We Live in Time star Andrew Garfield is giving credit where it is due: namely, to the carousel horse from his upcoming comedic romantic drama film, which took the internet by the reins when first-look photos of the A24 Florence Pugh vehicle first dropped last month.
“I haven’t heard from him since our shoot day, but I pray he makes an appearance because, without him, we really are nothing,” the two-time Oscar nominee told Etalk, a Canadian entertainment outlet, while holding back laughs.
Back in mid-August, movie enthusiasts and social media users had a romp with the bright-yellow plastic horse depicted in one of the first images teased from the Toronto International Film Festival entry. While all eyes might first be drawn to Garfield and Pugh’s chemistry on the beloved ride, chatter quickly turned to the horse’s face — which looks as if it is enthusiastically (though perhaps painfully) braying.
The viral phenomenon launched a Vulture article on the matter, delightfully titled “Everything We Know About That Goofy Carousel Horse From We Live in Time.” Talented X users quickly began photoshopping the animal’s bewildered, frightened expression onto classic paintings featuring horses and overlaying the image with text such as “How your email finds me.”
“No one would be aware of this film if it wasn’t for that f—ing horse,” Garfield joked on the TIFF red carpet ahead of the movie’s world premiere screening.
We Live in Time, from filmmaker John Crowley and writer Nick Payne, unravels the decade-old relationship and marriage between Pugh’s Almut and Garfield’s Tobias, amid life-threatening illness and the challenges and joys of parenthood. Deadline’s reviewer said of the film: “I wish we had more time with both of them in this slender but worthy addition to the rom-com genre, or maybe I should say rom-dram-com since there also a number of powerful dramatic scenes from this marriage in here too.”
The emotional flick, which brought both audiences and its stars to tears, is also a personal one for Garfield, whose mother died from cancer several years ago.
We Live in Time premieres in theaters Oct. 11.