Andrew Garfield may have become a household name when he was cast as Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man, but it was David Fincher’s The Social Network that first saw him gain attention in Hollywood, with only a handful of supporting roles in low budget dramas under his belt before that point.
The gripping tale about the origins of Facebook ended up landing eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, with Aaron Sorkin scooping the prize for Best Adapted Screenplay, while Garfield found himself shortlisted at the Golden Globes in the Best Supporting Actor category.
However, the 38 year-old admitted in a new interview with Total Film magazine that he hated the movie when he saw it for the first time, with both Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg fearing that they’d ruined The Social Network by delivering poor performances.
“I’m very rarely satisfied with how something turns out. I suffer from that kind of queer, divine dissatisfaction that most creative people have. I remember watching The Social Network for the first time, and me and Jesse were like, ‘Oh, we hate this sh*t. We hate it’. Everyone around us was going, ‘What the f*ck is wrong with you? It’s incredible’. We were like, ‘No. I ruined it. They should have cast someone else’. There’s a healthy version of that, which is the growing down thing. But then sometimes it turns into an indulgence.”
That obviously wasn’t the case, with Eisenberg even landing a Best Actor nod at the Oscars, but a lot of actors aren’t happy with their performances regardless of what the critics and awards bodies think. Even a decade and change later, The Social Network still ranks as some of Garfield’s best work, so he clearly did something right.