Andrew Garfield Loves Board Games So Much He’ll Play With Strangers
It turns out that a “friendly neighborhood Spider-man,” Andrew Garfield, is particularly neighborly when it comes to board games. The actor, best known for playing comic book hero Spider-Man, recently gave an interview detailing his 10 essential items, including two popular board games.
Garfield then told a funny story about surprising a stranger with an impromptu game.
Andrew Garfield at the Golden Globes
Bursting onto the scene in 2010, Garfield played Tommy in Never Let Me Go and Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network. That same year, he was also cast as everyone’s favorite web-slinger in The Amazing Spider-Man, which premiered in 2012. Garfield followed up with the sequel in 2014.
Since then, Garfield has largely avoided movies that cast him as super humans. (One notable exception is Garfield’s reprisal of his Spider–Man role in Spider-Man: No Way Home), opting, instead, for more grounded roles that show the most profound aspects of humanity.
In 2016, Garfield starred as World War II American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss in Hacksaw Ridge, earning his first Oscar nomination. His second nomination came in 2021 with his portrayal of Jonathan Larson in tick, tick… BOOM!
Most recently, Garfield plays Detective Jeb Pyre in the true crime series Under the Banner of Heaven, which earned Garfield his fourth Golden Globe nomination (he won in 2022 for tick, tick… BOOM!) and his first Emmy nomination.
Andrew Garfield once played Bananagrams with a stranger
The actor’s status as one of Hollywood’s favorite leading men doesn’t mean Garfield isn’t down to play a round of Bananagrams with a stranger.
In a recent interview with GQ, “10 Things Andrew Garfield Can’t Live Without”, the actor lists board games among his most treasured items. In the interview, Garfield holds up the popular game Code Names and the trademark yellow bag of tiles, Bananagrams. While the actor notes that Bananagrams can be played alone, Garfield says he’s also played with a stranger.
“Usually on a flight, I keep to myself,” Garfield says. “But, on this trip, I think I micro-dosed. I did a little bit of mushrooms. And it took away a kind of layer of self-consciousness or shyness.”
Garfield details how he began to play a solitary game of Bananagrams on his seatback tray table before asking the woman sitting next to him if she wanted to play. “We had this really wonderful, long game of Bananagrams,” the actor recalls.
“Cut to… we’re married, and [she’s] the mother of my children,” Garfield jokes. “No, that’s not true. But it was a really, really nice flight. We had a really good time together. Little did she know, I was on hallucinogens.”
Andrew Garfield: upcoming movies
Up next, Garfield is set to continue his work in tv with another mini-series, Hot Air. The series will see The Eyes of Tammy Faye actor portray Richard Branson, a British billionaire (and commercial astronaut) who founded the Virgin Group (of Virgin Records and Virgin Atlantic airlines (just two of the 400 companies Virgin now controls) in the ’70s.
According to Deadline, the project will be a six-part series based on the book Dirty Tricks by Martyn Gregory. Deadpool 2’s David Leitch will direct. While Garfield is currently the only star attached to the project, an educated guess concludes that the series will likely boast more names in the future.
