He gazes off into the distance when talking about something deep, which happens a lot.

He’s pretty intense and compelling in real life, too. These are the latest in a long line of intense and compelling parts Garfield’s played. It’s the true story of paralysed polio sufferer Robin Cavendish, who, after being given only months to live at 28, defied medical opinion and survived into his sixties. Now he’s preparing to open the London Film Festival with his new movie ‘Breathe’. Garfield played the lead in Tony Kushner’s two-part ‘gay fantasia’ about love, sex and the gay community in New York during the ’80s Aids crisis, rarely staged because of its epic eight-hour running time. Taking a break from the big screen (and jumping across rooftops in Lycra), the 34-year-old Oscar-nominated actor has just finished a lengthy run in the National Theatre production of ‘Angels in America’.

Because, while Garfield did a two-movie stint in the red-and-blue suit, he’s in a very different place right now. Andrew Garfield is spending an afternoon posing for us on a riverside rooftop, looking out over London like Spider-Man over New York.