Andrew Garfield played Sam Altman in a film Amazon dropped. He's relieved it's over.

Andrew Garfield is done playing Sam Altman, and he is not sorry about it. In an interview with Esquire U.K. published Tuesday, the actor said of his turn as the OpenAI CEO in Luca Guadagnino's upcoming film 'Artificial': 'Thank God that's over.' The film, written by Simon Rich, chronicles the five-day corporate saga in November 2023 when OpenAI's board abruptly fired Altman, triggering an employee revolt and a scramble for control before Altman was reinstated. The project was dropped by Amazon MGM in June despite being nearly complete, a decision that came just months after Amazon announced a $50 billion investment and partnership with OpenAI. Neon later acquired the film for worldwide theatrical distribution after Netflix and Focus Features passed.

Garfield's relief is not a knock on the material. He told Esquire he was drawn to Altman after originally being in the running to play Mark Zuckerberg in 2010's 'The Social Network,' a part that went to Jesse Eisenberg while Garfield played Eduardo Saverin. 'I definitely feel I'm closer to understanding the drives, the psychology,' he said. His read on Altman: "With Sam, everything's a game. It's a game, and everything gets very, very simple. It's, 'I know I have to win this game, because I am the most "good" person, and if I don't win this game, Elon Musk wins this game.'"

Garfield was clear that he never met Altman. 'I don't know Sam Altman. I've never met him,' he said, adding that he worked from the script, court transcripts, interviews, and research. He also offered a sharp observation about what it takes to run a company like OpenAI: 'I think anyone who takes on that level of responsibility for a company or a technology that you know is going to do a hell of a lot of damage to the soul of humanity [must have] a certain ability to dissociate.'

The role was a deliberate departure from the sensitive, empathetic characters he is known for. But it came at a cost. Garfield described his 'from the inside out process' as an actor, which requires finding an essence of the character inside himself. "What Jung would call 'the shadow self,'" he said, 'the aspects of ourselves that we disown. There's something there for me to integrate, because I'm so afraid of being it.' He felt the same way about Hank, the sexual predator he played in Guadagnino's 'After the Hunt.'

Garfield's discomfort is part of why the performance may resonate. The OpenAI boardroom drama is one of the defining tech stories of the decade, and 'Artificial' arrives with unusual baggage. Amazon MGM's decision to drop the film in June, despite its near-completion, raised questions about whether the studio's deepening ties to OpenAI played a role. The $50 billion investment and partnership Amazon announced months earlier only sharpened those questions. Neon's pickup gives the film a theatrical future, but no release date has been set.

For executives, the Altman saga is a case study in how quickly board power can be tested. In November 2023, OpenAI's board fired Altman, employees revolted, and within days he was back as CEO. The film compresses that chaos into five days. The fact that Garfield, an actor known for warmth, found Altman's psychology so alien is itself a signal: the mindset required to run a frontier AI company is not the mindset most people recognize in themselves.

The bigger picture is about who controls the story. Amazon's investment in OpenAI did not stop the film from existing, but it raised questions about which studio was willing to release it. For decision-makers, the lesson is straightforward: when your company has a financial stake in a powerful player, every creative project touching that player becomes a governance question. 'Artificial' has no release date yet, but when it lands, it will arrive as both a movie and a test of how much distance Hollywood can keep from the money it courts.