to do. It gave me fun things to talk about and deny and talk about Photoshop, even when it was clearly me on set for Spider-Man wearing a Spider-Man [suit] (laughs). I loved that."

Like the myriad other actors who are or have been a part of the MCU, it would have been far from easy for Garfield to maintain his silence when speaking about the rumors of his appearance in No Way Home before its release in December. He had famously denied his involvement in the film when directly asked about the topic on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier last year, after a leaked photo of him wearing his Spider-Man suit on set emerged. However, Garfield's attempts to dodge the subject failed to turn heads as fans continued to speculate what seemed like an inevitable appearance in the film.

Outside his involvement in No Way Home, Garfield had a busy 2021 after appearing in Netflix's Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed feature film Tick, Tick... Boom! and the biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye alongside Jessica Chastain. His time making the rounds to promote these films with the press was always going to make it an understandably difficult task for the British-American actor. Nevertheless, at this point, it would be safe to say that Garfield handled the situations he was presented with expertly and proved his above-mentioned statement right, as Spider-Man: No Way Home more than delivered on the massively high fan expectations, even giving his Peter Parker variant plenty of moments to shine.

Next: Venom 3: Andrew Garfield Is The Perfect Spider-Man To Meet Hardy's Antihero

Source: Happy Sad Confused