Andrew Garfield says 'gay man' comments were taken out of context

After coming under fire for calling himself a “gay man” but “without the physical act,” Andrew Garfield says his comments were taken out of context.

“That’s of course not what I meant at all,” Garfield said in an interview with BBC’s Newsbeat. “That discussion was about this play and how deeply grateful I am that I get to work on something so profound. It’s a love letter to the LGBTQ community. We were talking about, ‘How do you prepare for something so important and so big?’ and I was basically saying, ‘I dive in as fully as I possibly can.'”

Garfield is currently starring as a man living with AIDS in a production of Angels in America in London, and earlier this month, he spoke about preparing for the role by immersing himself in gay culture (like by binging episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race). “I am a gay man right now, just without the physical act,” he said at the time. He was then criticized by members of the LGBTQ community, who accused him of trivializing the issues faced by gay men and women or simplifying what it means to be gay.

In the new interview, Garfield also reiterated that he feels privileged to be a part of a play as influential as Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, which takes a deep dive into the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and American views on LGBTQ issues.

“My only longing is to serve and to keep the world spinning forward for the LGBTQ community in whatever way I’m meant to,” he added. “It’s important to a community that I feel so welcomed by. The intention [in my comments] was to speak to that, speak to my desire to play this part to the best of my ability and to fully immerse myself in a culture that I adore.”