Andrew Garfield Wants to Crack Open Your Heart

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let's start the show love now and did you fall in love last I love love was stronger than anything for the love love and I love

you more than anything there to love love from the New York Times I'm Anna Martin this is modern love every week we bring you stories and conversations

inspired by the Modern Love column this week I'm talking to the actor Andrew Garfield about his new movie we live in time this movie I got to tell you it

wrecked me Andre plays a man named Tobias Who falls in love with a woman named almond who's played by Florence Pew their story feels epic and expansive

but still somehow very intimate it zooms in on these small everyday moments that just feel so real to me but that's not to say it's all sunshine and Roses to

buy us an almet go through the types of challenges most young couples can't even imagine and as you watch them navigate this messy stuff the movie encourages us

to turn inward and look a little closer at our own relationships also I just want to say something before we start going into this interview with Andrew Garfield I thought it would be pretty

straightforward I figured we'd talk about we live in time chat about how it relates to the Modern Love essay he chose to read and then listen to him perform it but during his reading

something happened something that's never happened on the show before I don't want to spoil it for you so here we go here's my conversation with Andrew

[Music] Garfield Andrew Garfield welcome to Modern Love I'm so happy to be here thank you for having me I'm so happy you're here with us in the studio I have seen your new movie It's called we live

in time everyone should see it but very briefly it's about a woman named almit played by Florence Pew and your character a man named Tobias they meet because this isn't a spoiler this is in

the trailer she runs Tobias over with her car correct which is a classic meat cute isn't it tind you you're a hinge if you're running over with a car despite

that violent start they end up in a truly transformative relationship that spans all sorts of themes that we talk about here on Modern Love also I cried

so much I cried a lot and a good nice cathoic I mean as my producers I was sitting next to them it was one of those kind of like hiccupy sobs with a lot of snot wonderful that's what you want

that's what we aim for yeah we're trying to crack the old heart open you really cracked my old heart open there was seriously some stuff I needed to work through clearly so thank you you're so welcome before we get too far into it I

want to ask what Drew you to this film at this point in your career and life what did you want to explore through playing Tobias it definitely wasn't a career move it was a life move cuz I was

on a kind of unofficial sabatical because I was tired and uh entering mid life you know looking around looking forward looking back

looking presently where Where I Stood and and wondering what we were doing being alive at this point questions you

ask in the culture and in our civilization and I didn't have a good answer and then um in the middle of my sabatical a year in I read this very

very beautiful script and I could compare it to like oh this is a a big mass of clay that's already begun to be

carved by this amazing writer Nick Payne and the the raw material of this piece is kind of the raw material that I'm longing to express and explore and deal

with so it felt like I was able to go into the next room with some friends and collaborators including Florence and John Crowley and go okay I'm going to make something with you guys but I'm I'm

just so you know I'm bringing this is all it feels feels like could have written this very deeply relevant to the place you are in life very very pre and very kind of yeah present yeah did you

go in looking for answers to these big big questions that you were asking yourself during this midlife can I call it a crisis I don't know if you called it a crisis I didn't but I I I I see

what you're you're reading into my demeanor and body language for those of you who aren't watching it does look like I might be in a crisis jacket on yeah no I I I wouldn't call it a crisis

actually I would call it a midlife um exploration Reckoning Reckoning a falling apart to put oneself back together like natural it feels very

very natural and I think the mislabeling I think it becomes a crisis when you don't consciously deal with the [ __ ] that's going on but you were kind of dealing with it it sounds like throughly for sure and inhabiting this role of

Tobias in this film this felt like a sculptor or a Potter it's like I was full of all the Primal matter of what I was transforming through and this script in this film just allowed me to put some

form on it it was like I could get in in like shape something and it was like oh it felt healing it felt exorcising it felt um yeah it felt very very beautiful

yeah I mean the best way that I could describe this film is just to say that it feels extremely real like it it the movie is full of these moments that you

can imagine yourself in you see Tobias an almet washing dishes and talking after a dinner party or they're eating a in the tub together or they're cracking

eggs for breakfast and through all these intimate small everyday moments you can just tell that these characters love each other deeply it it feels like

you're watching a real life Couple live their life and try to figure so much out I want to know what do you hope people feel when they witness these these

moments I think what's amazing about the film and about as you say these small more ordinary extraordinary moments is it's all of us it if they feel

representative of these Lial spaces between the larger more explosive dramatic um moments of a partnership or

of a life and I I think people will watch and and feel connected to their own lives in a way that maybe um they haven't been if they've been running around in this kind of late stage

capitalist nightmare we're in say that again I mean I told you I was sobbing I clearly it brought up a lot it was the right movie for me to see oh good at the right time say more

no oh [ __ ] you man I asked the question this is some [ __ ] like this doesn't like the people aren't going to get what they need unless we meet in the middle man like this is no I'm just kidding I'm

totally kidding my editor like totally kidding but but at the same time B break up I'll just say that so I think that and also the and we'll get to this but

the first the big fight that elmet and Tobias had was so I'm 30 years old so I'm we should cut all of this but it was like very is you have the right to I

know and I don't it just that conversation in that fight felt like one I could I did have I have had wow wow interesting it hit yep yep yep yep yep

good good okay so there are these beautiful small moments and they're also balanced out by these very painful scenes these tough points in the story where Tobias and almond are grappling

with the fact that she's been diagnosed with cancer and the very real prospect that there might not be many more mornings with eggs for breakfast or or biscuits in the bath what do you think

this movie says about how to hold on oh no you don't like this question I love it it's is impossible go go that sigh was Heavy yeah man what do you think this movie says about how to hold on to

the beauty of those moments when you're really scared to lose them and sorry it is a very big question I'm posing to you but but the problem is is you can't hold

on to anything it's it's it's all a letting go this is all a letting go sorry it's like

emotional yeah this life is all a letting go and the idea of holding on I like the idea of savoring things I think

that the Jesuits are pretty good at that I learned that from the Jesuit going seg they had this wonderful prayer called the examine that they do every night and it's pretty much the

same as I don't know if you've seen the film about time the Richard Curtis film that Don Donal gleon character basically you know he he starts by saying so what

I did is I started Living each day twice and choose to see deeper and be more present in every small Bal seemingly moment and then it doesn't you haven't got to be a Jesuit or a Catholic or even

religious to do this but it's a beautiful practice at the end of the day every night just to lay down close your go back over the day think of the three or four

moments where as the Jesuits would say where you felt God's presence very near you but fill in the blank where you felt alive where you felt close to yourself

where you felt connected to the mystery the Unseen forces and you re-enter those moments and you Savor the feeling of it could be you know something to do with nature a conversation with a friend time

spent with a god a God child whatever it is and then you do you go through the whole day and you notice where where you were aware of of that mystery and then you you notice again where you missed the mark and you ask for forgiveness and

you ask to do better tomorrow I some it takes 15 minutes and usually you fall asleep during and you have a better sleep because you're kind of you're connecting and you're savoring the

things that that matter but my God it's all so transient and it's all leaving constantly and I the the people that I'm inspired by most and that I respect and

love the most are the people that I think I'm thinking now about Mike Nichols who I got to do Death of a Salesman with and he became a friend and a mentor before he passed away in the

last 10 years I I remember him as someone who seemed to be giving himself away like seed just planting himself

like seed as he as he exited this Earth and he was able to move with such lightness and he knew I think he got to the place of wisdom to know that he can't take any of it with him he just

wants to leave it all here for other people to Feast upon do you do that prayer every night when I'm a good boy so no unfortunately

well it's interesting I was going to ask you where the emotion lay for you because when you said you can't hold on to anything it it clearly struck a cord but I'm listening to you speak I realize

like the emotion was perhaps I mean break it down for me it doesn't feel completely like sadness there's a real Liberation in the fact that we can't hold on it's Sor there's no there's no

joy without sorrow there's no sorrow without Joy I mean that wonderful Pixar film inside out taught us that but um I really love those films I think they

they they are a great manual for for us as I agree I'm sure you could be in one I don't know I I'm this is my pitch I guess I no I I really feel like the only

gateway to True Vitality is through a broken heart is is is acknowledging that we that our hearts are meant to to break and break and break and live by breaking

that's definitely a quote it's not mine certainly um it's I think it's the beginning might be the Jesuits no I think it's the beginning of Angels in America um I think that's a quote that Tony krushna has basically like the the

idea is that our hearts the only way our hearts can expand is by cracking open and cracking open further and further and further like the the finite nature

of us being here is the only thing that makes it meaningful what's that con it's like the concept that a friend taught me once called onism o n i i m and I

believe if someone could be Googling this just to make sure I'm not incorrect I believe it is the No No I want to say first and then you can it's like a test

okay I like a game and a test right it's both so I'm going to say it's the sense and of knowing and the the sorrow of

knowing that you will only be able to live your own life you won't be able to have all of the experiences you want that I won't be able to read all the books in the library see all the films

in the LI in in the cinema to know all the people on Earth see visit all the countries know all the all of history all of time like there's a a kind of an imprisonment in the life that you have

realizing you're trapped to a certain amount of experience as you're alive that is that is it yes yes the AI overview when I Google it is

telling me that you're very correct I mean but I have to I mean you are this concept of the sort of prison of one experience one body one life that is

super on the nose to the Modern Love essay you've selected to read for us today this essay is called learning to measure time in love and loss by Chris hington before we get into it can you

just tell me why why did you choose this essay it chose me I I was you guys sent me a few and this was the first one I read and it felt like I

I was it was a combination of being dragged inside of it and Diving inside of it simultaneously and I felt like I knew the ending at the beginning and I knew it it it it does the magic trick that

it's talking about and then I read the other few and I thought they were wonderful but I kept on thinking about this one while I was reading the other few so I was like oh I have to do that

one when we come back Andrew reads Chris Huntington's essay learning to measure time in love and loss you will not want to miss

[Music] [Music]

it learning to measure time in love and loss by Chris Huntington for about 10 years I worked full-time in prisons as a teacher I

logged more than 40 hours a week behind those fences including a Long Winter at one facility that had been a Serial Factory and stood near the highway in downtown

Indianapolis it was a rock of a building with finger thick grills on the Windows during my first week there an inmate laughed when I asked him to reset

at the wall clock a few minutes off he said we need one that goes by months and years what do we care about 5 minutes I mention this only because his

words summed up the love story that had defined my life when my wife left me I was living in Paris which was not as romantic as it may sound because I was incredibly

lonely my bones achd especially at the sound of accordion in train stations all my plans had come to nothing I had failed at marriage failed

at work and had no money to speak of sometimes I would see my ex-wife on the street and she would turn away with an eagerness that could not be

ignored one night I Came Upon two boys robbing an old Vietnamese man and when I tried to intervene and make them stop they turned on me I began to wonder if maybe a part of

me wanted to die I moved back to the United States and took the job in the prison I met the inmate who helped me with the clock I also met an inmate who had salt

and pepper hair huge biceps and a pair of ridiculous glasses no one in the Free World would ever wear this inmate's name was Mike Mike showed me a folder of clippings and photocopied certificates

from all the educational programs he had completed in prison he had earn a GED and a bachelor's degree as well as certifications in the usual programs

like small engine repair and barbering he had kept letters from his counselors chaplain and teachers in these letters supervisor after supervisor claimed to

love him but it all struck me as kind of sad and awkward I couldn't read the whole thing I had my own problems I had taken a tiny apartment and spent my evenings

trying to write a book and corresponding with women I had met on the internet I took all my lost chances personally when I first met Mike he said

these young guys they just get locked up and they've got 5 years to do and they hate it when you're 20 5 years is a long time so they act out I used to be like

that but now I'm 2/3 done so every day is taking me closer to the door when I think like that I can get up in the morning and smile a month later my supervisor told

me Mike had been locked up for more than 16 years and had at least eight more to go arrested when he was a teenager he wasn't going to be released until he was in his mid-40s he had raped the sheriff's

daughter in his hometown it didn't matter how fat his folder of supportive letters got I used to be angry Mike told me I'd

pick fights over nothing I was mad to be in prison I wanted everyone else to be mad too but then I realized man this is my

life do I want to be that guy always mad I'm I'm not not going to get married or have a family not today maybe never I'm going to be here I'm a

prisoner and there are some things I'm never going to do and I can spend my life being mad about that or I can try something else I asked him what he had

decided I decided to be the best prisoner I could be he said this all relates to the clock on the wall because I fell in love again

and this became my new life she was from New Hampshire and had never been to France she left me for 2 years to write a memoir about her mother but

then she came back she wrote me letters and I felt I knew her entire apartment because I studied the tiny photo she sent me of her sitting at her desk or

standing by her curtains we were married but not before I went to New Hampshire and met her mother that afternoon her mother could barely look at me she was 48 and very

sick just a few months away from being dead my wife drove me through her hometown and I saw the lake where she had spent her Summers when she was a teenager not quite 5T tall and

voluptuous and swimsuits long gone we ate ice cream and talk quietly in the afternoon she held my hand she gave me an expensive watch that I kept wearing

even after the crystal was scratched our son is from Ethiopia where I once saw a dead horse on the side of the road that resembled an abandon and sofa I asked a friend if we needed to do

something about that and he said the wild dogs would take care of it we took our son far away from all of that 5 years ago which may seem like a

kindness except it also hurts I wish our son could know those dirt roads and the way they looked like chocolate milk in the Rain the way the hillsides were a delicate green the way

our dri would not go into the zoo because he was disgusted by the concrete ugliness of the Lyon cages I wish my son's birth parents could see him swimming he is such a good

swimmer I wish they could hear him reading books aloud I wish he could know them I wish our son could speak Oromo the language of his

birth our story so full of love is also full of loss when I was younger I used to get up early in the morning to write now I get up early to make my son

breakfast I rarely stay up late I I like my job but I have to work after dinner most nights I can reach my laptop only if I lean over the pile of markers and a tiny

Buzz Lightyear on my desk my wife hasn't worn a bikini for 6 years and probably never will again she says she's too old which makes me sad she's a beautiful woman with gray in her

hair my parents no longer drive at night sorry [ __ ] H I'm sorry oh it's it's beautiful do you want to take a break no it's okay are you sure yeah oh

dear can I ask you if you just this might take you out of it so tell me to stop but what's hitting you so much in this section I don't know it's mysterious

um this is what why art is so important cuz it can get us to places that we can't get to any other way um I think what's hitting me I don't

I don't know I don't know I don't know it's it's the preciousness it's the preciousness as we've been talking

about and it's the longing for more it's like we all pass with so much more to know with so much more longing we

Mike Mike passed away Mike Nichols and he was yeah and he was in the middle of prepping his next movie and in the middle of his favorite

pastor with his favorite person in the world um and it's hard to understand why that has

to be the setup I don't know I don't know why it's affecting me so deep but I just I feel this man's writing and it feels like for

all of us it feels like he's tapping into something so Universal yeah a longing to be here and and there are moments in in our film when I watched it

in Toronto with an audience where all I saw was in it was in The Quiet Moments particularly after a diagnosis or something something heavy all I saw was two people that want to live they're not

asking for much they just want their fair shot at at at cre creting a life and I think that's all of us I think we all just want a fair shot creating a

life I don't know I'm I'm sad I'm sad I'm sad at losing anyone I'm sad at losing anything

I'm sad at the transience of certain relationships in my life I'm sad at losing my mother of course I'm sad at

the idea of losing my father m of not being there when my nephews are my age or older like I I am I'm sad at the

concept of not having children of my own I'm sad at but the sadness is longing it's true longing and there's no shame in it and I think we

feel I can feel myself right now putting the kind of the modern conditioning taboo on this very very pure feeling I'm having and

expressing with you and and I I I I find that sad what do you mean like you're trying to push there's a part me that's like okay now come on now dude pull yourself together I wish

you wouldn't until I appreciate I appreciate that and but I but I I think that is the Killer and and that that

impulse that is not mine that is inherited that is conditioned from our culture to not feel to calcify the heart

to not reveal the heart to not trust another person with with our hearts is what gets us into

trouble and I think it's so easy now to feel hopeless in this current state of the world being alive right now can feel quite

hopeless and we can feel quite numb we can feel quite disconnected and isolated but

I don't know I feel like the feeling the the the longing lives in all of us the longing the longing to connect the Longing To Love the longing to

risk yeah I really appreciate you being so open with us I mean it brings a

new depth I think to this piece um maybe there's also a cracking open happening with this essay similar to what mentioned reading the script for the first time of we live in time and I'm

grateful to be able to witness it or be in the same room as it so hold space you're holding you're holding lovely space for it thank you well can I meta with you

for a second get into it no one has ever stopped in this way when we've done these essay reads and I find it very it's very interesting for me to

experience because I'm listening to you read this and inhabit the voice and the experience of the author and then you break out in this way that feels at once

