WEARING HIS HEART ON HIS SLEEVE AS ART AND LIFE COLLIDE ANDREW GARFIELD TELLS HOW REAL-LIFE GRIEF IS REFLECTED IN ON-SCREEN ANGUISH IN HIS LATEST ACCLAIMED FILM ROLE

Andrew Garfield is pensive as Ane reflects on a difficult few years.

- GILL PRINGLE

"I was going through my own personal journey with my own grief. I was entering a midlife crisis and was in the middle of taking a break from everything," he reveals.

His schoolteacher mum Lynn died from pancreatic cancer five years ago, and he was still struggling with that loss when he was offered his latest role in We Live in Time-a film encompassing love, birth, death, cancer and all of life's messiness.

"So I was thinking about life and death, love and existence, and looking back and looking forward and wondering what we are doing here on this planet, and how we make it as meaningful as possible," the Spider-Man star says.

"It was a light midlife crisis and it continues now - I'm right in the middle of it. But it's okay. I think we all have to go through midlife crisis. It's a positive experience of disassembling and reassembling."

CREATIVE CATHARSIS

Speaking at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, where We Live in Time received rapturous applause, Andrew says making the film proved to be a tonic.