14 DAY TRIAL // British actor Andrew Garfield has a very tough mission ahead of him, that of taking over from Tobey Maguire in the new “Spider-Man” film. In the meantime, though, he’d like to use the opportunity to draw attention to a matter very close to his heart: bullying.
In a recent interview with the Daily Mail on the set of the upcoming “Spider-Man” film, Garfield says that he’s no stranger to the experience of being bullied: regardless of what people say, school is “tough” and some of the harshest things happen on its grounds.
He too was bullied and, though he’s reluctant to say it, he’s probably happy he got the chance to play the role most young actors dream of to tell the bullies in his past “see me now!”
Still, he doesn’t blame those who do the bullying for their behavior, because he believes it’s a learned pattern. The bully was a victim himself once, Andrew says in the interview.
“Of course, every school has their bullies, and when you’re a kid you wish you had the power to fight them and protect other people – and yourself,” the actor tells the Mail.
“No, school’s hard. I think everyone has been bullied at some point. Kids can be incredibly cruel. On certain days you would come home and think, ‘today was really horrible,’ so I guess I have been bullied and I think everyone has been bullied at some point by some figure in their life. I don’t think anyone can escape it,” he adds.
But he’s not blaming the bullies for it, but rather the adults who don’t intervene to break the cycle. Not that he’s offering a solution for the problem, either, since he’s not the one to do that, no matter how much he wishes he was.
“What bullies don’t realize is the effect he / she can have on someone throughout the rest of their life. It can form patterns in another kid and there’s the trauma... It’s really unfair,” Andrew, who was a victim of bullying himself, says.