A sensitive Andrew Garfield isn't afraid to talk about his range of feelings in GQ cover profile

In his new celebrity interview in GQ’s Men of the Year cover story, Andrew Garfield talks about the Celebrity Interview in response to being asked a follow-up question about the last time things weren’t going great for him… which is a personal question but not entirely off-side because that’s where the conversation was going.

Andrew was clear about wanting to keep certain things private, but also added that:

“A lot of people my age who I speak to are feeling a similar sense of a kind of falling apart, which feels right, because as a thing falls apart, the seeds of the future put back together start to get planted. Something else being born. I don’t mean to be glib, I don’t mean to be evasive, because I do like talking. I remember being a young person and wanting people I saw on magazine covers to say something real. So I feel a responsibility to that young person that is out there as well.”

This stood out to me when I read it, when he talks about wanting to “say something real” for the “young person” who might be interested in the article. Because too often, the obligation that celebrities feel when they’re doing promotion for their work is so obvious in their answers. Maybe not to the degree of Bradley Cooper, but you can tell that they’re hiding more than sharing in their choice of words, speaking out of fear of being too known, too criticised, and at risk of being too cancelled instead of actually being present in the discussion.

That is not what’s happening with Andrew Garfield in this piece. He’s fully there, fully present, while managing to protect his personal life, but still as sensitive and willing to talk about his range of feelings – from fear and anxiety and insecurity to empathy… and of course his thoughts on Sam Altman and OpenAI because that’s why we’re here, he’s promoting Artificial, which opens in limited release during the holidays and going wide in January. Plus, you know, the Oscar campaign. Andrew’s one of the contenders in the Best Supporting Actor category for a nomination.

I respect how he’s able to relate his own experience, when he was younger, to what we’re all experiencing right now, particularly with the cohort of tech bros and manchild podcasters who are ruining everything for everyone.

“When I was in my 20s, 30s, it was a time of slaying dragons and trying to plant flags and say, “This is who I am.” And then I think maybe as you enter middle age, a bunch of unresolved wounds from childhood that you kind of patched over with success just go, “Hey, we’re still here, dude.” And then it’s time to realize that there’s still a lot of work to do on maturation. I’m sorry, but to keep bringing it back to the film, I think what we’re dealing with is we’re in a very immature culture. We’re being still defined by this kind of adolescent impulse to win at all costs and that losing is weak and vulnerability is weak and that humility is actually not allowed.”

Exactly this. We are in a very immature culture that is obsessed with winning – that’s true in politics, it’s true in innovation, and it’s true in the gym. My algorithm fed me some insane sh-t the other day featuring one of those looksmaxxers telling a story about getting “mogged” while working out to the point where he left immediately, only ten minutes into his workout, a perfect example of what Andrew is referring to when he’s talking about the very immature culture. In manosphere-driven circles where the Sam Altmans and the Elon Musks have thrived, the fear of getting mogged informs so many decisions, from the length of a workout to the ethics of your data crawlers.

Andrew, having been a part of this film and assigned to play the person he has played, has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the psychology behind this class of immature people leading billionaire companies. And he candidly shares how he can relate, or could relate in the past, to this kind of toxic competitiveness. He also candidly shares how he has tried to evolve away from it, and that doing so requires consistent work and unlearning – a perspective the manosphere would be disgusted by. It’s a really good read, highly recommend if you have time.

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As you can see, he looks there the way he’s looked all year with that long hair (for a role) and the beard. In the photos though… it’s a return to a previous version of him we haven’t seen in a while. People are saying he’s styled like Patrick Bateman and I can’t imagine that was accidental considering who he’s playing and the manosphere’s obsession with American Psycho: