Andrew Garfield is discussing playing OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman in the upcoming biopic Artificial.
The Amazing Spider-Man and Social Network actor got candid about portraying the controversial executive who has helped spearhead the AI revolution.
“I don’t know this person, to be clear,” Garfield began in a new profile in Esquire. “I don’t know Sam Altman. I’ve never met him. I was going off of the script and court transcripts and interviews and research, and we were telling a story. But I think anyone who takes on that level of responsibility for a company or a technology that you know is going to do a hell of a lot of damage to the soul of humanity [must have] a certain ability to dissociate.”
Garfield continued that he’s not typically drawn to playing characters like Altman because, in order to relate to the character, he has to access parts of himself he doesn’t like. “There’s something there for me to integrate, because I’m so afraid of being it,” he said.
“But then the argument is, that if we weren’t all less rejecting in the first place, less ‘that’s not us’, then Donald Trump wouldn’t have been voted in twice, and Nigel Farage wouldn’t be anywhere near a position of power,” he continued. “Whereas if we go, ‘OK, interesting — where am I [in a] wannabe fascist, grifter, opportunist, power-hungry, ethic-less, spineless fucking pig?’ We can identify that this is the bad part of us. We know this in ourselves.”
Garfield was also asked about his reported girlfriend Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick), and gave a pretty strong and clear response to how he feels about media inquiries on the topic.
“I’ll say it on the record: it’s not something I will ever talk about,” he said. “Maybe if I’m married with kids and 10 years into the relationship I might feel comfortable saying ‘my wife and my kids.’ Maybe. But maybe fucking not.”
In Artificial, directed by Luca Guadagnino, Garfield plays Altman during a five-day OpenAI leadership crisis when Altman was fired and then reinstated as CEO. The film was famously dropped by Amazon MGM Studios, which developed and financed the project, then walked away from distributing the movie after announcing a $50 billion partnership and investment that involved OpenAI. The company released a statement saying the film would “be better served if it were released by a different studio.”
Artificial was then rescued by Neon (after Netflix, A24 and Focus Features reportedly passed), which plans to release the film sometime later this year in order to qualify for this year’s Oscar race.
