Actor Andrew Garfield had to keep his surprise Spider-Man role under tight wraps so he wouldn’t spoil a major movie moment for fans.
Garfield even mentioned he kept his ex-girlfriend in the dark over his big appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
He recently revealed he only mentioned the big movie role to three people in his life and had to lie to others “for a good two years.”
Andrew Garfield opens up about Spider-Man role
In the latest installment in the Spider-Man films, Tom Holland and Zendaya were back as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and MJ Watson.
The film also featured Doctor Strange from the Avengers, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, which many fans knew from the trailer.
However, fans who weren’t reading too many social media comments or spoilers about the film got a pleasant surprise when actors Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire showed up as their Spider-Man characters from other universes.
Garfield appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday and spoke about how he had to lie to people for several years.
“I lied to people for a good two years, and I lied to the internet for two years, and it felt great,” Garfield said, smiling.
Ellen asked him who knew besides his agent about his surprise role in No Way Home. Based on Garfield’s comments, only three other people knew about it.
“My dad, my brother, and my mother at the time. Yeah, just kind of us. It was fun to keep it secret because you know when you’re planning a surprise birthday party for someone, and they’re like ‘I hate surprises?'” Garfield asked Ellen.
“So it felt like I was part of organizing a surprise birthday party for a bunch of people who I knew would appreciate it,” he said.
Garfield previously mentioned that he even kept things secret from Emma Stone, who portrayed Gwen Stacy alongside him in his two Spider-Man films. While they previously dated and have remained good friends, Garfield needed to keep just about everyone in the dark to make sure they were surprised.
Garfield comments on Tick, Tick… Boom! success
For the 38-year-old Garfield, he returned to the Spider-Man suit after last appearing in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014. However, he’s appeared in many non-superhero films since that movie, several of which have received critical acclaim.
His most recent roles include former televangelist Jim Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye and American composer, lyricist, and playwright Jonathan Larson in Tick, Tick… Boom!
The latter performance won Garfield a Golden Globe earlier this year, and according to many people, he should get nominated for the 2022 Oscars as well.
Garfield joked to Ellen that when he called up Tick, Tick… Boom! director Lin-Manuel Miranda to tell him he’d won the Golden Globe, he received a quick “That’s great buddy” before Miranda started telling him about his vacation.
“Later on, like 24 hours later, I sent him a voice note kind of semi-sobbing saying, ‘If you had told me maybe three or four years ago that I would be not only in a musical directed by my musical theater hero and singing and playing piano and doing all that stuff- but that it would be seen by so many people and would be touching so many people, and then on top of that to have people giving you things saying well done for it…I would have called you a liar to your face,'” he shared.
The Academy Award nominees will be unveiled in early February. If Garfield picks up the nomination for Tick, Tick… Boom! it’ll make for his second-ever nomination, following 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge.
Andrew Garfield has yet to win an Oscar, but based on his Golden Globe win, he may be on his way to that major career achievement, with the Academy ready to surprise the Spider-Man star.