Watch Andrew Garfield flirt his way through grief
We're all blushing at the actor’s appearance on 'Chicken Shop Date,' where he teaches a master class on the erotic exuberance of life after loss.
"I’ll write something light this week,” I thought when I contemplated a short newsletter about a viral video that I had fun watching a few days ago of actor Andrew Garfield being interviewed by the comedian Amelia Dimoldenberg on her YouTube show “Chicken Shop Date.”
The idea behind the video is that Dimoldenberg hosts "dates" with musicians, comedians, actors, etc at chicken shops around the UK. It’s a playful twist on the late night talk show format. Recent guests have included Shania Twain, Cher, Ryan Reynolds, and the Jonas Brothers.
But this most recent video with Garfield stands out from all the others because it appears to feature two people experiencing actual butterflies-in-the-stomach chemistry. This isn’t exactly a meet cute, but it’s pretty close. You can feel their heart rates speed up, the flush rise in their cheeks. They stumble on their words and drop hints about what they might be.
It’s a very meta conversation about what is happening. Either an expert performance from two gifted actors who know how to put on a show or the sheer magic that happens when two people realize that their whole life might be changing in front of their eyes.
Garfield is on a media tour for his new film, “We Live in Time,” a movie coming out this month about a couple who has to confront death when one of them gets a terminal cancer diagnosis.
As part of Garfield’s promo for the film, he’s doing lots of interviews and appearances, and almost all of them become an opportunity for him to talk about grief. His mom died in 2019 of pancreatic cancer, and he has spoken tearfully and openly about how this loss has shaped his personal and professional life.
"It’s actually kind of okay to miss somebody,” he tearfully tells his furry friend Elmo in another viral clip I saw on social media this week.
But that’s not the Andrew Garfield we see in this video.
This is Andrew Garfield, the flirt. The bachelor. The guy looking for a girl who can make him laugh and realizing maybe he just found her. (I admittedly know very little about either of them, but stick with me here.)
It’s the precise kind of erotic tension that Esther Perel writes about in her 2006 book “Mating In Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence,” in which she explores the tension between the need for familiarity and mystery in romantic relationships. Freedom and security, novelty and predictability.
“Modernity has reduced eroticism to sex. In the mystical sense, eroticism is been about aliveness,” she said in a recent interview with Miranda July. “Sex is the basic instinct, but eroticism is what gives us vibrancy, vitality, curiosity, playfulness.”
It’s a duality, like the others that Perel writes about, that keeps the world spinning.
That’s why I couldn’t stop thinking about this video. There’s so much alive-ness in it, and I can think of nothing that makes one feel alive more than the presence of death.
This is grief, the mixing of the bitter and the sweet that comes as we make meaning of our lives in the wake of profound, soul-shaping loss.
Perel’s career is rooted in the aliveness that comes from grief. She grew up in a Belgian community where everyone had lost family members and friends in the Holocaust, and yet they found ways to laugh and dance and marvel at the world, even in their devastation.
She wondered: How can people who have lost so much still have access to this innate desire? She has spent her career helping people, in the face of intense trauma, find their “taste of life.”
I have no idea if Amelia, the woman sitting across the table from him, has experienced this kind of grief, this fissure, this hole that you have to learn how to live with.
But I’m sure it’s a question on his heart. Because when you date after the loss of a parent, the divide between the “haves” and “have nots” — in this case, the people who have lost a parent and those who haven’t — is so great that it is often unconquerable.
Regardless of what happens with these lovers, there’s a lot to learn about life after death in this Chicken Shop Date video that features a 41-year-old man who seems to be aware of the bubbly feelings percolating just under the surface.
An actor in the peak of his career without a mom to cheer him on.
A son who is more alive than ever because of that grief.
A flirty star who accidentally gave us a master class in how loss shapes the erotic self.
I hope this week’s newsletter finds you well, readers!
I’m back from Louisiana, where Julian and I watched 20 short films at Prize Fest last weekend and met tons of creative filmmakers, many of whom were generous with their advice, encouragement and insight. I left Shreveport feeling incredibly grateful for artists who are as welcoming as they are talented.
I love that I set out to write something lighthearted and ended up where I always do.
This week’s post was unexpected, even for me, but the more I thought about this Chicken Shop Date video and Esther’s ideas about eroticism, the more I wanted to write about it through the lens of the Invisible Thread.
Perel has become a popular force in America because she has a way of unlocking within us some ideas that the traditional cultural system might not have allowed. Such as this nuanced idea about the connection between our overall happiness, our deepest grief, and the health of our erotic self, and that none of this is about sex.
What makes us feel alive?
How can we cultivate that sense of aliveness when things start to feel like they are becoming stagnant?
What does grief have to do with the excitement of the unknown?
If you haven’t listened to Perel’s podcast, “Where Should We Begin?,” I’d suggest downloading a few episodes. She has so many wise things to say about maintaining healthy relationships, and not just the romantic ones.
Thanks so much for all your support of this newsletter! Subscriber support means I can invest my time into this platform and get these stories out into the world.
What a gift.
Addie