All it takes is a beat.
Garfield’sTick, Tick… Boom!costarRobin de Jesusjoins in on the song immediately, his eyes sparkling.
And before I know it, I’m singing too.
Robin de Jesus and Andrew Garfield.Jessica Chou for EW
But the ship is sort of sinking, so let’s start drinking.
ROBIN DE JESUS:Jonathan and I go way back, even though we never met.
That is a violent act."
Andrew Garfield.Jessica Chou for EW
But ‘One Song Glory’ came on, and I vibed with it.
I just fell in love with the rest of the album.
Years later I made my Broadway debut inRent.
Robin de Jesus.Jessica Chou for EW
Jonathan gave me my first job; he gave me financial stability; he gave me creativity, unity.
ANDREW GARFIELD:That’s so beautiful.
GARFIELD:In the realest sense.
(L-R) Robin de Jesus and Andrew Garfield.Jessica Chou for EW
I was only really introduced to what theater was then, and it wasn’t musical theater.
At drama school, I studied Shakespeare, Miller.
It was a straight theater training.
Robin de Jesus.Jessica Chou for EW
There was this strange lineage and kinship.
Was there a shorthand already there?
DE JESUS:It was like liberation.
Jessica Chou for EW
GARFIELD:I saw that with you guys.
It was so cool.
Don’t say anything.
Jessica Chou for EW
Don’t say anything.
Thank you, thank you.
Received, received."
I go, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.”
Because I code switch.
I sometimes speak in Spanish, sometimes speak in English.
And we would just speak Spanish across the room at one another.
And I’m a working-class dude.
That comfort with him that was true liberation.
We’re pretty corny together.
GARFIELD:We’ve got to rein it in a little bit.
DE JESUS:Otherwise, we’d be basket cases.
We’d be crying all week.
Lin is even worse
GARFIELD:He’s the Pied Piper of inappropriate, excessive crying.
Were you taking cues from his relationship with Robin and trying to take advice or anything like that?
GARFIELD:No, this was a special thing that Robin and Lin had.
That’s such a beautiful thing."
Me and him developed our own shorthand, and it happened really early on.
Are you a sadist?"
He was like, “No, no, buddy, it’s great.
I’m like, “Don’t bulls— a bulls—er.
Why are we doing this at the end of the first week?”
He was like, “I’m sorry, I lied.
It’s because we’re going to lose the location.”
From then on, there was no filter between us, and we could talk about anything.
And I’m like, “Okay, we can just take a walk and talk about it?
And I don’t have to be angry, and you don’t have to be angry?
We can just figure it out together?”
The two of you were playing two longtime best friends.
You said the set was very lovey-dovey by nature.
But what types of things did you do to establish that friendship?
Were you hanging out a lot off set?
GARFIELD:It was just immediate.
GARFIELD:Because I was a closeted musical theater person.
DE JESUS:I love when straight dudes fall in love with musical theater.
GARFIELD:I was discriminating against myself.
It starts to bring out that part of you that you didn’t know you had.
That was what I felt as soon as I was with Lin.
I felt like I had found another tribe.
But [Robin and I] screen-tested together.
We haven’t even got to read.”
It was just like, “Oh, I love this person.
And this is just right.”
I think I got benefits and insurance for the rest of the year."
It was just changing the timeline and seeing how the oppression manifested differently.
Now to get to come in and insert me is like, “That’s right.
I have a right to be here.”
I’m like, “Great.
He was like, “The day after your last performance ofAngels in America.”
I’m like, “No, I’m good.”
And he was like, “you could do it,” in that Lin way.
I was like, “I loathe you, and I love you.”
So I arrived, and I did it, and I was flattened.
It’s one thing.Tick, Tick… Boom!andAngels in Americais in the same cinematic universe.”
I get to keep close to Prior."
Because I didn’t want to let go of Prior.
I never want to do the play again in my goddamn life.
But I got to stay close to him.
Prior is a symbol of that lost generation of men.
And that’s what it felt like every night doing that play.
You could feel it every single night that we were honoring the dead.
DE JESUS:That’s why I f— with you.
Because there is something to someone who recognizes spirit and ancestry.
We were very aware that there was this other presence in the room.
And that was so cool to have that collective consciousness as opposed to the isolated experience of it.