very you from what I know of you but also very much still in this world as well and it's it's very interesting I feel like you're bridging many different worlds I also feel like you're kind of inhabiting the role of Tobias again and

speaking from that perspective that I saw in the film so I feel like you're World jumping a bit and it's very interesting it's really neat and that's

the wrong word this is neat totally neat but I I want this to be a more normal type of interaction for people

wonder whenever you're ready yeah I'm ready you stopped at yeah I remember okay wonderful thank you my parents no longer drive at night

and have fewer and fewer Hobbies this summer my mother made a box of cookies just for my son and and I was

happy to see them talking quietly in the kitchen I'm constantly aware of lost opportunities I used to think such lost opportunities were beautiful towns

flashing by my train windows but now I imagine they are lanterns from the past casting light on what's

ahead my life is constrained in hundreds of ways and will be for years as my son grows up and my wife and I grow older I don't know when I will return to Paris If

Ever I don't know when or if I will finish my book I do know I love eating breakfast with my son my wife wants us to open only one

box of cereal at a time to keep the flags from going stale but my son and I get up first so we eat what we want we like to change he gives me a thumbs up

whenever I open a new box in our family we talk about our days and recount our best part and worst part at dinner time last week I was reading a bedtime story with my son and was

distracted by the laptop and work waiting on my desk but I turned to him and I said we forgot best part worst part what was the best part of your day he pushed his chin into my shoulder and

said this is Daddy this is I felt a complete fool I had to close my eyes for a moment and then we agreed that his worst part

was when he had cried about eating chickpeas when I was a boy I hated beets I hope I can protect my son from beats until he's old enough to hold in the tears they're not worth

it when the battery in my watch died I still wore it there was something about the watch that said it doesn't matter

what time it is think in months years someone loves you where are you going there are some things you will never do

it doesn't matter there is no rush be the best prisoner you can be big [Music]

breath there's a poem that it makes me think of please can I yes of course it's um are you on the Wi-Fi no I think I have it actually I have a photo of it at

Handy cuz I was I was thinking about it it's called The Man watching and it's by reala I'm happy to read it do you want to read it do I want to read it no I'm happy to read it I'm happy to read it cuz it's it's a little bit of a tricky

one because the structure is a little weird but I'll read it okay I think you should certainly read it not me okay so this is the man watching by Raina Maria RKA translated by Robert blly one of my

favorite translators of rila's poetry and a great poet unto himself okay I can tell by the way the trees beat after so many dull days on my

worried window panes that a storm is coming and I hear the far off field say things that I can't bear without a friend I can't love without a

sister the storm the shifter of shapes drives on across the woods and across time and the world looks as if it had no age the landscape like a line in the

psalm book in seriousness and weight and Eternity what we choose to fight is so tiny what fights with us is so great if

only we would let ourselves be dominated as things do by some immense storm we would become strong too and not need

names when we win it's with small things and the Triumph itself makes us small what is extraordinary and eternal does

not want to be bent by us I mean the angel who appeared to the wrestlers of the Old Testament when the wrestlers senu grew long like metal

strings he the angel felt them under his fingers like chords of deep music whoever was beaten by this Angel who often simply declined the fight they

went away proud and strengthened and great from that harsh hand that needed him as if to change his shape winning

does not tempt that man this is how he grows by being defeated decisively by constantly G beings wow why did that why did that we

get two readings for the price of one a I'm not getting paid [ __ ] for this actually yeah that's journalism can you tell me then I want to dive yeah um it's a poem

about humility in the face of the greater the greater opponents the things that don't want to be bent by us it's it's about the prison yeah I want to ask

you about the prison that last line is also of course echoed in the beginning of the piece and I want to really close read that final sentence be the best

prisoner you can be what is the prison this bodyism onism this body uh the gravity

um the time of my birth to the time of my death yeah um uh my my white skin my brown hair my uh brown eyes my the shoe

size that I have I'm never going to know what it's like to have smaller feet it's awesome I knew it

[ __ ] rocks yeah um you know it's uh but the prison I want to be the and I think the best prisoner is the best version of this the

best the best Andrew you know I like the idea that at the end of our Lives if there is some Celestial being that we

meet that I like the idea of of of them asking hey were you Andrew H did you do it wow like did you did you live

into all of what you were meant to live into or as much as you could I don't know and and and the prison being the fated thing the thing that we have no

control all over and it's just you know how do we surrender to Our Fate so that we can live into our destiny did you just come up with that right now I

wish I could uh I wish I could I could lie and say yes no um there there's a there's a really wonderful mythologist thinker called Michael me who I really

love and he um he's full of wisdom and he's someone that I I I Look to a lot and I I I read around a lot and listen to his talks and

he's um he was a collaborator of Robert BL who translated that poem and yeah we're going to take a quick break we'll be right back

