TOAndrew Garfield has been hard at work promoting his new movie We Live in Time. Perhaps, you could say, a little difficult. There are tons of videos online filled with chemistry with Florence Buck. There's her Chicken Shop Date video with Amelia Demoltenberg, which is less of an interview and more of a creepy nexus point for one-sided, parasocial online celebrity relationships. Garfield brought a cardboard cutout to a recent red carpet event, and nothing else conveyed an aggressive desire to become more monumental than human.
However, a promotional pit stop saved Garfield. Two days ago, a video of him talking to Elmo surfaced online. In it, Garfield talks about his mother's death and the complex patterns of his grief.
“Today I'm thinking about my mom,” he tells Elmo. “She died a long time ago and I miss her a lot.” Elmo tells Garfield that he gets sad when he misses people, but Garfield replies, “Sadness is kind of a gift. It's beautiful to feel it in a way because when you miss someone it means you really love them… I feel closer to her when I miss her.
Something like this (an actor simplifying grief for the benefit of a puppet) can be disappointing. However, there is no doubt that Garfield is completely honest. He stumbles over some of his lines. His eyes sting with tears as he speaks. As you might think, it's not something you should neglect ahead of time.
This is not a new topic for Garfield. A few years ago he started his Tic, Tic… BOOM! She fought back tears during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He has spoken about it with Variety on Channel 4, with this statement and has been able to be articulate and eloquent every time the topic comes up.
To some extent, I can relate. My mother died two years before Garfield, under similar circumstances. Like Garfield, he had to go publicity when something happened. For me it was a book that I wrote because I knew she was sick and the publication coincided with the end of her life. Getting in front of people to talk about them, when I was so close to the process, was a deeply complicated matter. Telling stories about her was a lot of fun, but at the same time it was a completely non-physical experience. And I only talked to a few hundred people at a time. Garfield had to speak to the world knowing that most people wanted to know if he would be Spider-Man again. It takes courage.
However, in this most recent case, Garfield at least had Elmo to help him. There's something inherently magical about Elmo, so whoever he talks to can be himself. Watch a video of Elmo talking to Ricky Gervais, in which the actor suffers for not getting paid and then mentions the Holocaust, prompting Elmo to berate the director for losing control of the interview.
Or watch the latest clip from the Today show, in which Larry David unexpectedly walks onto the set and chases Elmo. Would David have interviewed a man? Did he even touch the big bird? No, because Elmo gives people the gift of allowing them to be themselves.
Same with Garfield. His Elmo segment allowed him to step away from memeification and talk about something he really cared about. We have to thank them both.