GARFIELD:Lin sets that tone.
Lin created the space, he created the playpen, and then he wanted us to just run around.
With Jon, it was exhaustive, the preparation I did.
But it was exhaustive enough so that I could get onto set and say, “Come through me.
Do what you want to do.”
That’s when the spirit comes through.
With Jon, thank God, his spirit was ready to come through.
He was like, “I’m ready.
I’m in the starting blocks.
Just get out the way, and I will tell you where to stand.
I will tell you how to sing.
I will tell you where to be, and it will just happen.”
It was like a communing with this musical theater legend.
DE JESUS:Jonathan would make himself known.
He would just be showing up.
You’d be like, “Can you knock on the door first, hey?”
No, no, no, don’t.
He’s always welcome.
The door is open.
I stand for you."
DE JESUS:[Laughs] I forgot that.
And he was like, “Well, of course.
You always do.”
And I was like, “Okay, great.”
It made you crack up.
DE JESUS:We had to redo the take because apparently, I stopped lip-syncing.
And he texted me, and he was like, “What are you guys doing?
What is going on?”
But at the premiere the other night, Lin sat behind me.
We kept grabbing each other and holding each other.
And at that point, he was like, “I should’ve used the shirtless scene.”
Release the shirtless cut!
GARFIELD:Yeah, release the shirtless cut!
DE JESUS:We were giddy.
You know what I’m saying?
Something is going down.
How did you prepare for that and get in the right headspace?
DE JESUS:Lin had the audacity, like you, to make that my first dialogue scene.
I remember getting to set that day and thinking, “Okay, so he did me dirty.
That’s not cool.”
I felt like that was the dynamic for us.
That as much as it was my diagnosis, I also had to be his caretaker.
I had a moment where I didn’t trust that.
And then, thankfully, I leaned into it.
GARFIELD:You came ready.
I’d never seen you so intense.
I really wanted to honor Jonathan.
GARFIELD:But remember that night, there was lots of technical difficulties.
There was this 40-45 minute respite break period, and you were communing with the f–ing angels.
And I was like, “You guys are f–ing around with a hotdog stand?
Who gives a f— about the hotdog stand?
This guy is ready to explode.”
I was like, “Roll, motherf—ers.
It doesn’t matter.
Capture this s—.”
Because it was bursting out of you, and that doesn’t happen often.
DE JESUS:I have to share something with you that I never shared with you before.
And you said, “I’m so, so sorry.”
I was like, “No, no, we good.
And you said, “No, no, no.”
I didn’t know I needed to hear that.
I needed your affirmation.
I needed you to see me.
GARFIELD:I see you, baby.
GARFIELD:“What a way to spend the day.”
DE JESUS:I affirm that.
That’s better than what I was going to say.
GARFIELD:What were you going to say?
DE JESUS:“Fear or love, baby.”
That was a lesson for me.
What was that like for you?
Did you already have any familiarity with the instrument?
GARFIELD:Not at all.
I have a musical ability.
I used to play guitar when I was a kid and the clarinet.
And I love music.
I want to get as far as I can get.”
I learned “Why?”
I learned some of “30/90” by rote.
But I loved it so much.
It was just so pleasurable.
Can you punch like a southbound freight train?
Tell me just one thing.
Can you fake and deceive when you better?
Well, you might as well quit if you haven’t got it."
That’s fromBugsy Malone.
DE JESUS:See, he can sing!
Because everybody wants to shoo-da-bop-bop, shoo-da-bop-bop.
Do both of you have a dream musical theater role?
That would be crazy.
DE JESUS:For me, it’s the Baker inInto the Woods.
I want to play the Baker.
I want to play Freddy inDirty Rotten Scoundrels.
GARFIELD:Who would be your Sweeney?
DE JESUS:Can you imagine Audra [McDonald] doing Sweeney?
I would be her mini-Lovett.
What do you wish Jon could see about the film or hope heisseeing?
DE JESUS:His ripple effect that he’s lasted.
That he is the epitome of white ally-dom, too.
People bought homes because of him.
There are mother f—ers out here that can’t do that now.
The world does need more soul.
The world needs more artists.
And I improvised and was like, “Actually, yes!”
because that felt like Jon coming through.
Because I think Jon saw that art saves.
