Ag 2

By Asa Montreaux 

Throughout filming I lived on the set. Usually in a dressing room in the studios, or when we were away from the set and out filming in the city or wherever, I slept in the trailer. Though at one point during filming the studio felt I should have a place to sleep more proper. Inevitably it would have been this Dad of mine that said I don’t feel comfortable with him sleeping there. Though switching me into nicer digs was only a bit of a trick by me. I think he may have even wanted the actor, that being me, to sleep on the streets.

So other news, surprise, I’d been seeing Emma Stone. At some point during the film, well right away really, we’d been spending time together romantically, alright all our time. And I suppose this little house, I only say little in reference to the homes of actors you see on the internet and such, is somewhere where she moved in with me.

In some ways she found me peculiar, though I suppose there was only one real way. It was that I had to sleep in my own bedroom. I had issues with women pulling my hair. Yes, Andrew Garfield could not go losing his hair. It was easier to understand if you knew that these parents were people that tried to pull my hair, and they ordered other people to pull it when they felt they didn’t have the chance. So the women I was seeing. It’s funny I remember seeing her on tv outside the house, talking about what it was like to live with me. When they asked her these questions, I suppose the first thing she mentioned was that I slept in my own room. So he doesn’t have his hair pulled, she said. What’s he like? He’s weird, she said. Do you pull hair? They asked her. She looked consternated, and then she said no.

The process of continuing filming was fun. On set and in scenes I tried to find a flow, so I could be fully in the scene. The Dad asked me if I knew I wasn’t Peter Parker, and it became probably his favorite question. I wasn’t anyone that walked around the set and played Peter Parker, but sometimes I did. It was a laugh, and the fact the man was like evaluating me for like a weird psychosis wasn’t going to spoil all the fun. But in the actual scene, I probably had all but convinced myself I was the character.

It was everyday someone wanted to interview me, often someone would walk on set and every now and then I’d have to leave set, and they would pause filming, and give a five, ten minute interview. And every day after filming wrapped there was a throng of reporters outside and I would answer questions. Mostly they were about the movie. Sometimes they were about the crazy Dad mister, and my private life. And then well, about Emma, and what was happening there. Eventually those started to be some of the main questions. 

While we were there filming Emma and I were supposed to promote the movie, or hold ourselves to a high professional standard. Which actually meant we were supposed to live up to being movie stars. We were supposed to be seen out and about, acting happy, and in love. I suppose our job was to act 24/7. I did truly like her, so that made it sort of an authentic experience, but I’ve never so had a feeling of entirely almost being a phony, at least when we were out of the house.

We would go to dinners, we would go to night clubs, but drink in moderation. We would go to parties, but only ones were we would mingle. I found myself talking and talking to the point where people may have thought I had a problem. 

While we were there the dressing room and the trailer and the house were covered, or I suppose they would come out of my pay later. And they had. But it was getting hard for them to pay me so I came up with the idea of an expense account. That was where the idea of the undercover rent had come from in the first place, a man trying to steal from me. He had probably considered anything in my back accounts fair play.

So I had 50,000 spending money for the filming of the movie. And this was where they came in, in the context of our negotiation. I had to spend as much as possible, to maintain the appearance of wealth and celebrity. In one of our many talks and I suppose arguments, I stated I couldn’t seriously afford a nicer car, and by the end of it, they got me a loan for a Porsche. So that was a covered expense as well. Though I will add near the end someone had been calling and saying to add on the car payments to use the money up, and to make me pay for everything. I suppose it’s obvious it was this Dad.

I would often meditate wistfully or perhaps just wanly about the irony of having to spend 50,000 dollars so quickly. The wastefulness of it was shameful, and it would come back to haunt me, but I truly had no choice. I wouldn’t get to keep it.

By the time filming was done, I had to go up to Vancouver. Spoiler alert, I’m not actually anyone that spent much time up there at all. I lived most of my life in Los Angeles and some in London. This man was calling and saying I needed to go visit him for whatever reasons. He was my father, he said.

So it was to Vancouver the Sony pictures sent a 500,000 dollar check. I suppose I said it should probably be in my name and they said yes it should, though Dad man felt it would be great if it was in Andrew G’s name.

Not to worry they said, they’d just direct deposit it. So the check came and the man had asked me to go in to the bank and deposit it. Before it came he’d already called Sony(take this man’s phone!) and said I wouldn’t hand the cheque in, cash he may have meant. 

When I went to the bank I had an encounter that probably negatively changed my life in a big way. I went to cash the cheque and they said sorry, this is not you. You’re not this person. IT was just a young Asian woman sitting there and I couldn’t understand exactly why she was so starstruck. Though she couldn’t seem to believe this for the life of her, and the woman next to her, she seemed to have gotten by and they both had to stare at my back account. From the weird look in their eyes, I could swear they wanted to steal. It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen.

I guess something I have to mention is it was always Scotiabank with this Dad. He said it had to be this bank though it wasn’t anywhere I wanted my money. It was a bad bank and it was where he banked.

I guess in that moment those two figured they would steal money by being in on it with the ‘father’. Looking back, it was the fact they knew it wasn’t really my father that made them do it, want to steal it. It was agonizing sort of reading their minds, they hadn’t known in the least I completely knew he was basically anyone. I could see in the future they might even try going on I’m not Andrew Garfield, and just lie and try to carry on an elaborate fiction, and steal everything out of the account without me supposedly knowing. No, this wouldn’t be the direct deposit for forever. And no, there wouldn’t be any point in the future were they get so good at conning me I wouldn’t be able to read numbers, as they had to remember though they couldn’t, because they hadn’t known. I knew it wasn’t my real Dad. He was only someone who had tried to kidnap me with guns even many, many times.

