Andrew Garfield Reacts to ‘Spider-Man’ Rumors and Reflects on Playing Jonathan Larson

Will Andrew Garfield appear alongside Tom Holland in “Spider-Man: No Way Home”?

“Extra’s” Rachel Lindsay asked Andrew about the rumors at the AFI Fest Opening Gala in Hollywood, where Garfield was promoting his new movie “Tick, Tick… Boom!”

Rachel asked, “Tom Holland has teased that there are three generations of Spider-Man that are coming to the screen… Look me in the eye and blink once if we are going to see you or just shake your head if not.”

Andrew laughed, saying, “I’m not going to blink, I’m not going to do anything!” before shaking his head and blinking his eyes repeatedly saying, “I’m just going to do this now.”

Garfield, who appeared in the 2012 film “The Amazing Spider-Man” and its sequel, praised Holland and the current team for their portrayal of the web slinger.

“I really love what that whole team have done with the character,” he said. “Like, I really love what Jon Watts has done, what Tom has done, what Amy Pascal and Kevin Feige have done with this incarnation of the character, and they have given it so much soul and so much fun and joy and it is so true to the character.”

He went on, “I will say this: I’m very excited to see what they’ve done with their third installment,” joking, “I blinked a little bit, but it was totally accidental. I take no ownership over it!”

Meanwhile, he has some big shoes to fill as “Tick, Tick… Boom!” and “Rent” composer and playwright Jonathan Larson.

Larson died in 1996 of a heart issue at just 35, the day of “Rent’s” first off-Broadway preview performance. He was honored with three posthumous Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize.

Garfield called it the “biggest privilege of my artistic life” to play “a tremendous artist who was here for a short burst of time and left us so much to wonder at and be healed by.”

The actor reflected, “He asks questions that go beyond what it means to be an artist, he asks questions about how to live. Like, what do we do with the short amount of time that we have here? He was surrounded by death, and I think subconsciously aware of his own shortness of life.”

Andrew went on, “He is the quintessential uncompromising, devoted artist for the revolution. He was banging the drum before it was cool to bang a drum, and he was banging a drum in a time when a drum needed to be banged.”

Reflecting on why high school musical kids want to do “Hamilton” or “Rent,” he said, “They are both about waking up, they are both about the revolution, they are both about the dignity of humanity and fighting a corrupt system.”