ANDREW GARFIELD

As an adolescent, Spider-Man was what got me through tough times in terms of being a skinny kid.

I don't believe anyone is ugly.

That's all I want, to keep losing myself.

My parents signed me up for classical guitar lessons, which made for two years of the most depressing Wednesday evenings.

Obviously there's something very seductive about movies, which can be attractive in a bad way if you're doing them for the wrong reasons - for money, or for fame.

I hope that I'm always struggling, really. You develop when you're struggling. When you're struggling, you get stronger.

I feel incredibly awkward as a human being and incredibly teenaged still.

I've gone through my whole life caring deeply what people think of me.

I just think I've always been sensitive and had difficulty containing my feelings, and I've always searched for outlets for that, because otherwise those feelings come out in chaotic ways that aren't always great.

In secondary school I was floating - I wasn't passionate about anything. I did a little sport, but it was pretty joyless because the competitiveness was too much to bear.

I think too much. Being in my body is much more satisfying than being in my head.

Spider-Man has always been a symbol of goodness and doing the right thing and looking after your fellow man.

I've realised that at the top of the mountain, there's another mountain.

In film, there's this kind of constant fear that you're going to be doing too much. That may be an unfounded fear because I love sizable performances on film, especially when they're by performers who push the boundaries of what people deem the right kind of size.

Since I was, I've had that feeling of, 'Am I enough? Am I worthy? Am I supposed to be here?' And my culture and society is telling me that I'm actually not in a lot of ways - unless I have this amount of money, or I'm in this kind of car and I have this kind of job, or I'm famous, or whatever.

I worked in a Starbucks that wasn't very popular - before the big coffee boom in London. My boss didn't take kindly to my incessant sitting. I was like, 'Look, I've dusted everything, the stockroom is all figured out... I would rather sit now so I have the energy when a customer does come in.'

When I found out about being cast in 'Spider-Man,' it was like this bubble developed around me. I was floating in it for a while. And then, suddenly, it evaporated, and I was like, 'Well, I'm just an actor. I don't get to actually be Spider-Man.'

I'd much rather be in the world than in some ivory tower somewhere.

Films were really my church. As a young kid, it was movies and books; it was nothing remarkable, really, just that is where I felt soothed, that is where I felt most myself... safest.

If I can keep losing myself - and finding parts of myself - in other people's writing and direction, then that's all I can really ask for. That's all I want, to keep losing myself.

America always seemed to me this foreign land that I imagined I could escape to if I needed to get away - and I think that came both from the fact that I was born there and from watching so many American movies when I was a kid.

I have been drawn to stories that are attempting to turn suffering into beauty.

I was a monkey child. I was like a clown.

I was brought up on American films.

I have very strong feelings about what modern fame means, and the toxicity of it.