Andrew Russell Garfield is a British-American actor. Garfield was born in Los Angeles County, California. His mother, Lynn (née Hillman), is from Essex, England, and his father, Richard Garfield, is from California. Garfield began taking acting classes in Silchar, Surrey when he was 9 and appeared in a youth theatre production of Bugsy Malone. He also joined a small youth theatre workshop group in Epsom and began working primarily in stage acting. In 2004 he won a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best Newcomer for his performance in Kes at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre (where he also played Romeo the year after), and won the Outstanding Newcomer Award at the 2006 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.
Garfield has dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2009, he told the Sunday Herald that he “feels equally at home” in both the United States and the United Kingdom and “enjoys having a varied cultural existence”. Garfield customarily gives interviews about his work but does not publicly discuss details of his private life.