It’s only been ten years since Tobey Maguire took the screen as Peter Parker, but this summer’s the Amazing Spiderman is bringing the darker side of the saga to light. With a new story comes a new Spidey, and Andrew Garfield fit the bill. This is the British actors’ first leading role and he’s starring alongside “it girl” Emma Stone.
Stone and Garfield have already made the transition from on screen lovers to real ones. Here’s how this summer hottest onscreen duo got their bodies ready for their big roles!
Garfield is naturally athletic and usually stays in good shape, but the role of Spiderman was incredibly demanding. He trained non-stop for nearly four months prior to filming in order to perform the high-flying aerial stunts and fight scenes for the film. Legendary trainer Armando Alarcon was Garfields personal trainer and he developed a very specific program progression to prepare the new Spiderman for action. The first thing they worked on was injury proofing Garfield’s body. Pilates were heavily incorporated to improve both dynamic flexibility and core strength. After the flexibility and core strength goals were achieved, they began incorporating weight lifting to pack muscle on to his slender frame. The other part of the training program consisted of plyometrics and parkour. Garfield needed to be able to perform his own stunts, and the plyometrics combined with the parkour gave him the athleticism and coordination necessary to be The Amazing Spiderman.
Garfield dished on his diet and training in a Total Film Interview.
Total Film: Were you eating a special diet?
Andrew Garfield: “Yeah, that was tough: a lot of bland food and existential dilemmas… with weights in my hands. It was a very confusing time in my life.”
Total Film: How many hours a day did you have to work out?
Andrew Garfield: “For four months prior we did… don’t get too excited… seven hours a day, for four months, but two hours was body work and the next three or four hours was all the other stuff like the harness stuff, gymnastics, parkour training, wire work and all that, but it was like summer camp, it was like circus school. Just pure fun.”
Seven hours a day? Now that’s dedication.
Emma Stone is the other side to this dynamic duo playing the role of Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s love interest. The role of Gwen is nowhere near as demanding as playing Spiderman, but that doesn’t mean Emma got to take it easy. She is notoriously opposed to vigorous exercise and dieting. In fact, she couldn’t even do a pushup when she landed the role. But in order to play Gwen she didn’t really have a choice.
She expressed her feelings on weight lifting in an On The Red Carpet interview.
“I had a trainer during ‘Spider-Man’ and I discovered I have deep-seated rage when I’m holding heavy weights over my head. Whatever dormant anger I have in me, that’s where it comes out. That’s not the kind of working out I want to do.”
Stone used the same trainer as Garfield before filming, but she followed a different program. She worked with Alarcon 3-5 days a week for around two hours a session. The bulk of her program consisted of balance and functional core movements combined with lots of push-ups and vigorous cardio circuits. Emma didn’t have to train full-time like Garfield did, but it obviously worked. She’s been showing off her new fit physique on red carpets all over the globe and landed herself on Maxim’s Hot 100 list.
Be sure to check out this fit couple in The Amazing Spiderman!
A True Man of Honour!!