Paul Giamatti Praises Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man

Paul Giamatti is raining praise upon Andrew Garfield's performance as Spider-Man. Giamatti and Garfield were castmates in 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with Giamatti playing the mechanized Rhino. While Giamatti's Rhino only had a small part in the film – appearing in the beginning and the end to terrorize the wall-crawler – he's still a prominent villain in Spider-Man's rogues gallery. Plus, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has been Rhino's only live-action appearance. The actor recently spoke about what it was like on set to see Garfield dedicate himself to being the Amazing Spider-Man.

The Happy Sad Confused podcast had Paul Giamatti on as a guest to talk about his film The Holdovers, as well as suiting up as Rhino alongside Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. After making a joke about his minimal role as Rhino in the film, Giamatti discussed some of the specifics that went into shooting the Spider-Man sequel.

"It was interesting to see how much was created on the fly. It was practical stunts," Giamatti said. "Andrew Garfield was amazing in that. There were times where I was like, 'You probably don't have to be doing this. It could just be a guy in a suit and nobody would know it's not you.'" What Giamatti is referring to is Garfield performing his own stunts, instead of relying on a stuntman to do the job for him. On most sets, there will be a stuntperson on hand to do some of the scenes that involve the main cast members to be in harnesses. However, it sounds like Garfield preferred to do the work himself.

Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man movies find new streaming home on Netflix

October 1st saw 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man and 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 transition to Netflix as their new streaming home. Sony and Netflix struck a streaming deal in 2021 that sees films under the Sony Pictures banner land on the latter, which also includes the recently released Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Before moving to Netflix, the Spider-Man movies were on Disney+.

The Amazing Spider-Man movies were led by Andrew Garfield, who played the titular wall-crawler Peter Parker / Spider-Man. Also starring in the films were Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Rhys Ifans as Curt Conners / The Lizard, Denis Leary as Captain Stacy, Sally Field as Aunt May Parker, Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben Parker, Jamie Foxx as Electro, Dan DeHaan as Harry Osborn, and Paul Giamatti as The Rhino. Garfield, Ifans, and Foxx all reprised their roles in the recent MCU venture Spider-Man: No Way Home.