Andrew Garfield ‘Always Felt Like Peter Parker’

Andrew Garfield.

Andrew Garfield is playing Peter Parker in next week's The Amazing Spider-Man, so naturally he understands that with great power comes great responsibility: The actor has teamed up with the Worldwide Orphans Foundation to help kids without parents around the globe. At a cocktail party for the organization earlier this week, Garfield told us that it wasn't too much of a stretch for him to get into his latest character. "I always felt like I was Peter Parker," he said. "Because I was a skinny kid — a skinny, short kid, and I felt stronger on the inside than I was on the outside. I wanted to do good and stand up for the underdog, but didn't have the power to do that and I'd get black eyes because of it." (Where's that Spidey sense when you need it?)

"I felt not really like an outcast," he added, "but I felt confused by the bullying. I felt confused by the lack of love from certain people." (Emma Stone: lucky, lucky woman.) So how did he feel about returning to school for a movie, given that young people can clearly be the pits? "I loved it," he said. "Who doesn't dream about redoing high school again and doing it differently? Especially as Spider-Man." And even though he doesn't totally understand the kids these days, with all their "interconnectedness and distraction and ADD," he was happy to see that some things haven't changed: They're still skateboarding — as Garfield did as a teenager and as Parker does in the movie — and they're still listening to hip-hop. "They're into more modern hip-hop than I was," Garfield admits. But "it was reassuring that I didn't feel that out of touch."

.