Andrew Garfield Still Believes a Gay Spider-Man Could Happen: “Anyone Can Be in That Suit”

Andrew Garfield is once again making the case for a more inclusive Spider-Man. More than a decade after first floating the idea, the former webslinger reaffirmed his belief that a gay version of the character could still happen.

“I just still believe that anyone can be in that suit,” Garfield told Entertainment Weekly ahead of his latest film, The Uprising. “That’s the point of why it’s such a universally beloved character… because you don’t see skin color, you don’t see gender, you don’t see sexuality. Anyone can project themselves into that suit.

Garfield, who played Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man films, first raised the idea in a 2013 EW interview, suggesting that Mary Jane Watson could be a man and that Peter could explore his sexuality. He even floated Michael B. Jordan as a potential male MJ.

Reflecting on those comments more than a decade later, Garfield described them as “an exercise in rebellion that I felt passionate about”. He noted that he was pressured to retract his remarks at the time, but his views haven’t changed. “I like the idea of a place where everyone is being honored and everyone is being included,” he said.

While no live-action Spider-Man has been queer on screen, the animated Spider-Verse films have featured Miles Morales as a Black Spider-Man and alternate versions of the hero. Marvel Comics introduced Cooper Coen, aka Web-Weaver, as the first gay Spider-Man in 2022.