But there was a man working there that came out of the office, and he sort of was on their side. Naturally, as someone that worked there. I suppose he listened to us talking a little. And they had asked me what the maximum size of a cheque was. It was twenty five million, I said. That’s right, he said. And he said put the check through.

I walked out of there with a tv crew watching me. They’d seen about half. They only asked me am I the real Andrew G. Silly Vancouver stuff. Yes, I said. I am.

It was funny watching it from home. I could have sworn when I said that those women looked struck dead. And I saw, when I replied with that, there eyes shot open, and their jaws flopped open. They wouldn’t have admitted it to all their girlfriends. But they said as I as walking away, the guy already knows, and our plan is all foiled. We’re not going to tell our friends, one of them said. The other one gawked at her. Then the first one said, I already told all the girls in the city. 

I really didn’t shutter as I walked away. I actually thought that was awful, that they thought they’d get all a young man’s money. And they truly wouldn’t beat me was the funny part. But I saw what would happen to my salary. I wouldn’t receive money anymore. I’d probably get one tenth as can sometimes happen, and then I’d get nothing at all. The studio had already told me, they absolutely hated when young women try to steal money. And they consider it my responsibility, and my fault if they are ready to do that. Well, I would say if I could do that meeting again and not get fired for it, that I was ten years old. I was only a short little boy playing a grown man. Almost a 30 year old man. Anyways, as I walked away and toward my car I guess, there more reporters. They asked me who I was. Twenty-five cents, I said. They had seemed to know what I meant, and so I smiled gleefully and really with bitten back torment, that even the old women in the city or perhaps the middle-aged women in the city, were in on it too. But of course I was not twenty five cents. The one million woman in Greater Vancouver were the ones that would split my taxed 500,000 for a worthless twenty five cents each.

After this I was kind of left with nothing to do, at least as Mr. Andrew Garfield. There wasn’t really a thing to act in, and it made me wonder always how people perceived. I think they got well enough that I’d work forty fifty hours during filming, but the rest of time I kind of felt they see me as a loaf. I kind of agreed at time. So I got to getting myself in another movie.

But I wanted to be in something that I wanted to be in. Spiderman hit the right chord, it brought me up to being a star, certainly. But people wondered at my career decision as I was a a serious actor. The answer to that was a movie that would be well-received, or that would be a return to form as a serious dramatic actor. I envisioned something that would be a box office hit. Though I understood from everything I thought about concerning Spiderman that it wouldn’t be the same box office as aS uperhero movie.

I had this story in mind, and it was the story of Facebook. Not the story of a company rising up, but of the real beginning, of the sheer ruthlessness I’d heard about. Friends getting together, cutting best friends out. Bringing in big partners to replace original ones. I started just putting some ideas for a whole story and script together and as. I started writing about it I started calling around about it. Though usually when people would call me, they would just ask me what I had. It was actually a great idea, so anyone said. Facebook was anything anyone heard about. 

There was a new biography or I suppose account of what happened, though I felt truly that fiction only had adhere to truth in the leanest of ways. It wasn’t before long there was even a bidding war for this screenplay.  There were a few major players, major studios for sure, though in the end Columbia pictures picked it up. It was great they wanted to support their leading actor. Though in a way it seemed like a big spend, and it made me anxious they might not want to pay me. Especially considering Universal or anyone was absolutely ready to pick it up. And to tell the truth, Sony (Columbia) was strapped for cash I was worried they wouldn’t put the budget up for a really good movie. And really, the level of control they seemed to be seeking over me was harrowing as well. It seemed they wanted to control every aspect of not just my life but my personality. It was still good news it was being made. So there was something to look forward to.

The script I had they took and they said will get this rewrote. Andrew Garfield as the writer? Come on. First of all I was just an actor or so most people feel, and second I was just a kid. The studio hiring someone for a rewrite or a reworking or redoing of the script was fine. As long as I was in it, though I would not say. Writers are anyone picked on, though actors are respected, and while writers are often easily replaced, actors are not. Writers sometimes do not receive credit, but actors always do. So they hired Aaron Sorkin.

It was strange talking to the guy on the phone. He said he’d rewrite the whole thing. Well, alright. And it was not bad. Actually, it was terrible, he said to himself. Did you read the book? He asked me. I had read it. He hadn’t read it. Was it based of the book, he asked. No, I said. Not really. It was he said. He said he’d get back to me when he’d seen where it went. When he was done I suppose.

When he got back to me the script I received was hardly changed. I counted and the answer I had was he probably changed only three lines. Did you read it, he asked. Yea, I said.

Not bad right, he asked. I changed quite a bit. Yea, I lied. No he really hadn’t change anything, I thought to myself. It was really not bad, he said. I hadn’t had the time review it, he said. I suppose we didn’t talk about too much else but I suppose he got right to it. It was right after he said so listen the standard pay is 300,000 grand. But it wasn’t five. Five million.

Ah, I said. I was trying to be on my feet and I wanted the movie made without all this hitches adding up, as I reasoned they always do. Yes, I said. Of course we can do that no problem.

Well, why not mo… and I cut him off. Ah, I said. We can do that, but we can’t do more. That was a quite lascivious number. It was, he said, and laughed. Then he said okay, and he hung up.