Rise to Fame
His breakthrough was Eduardo Saverin in David Fincher's The Social Network (2010). The BAFTA nomination didn't hurt. The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012 was a reboot nobody asked for, but it landed, grossing over $750 million worldwide. He and Emma Stone, who played Gwen Stacy, dated in real life, which the press treated like a bonus feature.
In the Spotlight
After two Spider-Man films, he walked away from the franchise lane and into theater. Angels in America on Broadway in 2018 earned him a Tony. When Lin-Manuel Miranda cast him in Tick, Tick... Boom!, Garfield wasn't a singer. He spent a year learning to sing and play piano. The Oscar nomination that followed confirmed he'd pulled it off. He's attached to play Sam Altman in Amazon's Artificial, Carl Sagan in Voyagers, and Roy Horn in Apple TV+'s Wild Things. The pivot worked.
Side Notes
For his role as Prior Walter in Angels in America, he went deep on RuPaul's Drag Race, calling it some of the best TV he'd seen, eventually meeting contestants Detox and Kim Chi. He developed a ritual of writing letters in and out of character to transition between himself and Prior Walter. Born in Los Angeles but raised in Surrey, England, he trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, which might explain why he keeps returning to the stage.