Amazing Spider-Man aged 17: Andrew Garfield on stage
As The Amazing Spider-Man opens, schoolboy pictures of Andrew Garfield show him making his first forays into the acting world.
Andrew Garfield in Making Echoes at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2001 Photo: THE CITY OF LONDON’S FREEMEN SCHOOL
In a borrowed costume several sizes too big, this is Garfield in a previously unpublished picture as a 17-year-old A-level student.
The shot is taken from an Edinburgh Fringe Festival production calledMaking Echoes.
Garfield might never have pursued his acting dream if he had listened to a teacher who did not consider him good enough to take a drama GCSE.
It was only when a new drama teacher, Phil Tong, joined the City of London Freemen’s School in Ashtead, Surrey, that Garfield was encouraged to go on stage as a Sixth former.
Recalling his former pupil, Mr Tong said: “I took over from somebody who I don’t think regarded him very highly, which is why he didn’t take it for GCSE.
“But he seemed to have a very natural talent and I told him he should really do this at A-level. He did some terrific work with me and we took two shows to Edinburgh.
“Every so often he comes in to talk to the pupils and he is very humble. He is a self-effacing young man and I think he will preserve his privacy as much as he can, but it won’t be easy when he’s Spider-Man.”
Garfield is also pictured here in his first role before a paying audience, a 2000 Edinburgh Fringe show called A Mother’s Song.
After leaving school, Garfield won a place at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama and went on to award-winning roles in Boy A, Never Let Me Go and The Social Network.
He plays Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man, which opens on Tuesday and is expected to be one of the summer’s biggest box office hits.
Garfield, 28, has said of his teacher: “He gave me encouragement, which is what everyone needs at some point in their life when you’re faced with the difficult decision of what to be when you grow up.”
