'THE UPRISING' ACTOR ANDREW GARFIELD KEEPS POPPING UP AROUND THE BAY AREA. HERE'S WHY

If you happen to be in City Lights Bookstore, taking in a show at the Masonic Auditorium or attending a San Francisco 49ers game and think you see your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, it just might be him.

Andrew Garfield, star of the 14th century British action drama "The Uprising" in theaters Friday, Sept. 11, has been spending more time in the Bay Area lately, and the two-time Academy Award nominee is reveling in its seafood restaurants, art exhibits and entertainment options.

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"The Uprising" (R) is in theaters Friday, Sept. 11.

"I just love the city of San Francisco," Garfield told the Chronicle in a recent video interview while back in Los Angeles. "I love Northern California."

The main reason is that he's dating Oscar-nominated actor Monica Barbaro ("A Complete Unknown"), who grew up in Mill Valley. The two have been seen around the region so much he's become pals with San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey and Garfield even trained with him for a couple of days during the offseason.

"He's obviously one of the greats, and as a guy, just an incredibly good dude," Garfield said of McCaffrey. "Through a series of events, I found myself in the same space as him a little bit. That was the beginning for me in becoming a Niners fan."

But more than just a cool recreational spot to hang with players from one of the greatest NFL franchises, the Bay Area is proving to be crucial to his life and career as the 43-year-old actor approaches a productive middle age. Other than with Barbaro, a relationship that is off-limits in interviews, Garfield has spent extensive time in San Francisco professionally.

Filmmaker Luca Guadagnino based his rehearsals for the East Coast-set "After the Hunt" (2025), in which Garfield co-starred with Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri, in the city, and then filmed "Artificial" here. In the latter, Garfield stars as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Barbaro as Mira Murati, the San Francisco company's former chief technology officer.

"Artificial," which makes its world premiere Oct. 5 at the New York Film Festival and will be released later this year, was filmed largely in San Francisco during the summer of 2025 and is expected to be a major awards contender.

But first comes "The Uprising," a historical drama based on the 1381 Peasants' Revolt against King Richard II. Directed by Paul Greengrass, best known for the Jason Bourne films, it is his first project since "The Lost Bus" (2025), about the 2018 Camp Fire based on the book by former Chronicle reporter Lizzie Johnson.

Garfield plays a simple farmer who, after the plague has killed his family as well as much of Europe's population, leads an uprising against the crown after the king imposes onerous taxes to enrich himself and pay for an ongoing foreign war.

Both "The Uprising" and "Artificial," Garfield said, "respond to the context of the times we're in," with Greengrass' script for his latest film "a cry of the soul, a cry for dignity to be reinstated."

"There's so much chaos and uncertainty that keeps us separated from vitality and life force, and this felt like a desperate, anguished cry to let us back into the garden," Garfield said. "There's this last-ditch attempt to heal and to set the world on its righteous path again, and I think that's where we are as a culture." 

Garfield likened his character to modern-day families struggling with affordability while the ultra wealthy get even richer.

"Anyone who hasn't got their head buried in the sand or isn't benefiting from the kind of corruption that is in plain sight will have this feeling of a soul cry," he continued. "I even believe that people who are benefiting from the current system may even need (to see the film) more than anyone else. They're the ones that are most soul sick. 

"So I feel like it speaks to our times. We're in trouble where we need to save ourselves."

That timeliness, obviously, goes for ripped-from-the-headlines "Artificial" as well. The two films could have Garfield - who was nominated as best actor for Mel Gibson's World War II drama "Hacksaw Ridge" (2016) and Lin-Manuel Miranda's biopic of the late Broadway musical auteur Jonathan Larson in "Tick, Tick… Boom!" (2021) - on Oscar voters' radar.

Garfield has come a long way since breaking through in "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012), the first of three films as the Marvel Cinematic Universe webslinger.

"He's a brilliant actor," Greengrass said of Garfield in a separate video interview with the Chronicle. "When you make a film, that relationship you have with your leading actor, whether it's a male or female, that's the decisive relationship. Together, there's a thousand decisions that you've got to make under pressure without quite knowing that they're right. That's when the actor's instinct and the filmmaker's, you got to speak to each other honestly and feel your way.

"I couldn't have had a better comrade in arms than Andrew, that's for sure."

Beyond his work with Greengrass, Garfield has just completed filming of "Wild Things" with Jude Law. An Apple TV limited series about the famed Las Vegas exotic animal trainers Siegfried & Roy, he plays Roy Horn opposite Law's Siegfried Fischbacher. 

Certainly, Garfield is poised to be a ubiquitous presence onscreen and on red carpets, especially as "The Uprising" and "Artificial" rolls out its publicity campaigns. But he's likely to remain a familiar sight around the Bay Area, whether eating at a seafood restaurant, browsing at a local bookstore, visiting art museums, or admiring the four-story tall "endomosaic" mural in the lobby of the Masonic Auditorium by the late Big Sur sculptor Emile Norman, whom Garfield admires.

He may even be spotted taking in a 49ers game with Barbaro, as the couple did last year. Garfield said he has yet to peruse the team's schedule after it returns from playing the Los Angeles Rams in Australia this week, but will keep an eye out.

"If the opportunity arises, I would love to come up," he said.

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2026-09-08T11:48:46Z