Andrew Garfield had the most "profound" two weeks of his life before his mother died.
Andrew Garfield
The 38-year-old actor was initially reluctant to sign up to star in 'The Eyes of Tammy Faye' after his mum Lynn was diagnosed with cancer, but she ultimately pushed him into committing to shoot the movie in North Carolina, after promising to let him know when it was time to "come home" to be with her at the end of her life, and Andrew will always be grateful he got to be with her for her final moments.
He recalled: "She said, ‘I would struggle with you not doing it on account of me.’ I told her, ‘OK, but promise me when it’s time to come home you’ll let me know.' "
News of Lynn's imminent passing came during filming in late 2019, so Andrew left the set to return to England and recalls the period as being "full of grace".
He told Variety: “The good news about me and her is that we left nothing unsaid.
"We had all the quality time we could possibly have while she was here. And those last two weeks I got to be with her were probably the most profound two weeks of my life. To be with her and my dad and my brother, all of her friends, my nephews. It was full of grace in the midst of the terrible tragedy.”
After taking some time off after work on '...Tammy Faye', Andrew threw himself into preparations for Lin Manuel Miranda's directorial debut, 'Tick Tick... Boom!', in which he will play late 'Rent' creator Jonathan Larson and the actor thinks the musical is a fitting tribute to his mother.
He said: “I can feel her smiling at that. She was someone who was taken arguably too soon, even though we don’t get to decide. There are certain things you can’t control. What I started to understand through her loss is that we’re all leaving with a half-finished song.
“Being a part of this film with Lin and the rest of the company, I’m able to sing Jon’s songs and I’m able to hold my mother’s unfinished song in the lyrics and the music that Jon wrote. His work has become a container for that.
“It becomes a story where we can bring our individual, personal losses and we can share them. And then we can go back to living in that way where we know this is all finite.”
Tagged in Andrew Garfield