Andrew Garfield Hopes ‘The Uprising’ Makes Billionaires “Scared Sh*tless”: “They’re The Most Soul Sick”

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Andrew Garfield has said he hopes his new film The Uprising leaves the world's billionaires unsettled, casting the medieval rebellion drama as a pointed message to today's ultra-wealthy. Directed by Paul Greengrass, the film reimagines the historical unrest that gave rise to the legend of Robin Hood, with Garfield playing a farmer known as Ploughman who raises an army against the Crown's punishing taxation in the aftermath of plague. Speaking at a Q&A alongside Greengrass, Garfield made clear he wants the film's audience to extend well beyond typical cinema-goers.

Asked what he hoped viewers would take from the film, Garfield said he first simply wanted people to watch it, but went further in describing his ambitions for its impact. He said he hoped the story would prove "galvanising", allowing audiences to see their own present-day hardships mirrored in the struggles of characters from centuries past, and that the film might even point toward some kind of collective response. Pushed on who exactly he had in mind, Garfield did not hold back, saying he hoped that any billionaires who saw the film would come away "scared shitless".

The conversation turned to a line from the film – that there can be no peace until people are healed – which Greengrass suggested was as relevant to modern society as it was some six centuries ago. Garfield built on the point by extending that need for healing to the very wealthy themselves, describing billionaires as potentially the most "soul sick" among us and suggesting they may be in the greatest need of the kind of reckoning the film depicts.

Garfield has made similar arguments in other recent interviews, drawing direct parallels between the brutal taxation, government incompetence and dehumanising treatment of the poor depicted in the film and conditions he sees persisting today in Britain, the United States and elsewhere. He has also described the film as something of a Rorschach test, acknowledging that viewers across the political spectrum might claim it reflects their own grievances, while distancing its themes from those invoked by right-wing nationalist figures such as Tommy Robinson. The two accounts of Garfield's comments differ slightly in focus: one centres on the reactions from a screening tied to the film's US release date, while the other draws in additional remarks Garfield made separately about the film's contemporary resonance and its potential to be read differently by audiences of varying political views. One report's description of the film's setting also appears inconsistent with the other's, underscoring that some surrounding factual details vary between sources even as Garfield's quotes are consistent across both.

• deadline.com
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