For Andrew Garfield, the script for We Live in Time couldn’t have come at a more perfect moment in his life.
“When I read [the script], I was in deep contemplation of the meaning of life. As always, but maybe more pronounced in that moment,” Garfield, 41, said at a San Sebastian Film Festival press conference on Saturday, September 28. “I was thinking about life, death, love, meaning, time. … standing at the age of 39 and 40, kind of a mid-life crisis, looking forward, looking backward, looking exactly where I am, and thinking, ‘What now?’”
“This script arrived, and it was as if I had written it from that place,” he continued. Garfield recalled having to ask himself, ‘How did I write this so well? I’m not a writer.’”
Garfield noted that if he and playwright Nick Payne were having similar thoughts: “These things, there’s gotta be something to it, something universal in this story.”
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We Live in Time follows the love story of couple Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Florence Pugh) who are brought together by a chance encounter and learn how to cherish moments all while navigating parenthood and a medical diagnosis.
Garfield explained on Saturday that he knew he was game for the film after reading a scene that involved an ambulance, traffic and a gas station bathroom. “It felt like the central action sequence, the Indiana Jones action sequence of this film,” he said.
During the press conference, Garfield was asked a question that framed him and Pugh’s characters as heroes. Garfield, for his part, noted that he “struggle[s] with that word right now in our culture.”
“Anyone in my life who has been through something similar to what Tobias and Almut go through would reject the idea of being heroic,” he explained. “People in my family and close friends who have been through things of the most horrific nature, the kind of things where you have to wonder if the universe has any justice in it, those moments where you think ‘What is the setup here and how am I supposed to carry on?’ The ones that do find a way to carry on, would reject outright the idea of being heroic. It’s necessity.”
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He continued, “What I love about these two people is that they represent this strange, mysterious, undying, inexplicable want to live in the face of the most horrific heartache and loss. And how we, as human beings, find that strength, that want, that little flame of longing to live over and over and over again. There are probably people in this room going through something not dissimilar from these characters, facing death and choosing to live anyway. I find that remarkable.”
When Garfield first read the script, he explained that he didn’t think of the film as a romantic drama. “I thought, ‘This is a great story about death,’” he explained. “It’s really fearless and funny, and it’s trying to attain some of the mystery of what it means to fall in love, get married, and have a child with someone.”
We Live in Time hits U.S. theaters on October 11.
