Andrew Garfield Shares Spider-Man Pointing Meme Recreation Backstory

Spider-Man: No Way Home star Andrew Garfield reveals the backstory of the Spider-Men pointing meme recreated by himself and co-stars Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire. To promote the home media release of No Way Home, Sony Pictures shared the image of “THE meme”: Peter Parker #1 (Holland), Peter #2 (Maguire), and Peter #3 (Garfield) pointing at each other. The live-action take on the classic meme inspired by the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon also happens in the movie, where a spell cast by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) brings together the trio from across the Spider-Verse. 

“It was always going to happen. I think everyone was like, ‘How do we do the meme? How do we do the meme?’” Garfield told Entertainment Tonight at the SAG Awards. “Before we shot anything, we just did a photoshoot, the three of us just pointing at each other. I think they must have got one good shot because we were all cracking up so much. We couldn’t quite contain ourselves.” 

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Recreating the meme in the movie was more of a challenge. Garfield previously explained on the Happy Sad Confused podcast how the actors and creative team figured out how to “do the pointing thing in a way that [makes sense].” 

“It took us a while. It kind of happened naturally while we’re on that scaffolding deciding, ‘Peter #1, Peter #2, Peter #3,’” Garfield recalled. But actually, I remember having a lightning bolt and then running into set and telling Jon [Watts, director]: ‘I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve got it!’”

Garfield continued, “There’s this moment where Jacob [Batalon, who plays Ned] is like, ‘Hey, Peter!’ And we all go, ‘Yeah?’ But in the script, it was like that was that. We all go ‘yeah,’ and then my Peter says, ‘This isn’t going to get old at all.’ Something kind of sardonic, which felt a little undercutting, and not quite right for the moment, because it’s cute. It’s actually kind of cute. So I remember thinking, I can say, ‘This is adorable. We’re so adorable.’”

Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing exclusively in movie theaters and will soon be available to own on digital, DVD, and 4K Blu-ray.