Andrew Garfield on Immersing Himself in Mormon Culture for FX’s ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’: ‘I Like a Challenge’
variety.comAngelique Jackson It’s only been about three weeks since the end of awards season, but, on Wednesday night, Oscar nominee Andrew Garfield was back on a red carpet in Hollywood for the premiere of his new series, “Under the Banner of Heaven.”The FX project marks Garfield’s first miniseries, with the actor playing Detective Jeb Pyre, a Mormon man whose faith is shaken by an unthinkable crime.
Based on the non-fiction book by Jon Krakauer, the show’s seven episodes follow the events that led to the 1984 murder of Brenda Wright Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her baby daughter in a Salt Lake Valley, Utah suburb.
Over the course of the series, Pyre uncovers buried truths about the origins of his religion and the violent consequences of unyielding faith amid the real-life events which transpired within the Lafferty family. “I loved the book when it first came out 10 years ago, I kind of gobbled it up.
The themes are so interesting to me,” Garfield told Variety, recounting how he boarded the project. “Then you combine that with Dustin Lance Black [the series’ creator], who has a very, very personal connection to the story — and I love him as a writer and he’s a really great director too — it felt like a very easy yes.”The actor also noted that Pyre is unlike any other character he’s played.“He’s very understated, a solid center of the story that was the audience’s eyes in that way,” Garfield explained. “Not flashy, a very solid dude, and internal.
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