Obviously, the most important part of the movie working was the casting of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and in a surprise move, director Marc Webb called upon a little-known British actor named Andrew Garfield, who starred in the acclaimed British indie Boy A and Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, as well as co-starred in David Fincher’s Oscar-nominated The Social Network. He brings something very different to the character than Tobey Maguire, while still having all the attributes you’d expect from one of comic fans’ favorite superheroes.
After the casting of Peter Parker, Webb had to insure that Gwen Stacy lived up to Kristen Dunst’s take on Mary Jane Watson in the Sam Raimi movies, so he cast Emma Stone, who had already gained many fans from her roles in movies from Superbad to Zombieland to Easy A and last year’s Stupid, Crazy, Love.
Together, they’re quite a formidable duo on screen, and at the New York City junket for the movie, SuperHeroHype and ComingSoon.net had a chance to speak with both actors, which you can check out in the exclusive video interviews below.
We’ll start with Spider-Man himself, Andrew Garfield, who talked about what it took to convince himself he could play a character he has loved since childhood. We talked about how when Spider-Man puts on the mask he feels the confidence to become the wisecracking Spidey and the physicality of playing the role, which is very different from previous roles he’s played. He also tells us what he feels Emma Stone brings to the role of Gwen Stacy that we haven’t seen before (and we asked Emma the same about Andrew below).
Next up, we have Emma Stone. We asked her whether she felt intimidated playing a character so many people know from the comics, which comics she went back and read to figure out how to play Gwen Stacy and how she approaches a character who will probably die eventually. She also talks about how Marc was open to improvisation and rehearsing and she told us what she feels Andrew brings to the role of Peter Parker that we haven’t seen.
The Amazing Spider-Man opens nationwide on Tuesday, July 3. Look for our interviews with a few others from the cast–Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen and Denis Leary–sometime later this week. You can also watch our previous interview with director Marc Webb here.
