Martin Scorsese's new Jesus film might feature 'Spider-Man' actor Andrew Garfield
Martin Scorsese's new Jesus film might feature actor Andrew Garfield, who gained international recognition for his performance as Spider-Man in multiple films.
Scorsese plans to create an adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s 1973 book A Life of Jesus, which might include a role for Garfield, according to Variety.
The director hasn't revealed whether Garfield would play Jesus, one of his disciples or another character.
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This won’t be the first time Garfield and Scorsese have worked together for an adaptation collaboration, as the two teamed together for the 2016 movie "Silence," in which he played a Jesuit missionary in Japan.
In a 2017 interview with Relevant, Garfield detailed how he got ready to play the role by studying the Bible and meeting with priests to better grasp what it was like.
“What was really easy was falling in love with this person, was falling in love with Jesus Christ. That was the most surprising thing,” Garfield shared at the time.
Scorsese noted that Miles Teller might make it in a role for the adaptation. The director hasn’t revealed if both actors will star in the film or if only one will make the cut.
Production for the new Jesus film is scheduled to start later this year.
“I’m contemplating it right now,” the director said at the Berlin Film Festival, Deadline reported in February. “What kind of film I’m not quite sure, but I want to make something unique and different that could be thought-provoking, and I hope also entertaining. I’m not quite sure yet how to go about it.”
Garfield revealed in 2022 that he's drawn to films that deal with faith and spirituality.
“Questions of faith and spirituality, and the mystery of a spiritual life, is what I’m drawn to the most,” Garfield told Vanity Fair. “If I wasn’t an actor, I think I’d be doing some kind of theological study, and Dustin [Lance Black's] adaptation is that. He presents a study and a set of circumstances and unpicks the notion of fundamentalism and extremism, and how it undermines the virtues and the goodness that can come from having faith."
In the past, Garfield has been open about feeling mostly “confused” about what to believe when it comes to faith.
In 2016, he told The Hollywood Reporter, “I’m not a Christian person. I consider myself pantheist, agnostic, occasionally atheist, and a little bit Jewish, but mostly confused.”
In a 2022 interview with Collider, the actor revealed that his motivation for portraying characters with faith storylines comes from a fascination with life and death.
“Life and death is everything,” he said. The “finite nature of being here” and then suddenly dying is what intrigues him.
“For me, it’s a very fertile ground that is endlessly interesting,” he added. “Because if you’re dealing with spirituality, you’re dealing with faith, then you’re really dealing with life and death. And what’s more vital? What’s a greater question?”
Nicole VanDyke is a reporter for The Christian Post.