[Music] can I ask you a bit more about the prison and then I promise we'll move on no it's good do you think we're alone in

there oh man isn't that interesting H because the thing that comes to mind as you ask that is I think the loneliness

we feel here and the longing that we feel here is a kind of unconscious

remembrance of a fact and and that fact is that we are all actually one thing like I do I do that

does sound like I could be a burning man and I am aware of that but I do think we are I'm going to say something that is that that illustrates this hopefully in

a way that I don't know when my mom passed something made sense to me and it could just be my imagination it could be magical thinking and I'm actually okay with that I got the

sense that she was back running with her angel tribe for real though for real because in life she was a an angel on this Earth

she was a helper she was a carer she was a a giver she was a Healer in the small little subtle ways that are mostly invisible and she would she would get

frustrated with herself because she couldn't be in a thousand places at once she was frustrated with the kind of prison of her own car carnal form hm

again yeah and then the sense I got when she passed one of the things that I saw in a dream or I felt as a waking dream I'm not sure was oh she's back with her

tribe and she can be in the thousand places at once now cuz she's pure Spirit she's back with the everything she's back with the source of the mystery of where we all will go back to and where we all originated from I don't know

that's just a theory I can't know it could be absolute [ __ ] I like that I like it too like that it's a lovely image I am you're bringing up your mom

which I'm grateful for I wanted to ask you about your experience filming we live in time given your mom's passing

from cancer a few years ago did playing Tobias teach you anything new or surprising about your grief and how to

go on living after loss damn um gosh I think I think what the film does beautifully is it honors grief it honors the experience of

grief it honors what the essay does that we we we we read today as well it acknowledges that we don't get to be in charge of

what we lose how we lose it and when and I think I I fight loss all the time I try to resist loss all the time

foolishly and pigheaded and egotistically and I think in terms of the transient nature of of of letting go of

everything I had a I had a friend that passed recently um sorry thank you and he he was a he was like a zen master in some regard not intentionally he just

was and by the end of his life he was allowing himself the sorrow and the joy of transitioning as he said it going

over to the other side and there was something so Exquisite about his courage his courage not only to be like this is the way it has to be but also his

courage to be like I want to stay I wish I could stay I have more I want to do I'm so sad I'm not going to be able to be your friend anymore in fact I felt

like you were another son to me oh my gosh I wish I could but bye-bye and I love you like it's like there's if I can if I can follow in my my friend's

Footsteps in any way that would be and and Mike Mike Nichols as I said giving himself away yeah holding it lightly not wanting to be the richest man in the graveyard or caring about Legacy

particularly but just kind of just like being able to be present while also giving Grace To The Future and embracing both an equal

turn I feel like to bring it back just once more to the to the movie Tobias and elmet do a really admirable job of doing that of balancing the the present and

also looking forward how do you calibrate that balance in your own relationships sorry Heavy Hitters we could go with easier

questions no listen I love this you know I love it this is what I'm I want my life to be it's a tough question

actually yeah well time right I right right what is what is it though you know like the future is already

happened like it's there's no it's all connected like I'm I'm what I love again I think what was said in this essay about the missed opportunities becoming lanterns to guide

the way into a future that was so beautiful and I really got it in a deeper way in the second reading it's like I don't know it's so hard to listen

and Trust one's longing I think we all have so much longing in us to live we have an image of what our life wants to

look like feel like taste sense like it and I think it's it's so hard to have the courage to follow those longings to

own those longings to want what we want because then what if we don't [ __ ] get it and then the Heartbreak comes and and the deepest longings are the ones

that we are really afraid to mention the ones that that really could cost us only as much as you feel comfortable sharing I think one of my final questions to you you're speaking about the things you

long for and I wonder whatever you feel comfortable sharing what are some things person in your own life they're pretty basic they're pretty guarden variety I find that

surprising no but I long I long [Music] for I long for love to to connect with

life to connect I it's it's not like this is very Broad in general but it's like I want I want to live courageously I want to live true to myself and whatever that

