Andrew Garfield: Young "Lion"

In the very relevant new drama film Lions for Lambs, cute 24-year-old Brit actor Andrew Garfield plays a bright, promising American student who is just at college to party with his frat. Seeing that he's wasting his amazing potential, his professor, played by the iconic Robert Redford, tries to turn him around. This is a film about getting involved in your own life and the world around you, taking a stand and, when we met with Andrew recently off Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, he told us that the movie was a wake-up call for him and should be for all of us.

Here's the info on Andrew; lots of curly brown/blonde hair, big brown eyes and that killer Brit accent. For our interview, he was casual in jeans and blue, long-sleeved shirt topped by a sweater. The guy looks so much like Harry Potter's Emma Watson that he could be her older brother!

TeenHollywood: Okay, you are a Brit playing an American college student. How did they pick you for this movie? [he's very good BTW]

Andrew: I was the last person to be cast I think. Bob [Redford] is like crazy. I was like 'why are you even considering me?' I had read the script and thought 'this is so of our times'. I was really inspired by it. It quite honestly and directly, reflects how a lot of our society is behaving at the moment. It made me feel guilty and it made me feel just ashamed of my lack of action, my lack of responsibility for things outside my very immediate circle. I thought, 'if I can be involved in this in any way, I'd love to'. I thought it was a wonderful story.

TeenHollywood: What was the audition process like for you then?

Andrew: [The Casting Director] had seen me in a screen test I did for another film that she was doing and I think she had to talk Bob into seeing me because this is the quintessentially American role. I think, when he found out that I was born in Los Angeles and that my father is American, that made a bit of a difference. I had about four or five auditions and he took his time. It was scary. I felt like I was on a precipice. Either I can fly here or just fall onto rocks! This was my first movie. People like a safe bet and I wasn't a safe bet and I think he took a really brave risk. I'm so thankful for it.

TeenHollywood: Your character is a slacker in school. Were you?

Andrew: Yeah, academically, I was. I was more interested in things I considered more important. I questioned everything and I was very neurotic and I reflected a lot which turned into very negative thinking but I do appreciate that's it's given me a kind of questioning nature. In terms of academia, I needed to be kicked.

TeenHollywood: But you ended up being an actor.

Andrew: Well, once acting was suggested to me... I had a very inspiring teacher, like Bob's character in the film is; a drama teacher and that's the difference between me and [my character] Todd. My drama teacher said to me, 'maybe you can do this for a living' and I suddenly felt I had a purpose.

TeenHollywood: You went to school in England so did you have to study up on American frat boys?

Andrew: All I knew about fraternity life was what I had seen in movies, the cliches, so, I made sure I got my education. I went to SAE [Sigma Alpha Epsilon] at USC and got terrified, kind of repelled and kind of excited at the same time. The social hierarchy there is disgusting. I don't know why people would put themselves through that again. It's like high school only bigger and a bit more aggressive. They're really nice actually. There were a couple of people crushing beer cans on their heads shouting 'frats!' at inopportune moments. It was kind of wonderful and weird.

TeenHollywood: So was it hard to play this frat guy?

Andrew: I think certain people succeed in those situations and certain people have a real confidence, a real self-assuredness, almost arrogance which enables them be top dog and feel like they deserve it. I never really had that. I never believed in that. I was far too sensitive for my own good. So, that was interesting, trying to get in that space. I've got friends like that and it was nice to access that confidence. I haven't had a chance to access my confidence since I've started acting because, physically, I get cast as sort of the vulnerable, skinny, young-looking man. Again, I was like 'really? They want me to play the president of a fraternity? Definitely. Let's see if I can do it'.

TeenHollywood: Any advice for young acting students?

Andrew: I wouldn't presume to give advice to anyone. I think figure out if you really want it.

TeenHollywood: When did you know?

Andrew: At the end of my drama school training when I was twenty, I was about to do a very scary thing at the Globe Theater on the South Bank in London. I was about to do one scene playing Ophelia in Hamlet [note: this must have been a recreation of Shakespeare's time when guys played all the girl parts]. I was terrified. I was anxious. I thought 'this is awful. I don't know if I'm cut out for it'. I was walking. It was a beautiful day and a street performer was playing 'Starry, Starry Night' by Don McLean and that was a song I was listening to a lot. It was one of those amazing moments when everything unifies, all the stars align. I'm like 'okay, that's art and maybe I can move people like that song has moved me'. Advice? Just make sure your intentions are good.

TeenHollywood: What was the process like working with Robert Redford [as both actor and director of the film]?

Andrew: I was really scared and he made me feel immediately relieved and relaxed and kind of warm and just like I could play. It wasn't rigid. His energy is so easy, slow and engaging and encouraging as opposed to 'say this line like this and do this line like that'. It was just like 'okay great. Let's try it again and try something else'. Obviously it was scary because he's a wonderful actor. In order for those scenes to work, I needed to match him and that's challenging but he was constantly reassuring me to go at it.

TeenHollywood: Do you feel this film is a call to action for young people especially? The U.K. is in the war as well. How has that call to action effected your life?

Andrew: Yeah. I think it has.. slowly as we speak. When I read this script, I felt kind of guilty and selfish. I'm not 18 anymore. I'm 24 now. I don't feel like I'm doing enough. I feel like it's opened a little door and shed some light on a lot of guilt and I think that's fine, that's great because if I can make that into something positive, that's wonderful. In terms of the choices you make, feeling like you are doing something positive is important and I feel like this film is attempting, very boldly and very ambitiously, maybe, to do something positive. I think there is room to try and provoke some change in an individual.

TeenHollywood: So, you'll be making good film choices in future?

Andrew: I think I'm able to sleep a little better at night knowing that the choices I make aren't American Pie 6 or whatever. I'm making conscious choices where I feel like I can put my heart into something. But, my brother is a doctor and as soon as I remind myself of that, I'm like 'well how much more noble can you get than that?' Maybe, if I applied myself more in my academia I could have been doing something more positive, more hands on. I think that's one of the reasons I'm an actor. I was like 'he's a doctor. I'm not going to try to compete with that'.

TeenHollywood: This is a pretty serious film. Were there any funny things that happened while making this?

Andrew: Yeah, we had this idea for the last day that me and Tom [Cruise] would organize him turning up in my costume but we never got around to it. We were also going to have him coming on set as one of the Taliban members, acting crazy. That would have been funny. But Bob made me laugh a lot. One of his methods of making me feel comfortable on camera was to make me laugh, just make me crack up during a scene.

TeenHollywood: Are you living in the U.S. now?

Andrew: No. I haven't really got a home at the moment. I'm kind of wandering, I'm kind of nomadic which is really nice apart from the time difference I keep having to deal with which is horrible.

TeenHollywood: What is next for you?

Andrew: I finished doing a film called Boy A which was at the Toronto Film Festival. It's a British film with an amazing cast, Peter Mullan, a Scottish actor, John Crowley directed it, who directed Intermission. I'm just about to start filming Terry Gilliam's next film. I know, it's gonna be wild. It has a very strange name, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

TeenHollywood: Any surprises with the finished product on this film?

Andrew: No. It played as it read. Very compelling. I hope everyone gets as inspired as I was by it.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.