Oscar-Nominated ‘Tick, Tick… BOOM!’ Star Andrew Garfield On The “Cosmic Serendipity” That Brought Jonathan Larson Into His Life
deadline.comThe last time Andrew Garfield was shortlisted for Leading Man was in 2016 for his role as true-life pacifist hero Desmond Doss in Mel Gibson’s war drama Hacksaw Ridge.
His performance in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick… BOOM! could not be more different. In this stylized, unconventional biopic, he stars as Jonathan Larson, a playwright working in musical theater who died in January 1996 on the morning of the biggest day of his life—the first preview of his Broadway hit Rent.
Many expected tick, tick… BOOM! to tell the story of that artistic and commercial triumph, but no—it tells instead of the myriad failures that Larson experienced, with dogged determination, in the run-up.Larson is one of three very American roles that the LA-born but British-raised Garfield played this year, alongside The Eyes Of Tammy Faye’s Jim Bakker and Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Spider-Man, a surprise cameo with original Spider-Man Tobey Maguire that Sony battled to keep secret during its Covid-compliant shoot.
Here, Garfield reflects on a very fortunate year and the dark times that preceded it…DEADLINE: Where were you when you heard you’d been nominated?ANDREW GARFIELD: I was in bed, of course, because it was 5am—I’m in Los Angeles.
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