Andrew Garfield Describes His Time As Spider-Man As Both Beautiful And Disenchanting

Now that Andrew Garfield is Spider-Man… no more, the 32-year-old British actor can reflect upon that time period — the good, the bad and even the ugly. “There were beautiful things about it and also privileged things about it which I struggled with and then some really disenchanting things that happened,” Garfield recalled to The Independent while promoting 99 Homes.

The fame that came with playing Spider-Man took a toll on Garfield’s well-being. Pressure was being placed upon him to act a certain way so that he could increase his celebrity status, and at times he felt himself separating from the real world when believing his own hype. “I feel lucky that I now have that awareness that something is damaging and can separate me from just being in the world, and I really want to be in the world even though it’s painful,” he eloquently explained. “I’d much rather be in the world than in some ivory tower somewhere.” Cheers to that!

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man/Peter Parker will debut in Captain America: Civil War, arriving in theaters May 6, 2016. He’ll then star in Jon Watts’ solo Spider-Man movie, to be released on July 28, 2017.