Irish-American actor Martin Sheen admits he felt like he, Andrew Garfield and Sally Field were starring in a family drama instead of an action picture when they were shooting their scenes for “The Amazing Spider-Man.”
In the re-boot of the franchise, Sheen and Field play Uncle Ben and Aunt May, the kindhearted, hard-working adoptive parents of Garfield’s Peter Parker -- a brilliant, usually well-behaved teen
who becomes uncharacteristically overwhelmed and frustrated dealing with the disappearance of his parents, a crush on his classmate Gwen Stacy (played by Emma Stone) and extraordinary new powers he doesn’t know how to use or control after being bitten by a genetically mutated spider.
While the 3D picture offers some of the most stunning special effects ever captured on-screen, Sheen’s and Field’s excellent performances ground the story, while Garfield gives the audience a superhero they can relate to and care about.
“I think Sally will confirm that our great director, Marc Webb, wanted us to be as simple and direct and honest with each other and just enjoy each other’s company and not to play any image of the characters, who are very well known,” Sheen told the Irish Echo at a recent press conference in New York.
“To just forget all that and make contact with each other and enjoy what we were doing and make it alive and personal. Because if it’s not personal, it’s impersonal and if it’s impersonal, who cares? We knew those relationships would ground the whole story and that was important.
“So that’s all we focused on and watching this young man -- and I know Sally would agree -- this is a very, very special guy, Andrew Garfield, who is now launched and rightly so. But watching him work was so gratifying. He was so generous with us because he had to do some very heavy emotional work and, boy, the set was on fire when he went to those places. But then he would do an equally intense performance off-camera for our reactions and that was an enormous leap of generosity to his fellow actors. That really endeared him to me and Sally, too. … But we laughed a lot, too,” said the 71-year-old former star of TV’s “The West Wing,” as well as the films “The Subject was Roses,” “Badlands,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The American President,” “The Departed,” “Stella Days” and “The Way.”
Field, the 65-year-old star of “Forrest Gump,” “Murphy’s Romance,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Absence of Malice,” and “Norma Rae” and TV shows “Gidget” and “The Flying Nun,” said “Spider-Man” felt to her like working on a “little kitchen drama” since Aunt May, Uncle Ben and Peter have some very emotional scenes in and around the family home, far away from Spider-Man’s crime-fighting exploits.
“It gets very heated. It’s very troubling what’s going on. As far as we know, we were shooting a little kitchen drama in a way and what was bizarre for me -- because I’ve been doing this a long time -- but we were shooting a little kitchen scene in a very confined atmosphere with a handheld 3D camera,” Field recalled. “There was a little part of me saying: ‘Sweet Mother of God. This is a 3D camera this far away from my face. I’m not going to see this movie ever.’ And it’s kind of amazing and Andrew and I had to do these fight scenes that we had, not losing your focus, while really maneuvering around these huge pieces of equipment and this phenomenal operator is trying to maneuver around us and the furniture. It was a technically fascinating experience.”
Sheen, a recent student at the National University of Ireland in Galway whose mother was born in Borrisokane, Co. Tipperary, said he is thrilled to still be doing what he loves at this stage in his life.
“At my age, and at this time in my career, I’m delighted to be living, let alone working,” he joked with reporters at the press conference. “So, I give thanks and praise each day that I’m able to get up and walk around and still be able to work and to make my living doing what I love the most. So whether it’s big budget or small budget, I’m just delighted to still be on the team.”
One of the draws of being in this particular flick was that Field, Denis Leary and Campbell Scott also were part of the cast, he said.
“I knew it was going to be a sweet ride and I got to play a character … you know, I’m a father and a husband and a grandfather, so I have some familiarity with raising kids and grandkids. Albeit not always successfully,” chuckled the father of four grown children, including actors Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez. “I’ll take the rap for it. There have been some pratfalls and all kinds of other things. But I think one of the things that really fascinated me about Spider-Man, the character, is that he is dealing with what all young people today, particularly in our society, are just absolutely fractured by and that is peer pressure. And he’s saying, bottom line, when you hear that voice inside that’s calling you to step up, to be your better self, it’s going to cost you. But that’s the only way you can become free and that’s the only way you can become yourself. But anything that’s worthwhile is going to cost you. If it doesn’t, then you have to question its value.”
“The Amazing Spider-Man” opens nationwide July 3.
