Andrew Russell Garfield was born in Los Angeles, California, to a British mother, Lynn, and an American father, Richard Garfield. At the tender age of three, he made the transition to Surrey, U.K., with his parents and older brother, marking the beginning of his life in the United Kingdom.
As a child, Andrew was raised in a middle-class family and attended a prestigious private school, the City of London Freemen's School. His early fascination with acting led him to participate in youth theatre productions while still in school. This sparked a passion that would drive his future endeavors.
At the age of 19, Andrew pursued his dream by enrolling in the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. His professional journey began on the stage, followed by his television debut in the Channel 4 teen series Sugar Rush in 2005. This marked the beginning of his career in the UK, with subsequent roles in TV shows and movies that gradually increased his international recognition.
Andrew's breakthrough roles came in 2010, when he played Eduardo in The Social Network and Tommy in Never Let Me Go. These performances catapulted him to international stardom, and he soon found himself cast as the title character in the reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man, in 2012. He reprised his role in the sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, before passing the torch to Tom Holland.
Following his Spider-Man stint, Andrew returned to his roots in drama films, starring in Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes alongside Michael Shannon, Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge, which tells the true story of real-life Seventh Day Adventist war hero Desmond Doss, and Martin Scorsese's Silence, opposite Adam Driver, as Jesuit priests. His portrayal of Doss earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
In 2017, Andrew starred in Andy Serkis-directed drama Breathe, where he played Robin Cavendish, an adventurous man paralyzed by polio. The following year, he headlined David Robert Mitchell's noir thriller Under the Silver Lake.