'Never' actor can't bear to watch himself in his own films

At the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, Andrew Garfield was riding high.

The 27-year-old actor, born in Los Angeles and raised in England, was at the Park Hyatt Hotel to talk about "Never Let Me Go," director Mark Romanek's rendering of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, but he's also in another not-so-little movie about Facebook ("The Social Network") and he's about to start work as the new Peter Parker in a very big reboot of "Spider-Man."

As well are things are going, however, Garfield still can't watch his own movies.

With a film like "Never Let Me Go," he said, "It's like seeing your soul recorded back. It's really upsetting."

Garfield added that watching himself makes him too conscious of his movements as an actor.

"In my real life I'm going to be too worried about how I come across," he said. "I don't see any positives."

Without giving too much away about "Never Let Me Go," it's very much a film about death and Garfield said he was drawn to the role because the story dealt with "the inevitability of what bonds all of us and how we have no frame of reference to deal with it."

"It's about how people accept a bad situation," Garfield said, "and it's a beautiful, existential dilemma of a film. It makes you ruminate."

As for the differences in working with Romanek and his "Social Network" director, David Fincher ("Se7en"), "Every director has a different way of working," Garfield said. "Mark was very liberating. Fincher was very exact in what should be felt and how a line should be delivered."

The soon-to-be famous actor graduated from drama school in 2004 and said it was his earlier studies and the support of faculty that got him into acting. "Everyone has at least one great teacher in their life," he said, "someone who's very encouraging."

He burst onto the movie scene in 2007 with "Boy A," in which he played a young murderer released from prison.

"I watched it and I was distraught," he said. "Then I watched it again and was more distraught. But people really liked it and it confused the heck out of me."

Heading into Spider-Man, and the pressure of carrying a giant franchise, Garfield said, "No one's ready for that.

"I'm trying to look at it like I'm just doing another movie.

"It's a role that's meant a lot to me since I was 4 years old and I'm going to play it just like I played it in my living room - my mum's homemade costume was pretty wicked."

He added that he doesn't see any difference between acting in an art house film like "Never Let Me Go" or slinging webs as Spider-Man. He doesn't look down on the comic character at all.

"It's a mythology," he said. "[Peter Parker's] struggle is the same as every young boy's struggle. I find it just as rich."