- Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Network, 2009. Following his screen debut in Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs, Garfield had discussions with director David Fincher about playing Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. Fincher preferred him as Eduardo Saverin, another of the five Facebook founders.
- Robert Pattinson, Water For Elephants, 2010. You can’t win ’em all. Garfield (plus Kyle Gallner, Anthony Fitzgerald, Emile Hirsch, Channing Tatum) lost out on the young veterinary student falling into a circus during the Great Depression era – but he beat Pattinson to the new Spider-Man!
- Ryan Reynolds, Safe House, 2011. All the new guys – Garfield, Zac Efron, Jake Gylllenhaal, Tom Hardy,Garrett Hedlund, Chris Hemsworth, Taylor Kitsch, Shia LaBeouf, James McAvoy, Chris Pine, Channing Tatum, Sam Worthington – angledto be the freshman CIA babysitter rescuing Denzel Washington in theHollywood debut of Swedish director Daniel Espinosa.
- Rafe Spall, Life of Pi, 2012. Taiwan director Ang Lee saw Spider-Man, old and new, Garfield to be Writer, aka, Yann Martel, author of the book. Tobey Maguire won and shot the role, before Lee decided Tobey was too famous and asked Rafe Spall to reshoot everything. Obviously the right decision as Lee (beating Spielberg!) won his third Oscar, exclaiming: “Thank you movie god!”
- James D’Arcy, Hitchcock, 2012. Hitchcock’s back in business! With two films headlined by UK actors (Anthony Hopkins, Toby Jones) in bad impressions and fat suits. This is the second Hopkins directing Psycho. And telling Janet Leigh: “You can call me Hitch. Hold the cock.” Spider-Man’s Broadway run in Death of a Salesman made him unavailable for the role of Anthony Perkins. If Hitch didn’t look (or sound) like Hitch, same for those playing Janet Leigh and Vera Miles. young D’Arcy was an uncanny Anthony Perkins. Rivals for the role had included Garfield (rpreparing Broadway’s Death of a Salesman), Ben Barnes, Tom Felton, Ryan Merriman, Jackson Rathbone, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, – and Jack Huston, whose Uncle Danny was already in the cast.
- Ryan Reynolds, Woman in Gold, 2014. A packed agenda made him give up being Randol Schoenberg alongside an octogenarian Helen Mirren fighting for paintings stolen from her family by the Nazis. Monuments woman!
- Alden Ehrenreich, Rules Don’t Apply, 2014. Gestating since 1973, Warren Beatty’s film about Howard Hughes is also a Hollywood love story about two kids employed by the fruitcake billionaire. Alas, Beatty isnot Bertolucci or Coppola enough to mix the two tales… “I’ve always been, the word I would have to use is, amused by Howard Hughes.” Seeing Hughes’ security team guarding hisfivebungalows and seven suites at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1964, made him Think : Hey, There’s a movie here! Only took him 30 years to make, which it’s probab,ly why it’s more about him than Hughes.. even set in the year Beatty arrived in Film City, When Andrew Garfield switched to Martin Scorsese’s Silence, Ehrenreich and Justin Timberlake were up for the driver falling for Lily Collins what Beatty saw as a treatise on the mid-50s US sexual puritanism. No, really ! Beatty also said the film is Titanic – well, it certainly sank – and Hughes was the iceberg! It’s a cinemnatic Spruce Goose. It takes off but never really flies.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 7