GARFIELD: Yeah, channeling pain, if we meet it, moistens the soil. It must take extraordinary courage to channel this kind of pain into art that resonates as much today as it did at the time. That play and Rent both came out of this horrific chapter in human history. I’m not saying it should all be self-flagellation, but there’s a balance to be had to keep us truly earthbound.ĭEADLINE: You played Prior Walter in a big revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. We’re a culture of Icaruses who are avoiding death and pain, and who have been sold this idea of the pursuit of happiness above all things. We’re a culture obsessed with ascension, but descent is what we need.
It’s that descent that is so interesting. He had the heartbreak necessary to write and create a truly great piece of art, but only by going towards it and falling into the thing he had been running from.
He had to go through tick, tick…BOOM! and Superbia to get to Rent, and to get to the place where his heart can break open fully for his best friend, for a generation that had been lost to the AIDS crisis, to the abusive, inhumane Republican Reagan administration. That’s how uncompromising Jon was, and probably why he was hard to be around at times, because that kind of clarity of vision and the transmission of egoless art is… well, it makes him very unique. Of course, the irony of him writing this before Rent is that without that global success at the end of the road, he was delivering a deeply uncommercial musical about how hard it had been to write a musical that turned out to be deeply uncommercial.
BOOM BOOM BOOM EVERYBODY SAY WAY HO MOVIE
And Rent has earned its spot in the pantheon of Broadway musicals, but the movie of his life might have been the story of the creation of Rent if he hadn’t written tick, tick…BOOM! and given us something that focused on his earlier failure. I find that so moving and beautiful.ĭEADLINE: Jonathan Larson wrote tick, tick…BOOM! before he wrote Rent. I love that it’s a story about failure and rejection and carrying on. It does feel archetypal in that way, and I think that explains why so many people feel a real kindship with Jon. It’s like every single artist has to go through this over and over again. And then having that small voice inside, like Rilke talks about in Letters to a Young Poet, saying, “I must write, I must act, I must.” Whatever it is that we feel called to, that the world is testing us and really making sure we’re serious about that calling. Having to work through rejection and doubt. How terrifying it still is to step onto stage or onto set, every time. The fact that I’m a creative person that has questioned, most days, whether I should be carrying on doing what I’m doing, or whether I have the chops, whether I’ll make it. © Netflix/Courtesy Everett CollectionĭEADLINE: What inspired that connection, do you think? Try, fail, try again.īut can you imagine saying no to this? How devastating that would be down the line to see somebody else play this role? I rarely feel that with something, but this is one of the rare ones where, for whatever reason, I felt very compelled, and I think it helped that I felt such a personal identification and connection with the character of Jonathan Larson.Īndrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson working in the Moondance Diner. And it’s a family trait my brother’s the same and it’s how my dad is built. It’s not addiction, but it’s important for me. There’s also some kind of cliff-jumping, adrenaline junky thing about it for me. And after the first session with Liz, she basically texted Lin and said, “I think he can get there given the amount of time we have.” That was it, really. “Go see Liz and see how it feels.” It was like an unofficial audition. Lin said, “Go and see Liz Caplan,” who is the vocal consultant on the movie. I guess I knew somewhere deep down that I could get to a place where I could honor the thing. It was in the peak of my obsession with Lin and all his brilliance, and I was just overwhelmed. But I think it was the exact reason I had to say, “Sure, I can get there.” Because it was Lin, and because Hamilton was on repeat on my phone. © Netflix/Courtesy Everett CollectionĪNDREW GARFIELD: I know. 'Gentefied' Canceled By Netflix After Two Seasons Andrew Garfield, center, on the set with director Lin-Manuel Miranda and cinematographer Alice Brooks.