Andrew Garfield graced the red carpet in San Sebastian on Saturday night as his latest film, We Live in Time, closed the film festival on the Spanish coast.
The British actor was not joined by his co-star Florence Pugh but did have director John Crowley by his side. We Live in Time, which screened out of competition, is a south London-set romantic drama about an up-and-coming chef and a recent divorcée who fall in love. As they meander their way through life — and even welcome a child — they learn to cherish their time together when a late-stage cancer diagnosis rocks the happy home they’ve built.
Garfield sat down with The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday to lift the lid on his return to film after a two-year sabbatical. “I feel looser, I feel less precious. I feel more joyful. I feel more aware. I feel established enough as a person in the world, as an actor within myself and within the world,” he said. “I know myself well enough now to feel more enjoyment.”
The 41-year-old also talked about bonding with co-star Pugh on We Live in Time and the intimacy needed to act alongside one another: “With a script like this, we have to travel to the most intimate places,” he said. “At one point, I have to have my head right by her backside while she’s on all fours in a petrol station, naked. That’s scary for anyone to do, let alone the woman in that scenario.”
San Sebastian has had its glitziest fest in years with Cate Blanchett, Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp all taking to the carpet outside the Kursaal Theater. Screenings of Edward Berger’s Conclave, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and Sean Baker’s Anora also attracted the industry’s biggest stars to Spain.
Among some of the fest’s panels, Christine Vachon of Killer Films, a longtime collaborator of Todd Haynes who was meant to be producing the director’s project with Joaquin Phoenix before the actor exited as shooting was set to start, told “the truth” of the situation and described what she believes is the most tragic part.
“The idea that his time was wasted and that a movie is not a result of those years of working closely with Joaquin, that is the tragedy to me and that I can’t get over,” Vachon said on Tuesday. “We, as a cultural community, lost an opportunity to have another movie by Todd Haynes. That is just criminal.”
Depp’s premiere of his new film Modi — Three Days on the Wing of Madness, following a few days in the life of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, had the star likening his bumpy life to that of Modigliani’s and referencing his public defamation trial after splitting from Amber Heard. “Each [character] has their story because I’m sure we can say that I’ve been through number of things here and there. … Maybe yours didn’t turn into a soap opera. I mean, literally, televised,” he said, prompting laughs from the packed room of reporters.”
Earlier in the week, Bardem took the opportunity at his press conference, before collecting his Donostia Award for his achievements in acting, to denounce the actions of the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, who have continued air strikes in Gaza following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“I welcome [the award] with great joy, but I am not in the mood for celebrations,” a translation of Bardem’s statement in the Spanish press said. “What has happened in Gaza is unacceptable, dehumanizing.”
San Sebastian Film Festival ran from Sept. 20-28. Read The Hollywood Reporter coverage of the fest here.
