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Louise Thomas
Editor
Andrew Garfield has spoken out about his opinions on parenthood.
In a recent interview for Esquire, the actor revealed that playing a father in his latest movie, We Live in Time, as well as turning 40 years old last year has made him unsure about whether he would like to be a father himself.
“I’m already a tired guy. I don’t want to be a tired dad,” he told the outlet. Garfield explained that having a child should never be a decision that is taken lightly, especially when that person is a celebrity who could potentially subject their child to constant scrutiny from the press.
This isn’t the first time Garfield has opened up about being a parent. Back in 2022, he admitted in an interview with GQ that he felt pressured to have children by the time he turned 40. “All my high school friends, we’re all celebrating [turning 40] together,” he told the outlet at the time. “But it’s interesting – I always thought I would be the first to have kids and settle down, and they’re all shacked up and a couple of kids deep, for the most part.”
He added that releasing himself from the “societal obligation of procreating by the time I’m 40” has been “an interesting thing to do with myself.”
“It’s more about accepting a different path than what was kind of expected of me from birth,” Garfield continued. “Like, ‘By this time you will have done this, and you will have at least one child’ – that kind of thing. I think I have some guilt around that. And obviously it’s easier for me as a man.”
When asked whether he’d want to be like several actors who’ve had children in their seventies and eighties, such as Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, Garfield said: “I’d rather not.”
“Life seems to be a perpetual practice of letting s*** go,” the Amazing Spider-Man star continued. “Letting go of an idea of how a thing should look, or be, or feel. And that one’s a big one [to let go of], because of course I would’ve loved my mom to have met my kids, if I’m going to have kids. And she will. In spirit. She’ll be there for it. I know she’s there, for all the big ones. But, yeah. Life, life, life. Life is in charge. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens. I’m curious.”
Garfield’s mom, Lynn Garfield, died from pancreatic cancer in 2019. Since then, the Tick, Tick... Boom! actor has spoken about coping with the loss and how it feels to not have her around. In an interview with People, he explained that he would sometimes attempt to communicate with his late mother, which he usually gets in “some kind of symbolic fashion.”
However, he did clarify that he does see some positivity in the instances when he doesn’t receive a response. “Maybe this is just my kind of optimistic kind of making everything meaningful mindset, but when I don’t get a sign or a symbol, I go, ‘Oh, no she knows I’m good,” he explained.
“She knows that I don’t actually need it. I’m just being a little needy right now.’ So she’s out doing something else. She’s taking care of someone who actually is in need in spirit. That’s where my mind goes.”
