Andrew Garfield cries after reading a man's moving essay about love and heartbreak

In his latest movie, "We Live in Time," Andrew Garfield plays a man named Tobias who falls in love with a chef named Almut, played by Florence Pugh. From the moment they cross each other’s paths in a doctor’s office, the couple navigates life, battling the complexities of love, time, and loss. In an episode of "Modern Love" by The New York Times Podcasts (@nytpodcasts), Garfield appeared as a guest to promote this film and read the essay "Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss" by Chris Huntington. While reading the piece, the 41-year-old star's voice quivered with such raw emotion that the podcasters remarked, "His reading was unlike any other in the history of this show."

When asked why Garfield chose to read this particular essay in the episode, he told the podcast host, Anna Martin, that he didn’t, actually. “This essay chose me. It felt like I was being dragged towards it and diving inside it simultaneously. It does the magic trick,” the actor told Martin. Then, after a pause, he started reading Huntington’s essay.

But what makes this essay so compelling? According to Patricia Daher Huber on Instagram, the author Chris Huntington, "explores the complexities of measuring time through the lens of deep emotional experiences like love and loss." Going further, she added, "His essay encourages readers to find meaning and presence in each moment, suggesting that love and loss reshape our perceptions of time, creating a more nuanced understanding of life’s rhythms." 

As Garfield arrived at the part of the essay that read, "My wife hasn’t worn a bikini for six years and probably never will again; she says she’s too old, which makes me sad. She is a beautiful woman with grey in her hair. My parents no longer drive at night...," he paused and apologized to the host, choking with emotion.

After the host asked him if he needed a break, Garfield wiped his tears and replied that he would continue reciting the essay. At this point, the host became curious and asked Garfield, "Can I ask you what’s hitting you so much in this section?"

He responded, "I don’t know; it’s mysterious. It’s why art is so important—because it can get us to places that we can’t get to any other way. It’s the preciousness we’ve been talking about, and it’s the longing for more. It’s like we all pass with so much more to know, with so much more longing."

“I don’t know. I don’t know why it’s affecting me so deeply. But I feel this man’s writing, and it feels like for all of us, it’s tapping into something so universal, a longing to be here,” the actor said, his voice vibrating with raw feeling.

“There are moments in our film when I watched it in Toronto with an audience, where all I saw—in the quiet moments, particularly after a diagnosis or something heavy—was two people who want to live. They’re not asking for much; they just want their fair shot at creating a life. And I think that's all of us. I think we all just want our fair short at creating a life,” Garfield added.

Garfield cracked open his heart and expressed his vulnerability by confessing he felt sadness at the “transience of life.”

“You can’t hold on to anything. This life is all a letting go. It's all so transient and it's all so leaving constantly,” he said. Also, he talked about emotions like sadness, hopelessness and peace. “Where the emotion lay for you,” Martin asked the actor at one point in the episode. In response, Garfield said, “There’s no joy without sorrow. There’s no sorrow without joy.”