Andrew Garfield delivers a tour de force performance in Lin-Manuel Miranda's soaring adaptation
of the celebrated musical "Tick, Tick...Boom!"
The actor stars as the late, great composer and playwright Jonathan Larson, who wrote
the musical the film is based on.
Garfield portrays Larson with the dizzying passion that made Larson such a vibrant young
talent in his time.
Whether he's talking, singing, or saying nothing at all, Garfield's performance is so radiant
and authentic that you might forget he isn't actually a struggling artist in '90s New York.
"What is the point of money if you're not going to spend it on the people you love."
" Yeah, except that you don't have any money."
"Oh, right."
"Yeah, this has been sitting here for a week."
"I'm on it."
His vintage New York styling in "Tick, Tick...
Boom!" is but the latest in a series of impressive accents he's commanded over the years.
Here's a deeper look at how Andrew Garfield's accent game is beyond impressive.
Garfield was born in Los Angeles to an American father and a British mother, but his family
moved to England when he was just 3 years old.
Growing up in the Surrey area, he adopted the regional dialect of the area, but since
his father still spoke with an American accent, he got to hear the tones and textures of that
dialect all of his life.
"Last time you did the laundry you turned everything blue and red."
"That was a mistake.
Because I was washing the American flag."
His skill at seamlessly navigating an American accent has certainly paid off in his career.
His nuanced dialects come through in many of the performances that helped establish
him as a must-watch actor -- in Robert Redford's "Lions for Lambs" and the twisty conspiracy
tale "Under the Silver Lake," he adopts a clipped, articulate LA timbre.
And his searing performance in "99 Homes" sees him settle into a softer, blue-collar
inflection as a beleaguered construction worker in Florida.
"I got a six pack for the first guy in here with a shovel.
Anybody?"
At the same time, he's also had no trouble returning to his own British sound for his
impressive performances in other films -- ranging from his scrappy, back-alley Londoner in "The
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" to more polished and aristocratic accents in "Never Let Me
Go" and "Breathe."
"This is all it is?
Is this the point of it?
You're just kind of undulating for fun?"
Garfield also has an incredible ability to pick up on some very specific regional and
national accents.
For his game-changing superhero role as Peter Parker in "The Amazing Spider-Man" films,
for example, he and his dialect coach, Liz Himelstein, consulted with high school students
in Queens, New York, to become even more familiar with the local lingo in both tone and delivery.
"You know, in the future if you're going to steal cars, don't dress like a car thief,
man."
"What are you?
You a cop?"
"Really?"
Meanwhile, Garfield's gift for gabbing in a Southern accent is also well-documented,
tracing back to some of his earliest screen moments guest-starring in "Doctor Who..."
"One man down, we ain't even started yet."
...all the way up to his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Virginia-born war hero Desmond
Doss in "Hacksaw Ridge."
"While everybody else is taking life, I'm going to be saving it.
With the world so set on tearing itself apart, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me
to want to put a little bit of it back together."
In his Golden Globe-nominated performance in "The Social Network," Garfield plays Brazilian-born
Eduardo Saverin with just a hint of Saverin's native accent behind the English words.
"See, in a world where social structure was everything, phew, that was the thing."
Audiences have also heard him take on a Portuguese tone in Martin Scorsese's searing religious
drama "Silence," a film for which he also immersed himself in a year-long study with
a real-life Jesuit priest.
"Your faith gives me strength, Mokichi.
I wish I could give as much to you."
Most recently, Garfield took on the challenge of portraying famous televangelist Jim Bakker
in the new biopic drama "The Eyes of Tammy Faye."
In a conversation hosted by Facebook, Garfield revealed that capturing Bakker's Midwestern
sound was a unique challenge for him, saying, "I knew it would be a long road to get to
it feeling natural.
And not just the accent, which is very, very specific and tricky [...] but then his voice
on top of that is placed very different to mine."
"Oh, praise Jesus, and praise you."
When Garfield was preparing to bring Jonathan Larson's highly personal and very entertaining
story to life in "Tick, Tick...
Boom!" he might've already been familiar with a New York accent thanks to his blockbuster
turn as Peter Parker and his celebrated work on Broadway.
However, he still needed a very different type of vocal training before the filming
could begin -- he had to learn how to sing.
Garfield admitted in an interview on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" that his casting
for the part of Jonathan Larson hinged on his ability to sing, which he only claimed
to be able to do after knowing he had a year to prepare.
However, he subsequently trained with a vocal coach, and he took enough piano lessons to
make the shots of him composing and performing with the instrument just as melodic as the
rest of the movie.
As a result, not only does Garfield's New York accent come through perfectly in his
speaking moments, but his tones are pitch-perfect in his many singing numbers.
"I am allowing myself to be led by love."
No doubt, we'll hear a lot more from Garfield as his career continues to flourish.
But considering all he's accomplished already, it's clear that this is one actor who's definitely
found his voice.
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