means I want to make things that are beautiful and that connect with people that give people some Solace some comfort uh that help them connect with

the world and themselves I want I want great friendships I want I want great time with my family I want healthy boundaried

relationships with friends and and partners and family members I I I want to know what I'm right now I'm working on codependency in my life I want to for

real can you go into that yeah for sure I just like basically I want to know where you end and I begin right I don't want to like feel like I have to take on

and become and hold all of I I all of you particularly specifically that is none of your business it's so no it's fine that's

it's it's a fine thing to ask um and and yeah weirdly for whatever reason I I don't give that part of my life any anywhere publicly I just don't yeah I

respect it it's just not I had to ask it's we're a love show no no it's totally fine and like and I understand the question and I think it's such a

sacred thing and I think I think becoming a public person is is very challenging I think for

anybody um let alone a sensitive little [ __ ] like me and I I just know that you and I might have a really lovely conversation about you know coming off

with that question but people certain people listening from right certain other Publications will take that and turn it into something that is exploitative I understand and I'm just

not interested in in in in that okay I could talk forever but we do I want to respect your time you have a hard out so I'm going to close us okay I'm trying to debate you can tell me which one you'd

rather do cuz I was planning on ending this by playing the game that Chris Huntington the author of the essay plays with his kid which is best part worst

part of our days nice or yes what we could do the thing that you were talking about with the Jesuit prayers oh and you could say four things that made you feel very well you don't have to say four you

could say a couple things that made you feel present today you know what I think I think they're both the same thing I think best part worst part and the Jesuit prayer are kind of very similar things okay so let's do best part worst

part we're both doing it yeah okay it's the least you could do let's start with worst okay go ahead I have to think me

too I got it wow okay my worst part is that we had lunch an hour and a half after lunchtime today and I I got very cranky for an hour hour and a

half because the because just the schedule the nature of the schedule while we're um promoting this film right and I you

know I get cranky I get hangry if I don't I'm like you're nodding so much at everything I mean I get it um my worst

part was this morning there was a dead cockroach in my kitchen when I woke up and I was all alone why is that funny cuz it was

really scary I get it it was totally have you had a cockroach I'm laughing because it's it's like an acknowledgement have you seen the New York ones I know about New York cockroaches girl have you encountered

them boy of course I have human person okay that's true well I just okay here's what I did I raided it yeah a lot even though it was already dead uhuh and then

I flushed it down the toilet good for you thank you you you're brave you're really and you you could do it on your own thank you but it would have been nicer if you had some kind of assistance

100% I understand that was my worst part now we do best part was it the first thing in the morning as well it was like I was walking to get my coffee yeah right there in the middle yeah you there I'm sure you might have welled up a

little bit in frustration and like mine's my worst is worse than yours it absolutely is my worst was not bad at all I think you're being koi all right let's do best part yeah I'm going to go

first because we should end with you we should end with you sure my best part was this conversation very nice thank you I was going to say my best part

was not this it was the end of this conversation no I would say my best part was absolutely generally this conversation but also particularly in in

a moment of cracked open vulnerability to have to feel safe that I could allow that to be there and to feel that not only did I have my own I could hold

my myself in that vulnerability but that I felt safe to do it in this room with you people felt like quite um a privilege and I'm just very very grateful for that wow well we're

grateful for you Andrew Garfield thank you so much for this conversation thank you I feel like it was kind of a dream state we were in for a while I know I feel like I have to breathing was a

little I want to shake it out I know I know it was a little kind of like portal [Music]

if you want to read the Modern Love essay featured in today's episode you can find the link in our show notes and before we go this year is the 20th anniversary of the Modern Love column

and if you're a reader or a listener we want to know how the column has affected you has it made a difference in how you think about love in your own life life

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show Modern Love is produced by Reva Goldberg Davis land Emily Lang and Amy Pearl it's edited by Linn Levy and our executive producer Jen pant production

management by Christina josa special thanks to Paula Schuman the Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell original music by Aman sahota Diane Wong and Dan

Powell this episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez Studio support from Maddie masiello and Nick Pitman digital production by mahima chani and N GLE the Modern Love column is edited by

Daniel Jones Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love projects if you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times we've got instructions to do that in our show

notes I'm Anna Martin thanks for listening