Andrew Garfield has a blunt message for the ultra-wealthy who might watch his new historical drama: be afraid. The actor stars in The Uprising, a medieval epic about class revolt, and he didn’t mince words about its modern resonance for the world’s richest people.
Andrew Garfield hopes The Uprising makes the world’s richest uneasy
During a recent Q&A alongside director Paul Greengrass, Garfield said he hopes the film triggers unease among billionaires, not just sympathy for its 14th-century rebels. The Uprising reimagines the peasant rebellion that inspired the Robin Hood legend.
Garfield plays Ploughman, a laborer who builds an army to fight the tyranny of King Richard II. The story focuses on brutal taxation, government incompetence, and the dehumanization of the underclass.
When asked what audiences should take from the movie, Garfield first said he hopes people simply show up. “I hope it’s galvanizing,” he said. “I hope there’s some awakening that people feel, that they feel that their own, that we all feel like our own struggles are being reflected in the struggles of these characters from a distant time and place, and that it could be directive. And I hope that if any billionaires watch it, they’re scared s—less.”
The moderator later quoted a key line from the film: “There will be no peace until we are healed.” Greengrass called that sentiment as true now as it was 600 years ago. Garfield went further, targeting the rich. “I’m going to include the billionaires in that as well, because they’re the ones that might be the most soul sick,” Garfield added. “They’re the ones that might need the healing the most in a way.”
He previously told Esquire that the 14th century featured brutal conditions for working-class people, heavy post-plague taxation, and leaders who saw the poor as subhuman. Asked if those patterns persist today, Garfield said they do, both in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Andrew Garfield also called The Uprising a “Rorschach test,” predicting that viewers across the political spectrum might project their own grievances onto the story. The movie is releasing on September 10.
