I Re-Watched The Social Network, And I'm So Mad Andrew Garfield Didn't Get An Oscar Nomination

When I think about iconic moments in modern cinematic history, one of the first scenes that pops into my mind is Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network smashing Mark Zuckerberg’s laptop after he finds out his shares were diluted. It’s an epic climax to a thrilling film, and each time I watch the movie, I’m in awe of Garfield’s performance, both in that scene and throughout the entire project. So, you can imagine that when I found out he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar in 2011 I was more than shocked, I was livid. 

Thinking about Garfield’s role in The Social Network cast, his nuanced performance as the businessman and co-founder behind Facebook, and the actor’s overall history with the Academy, I couldn’t help but be gobsmacked by this oversight. This film is considered one of David Fincher’s best movies, and it deservingly received eight Oscar nominations. However, The Amazing Spider-Man star wasn’t one of them. It was a loss, a misjudgment, and incredibly maddening. 

Andrew Garfield Beautifully Plays The Foil To Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg

While The Social Network is all about Mark Zuckerberg and his rise to power, and infamy, his founding partner Eduardo Saverin plays an equally important role in the creation of Facebook. This means that in the film, Jesse Eisenberg is the lead, no doubt, but Andrew Garfield plays a crucial part in the story too. Eduardo acts as Mark’s foil, his opposite. He’s also his closest friend. Garfield plays both sides of this coin perfectly and with lots of nuance. 

Eisenberg’s cold and calculated Mark is balanced by Garfield’s more upbeat and social Eduardo. They make for great business partners at first, and the two actors have great chemistry together. However, when Sean (Justin Timberlake) enters the picture, and their relationship starts to fracture and get messy, the two actors really thrive as performers as they create a perfect storm of tension. 

In the end, as Eric Eisenberg pointed out in his 5-star review of The Social Network, this movie is about the need to feel accepted more than anything. What the film comes down to, in a way, is the fact that Eduardo was accepted into a club at Harvard and Mark wasn’t. Mark was an outsider, and he so desperately wanted to be an insider that he created Facebook. As the monster grew, he grew away from his friend, and he became hungry for more power and acceptance. 

However, when he loses Eduardo, he loses his only real friend. That’s the true tragedy of the film, and seeing Garfield’s performance of a man who has been betrayed by someone he thought he could trust, and Esienberg’s reaction as Mark when he realizes he lost Eduardo is what really drives this point home. 

Their juxtaposition and the tension built between them is what makes the movie work so well. It takes two to tango, and both Eisenberg (who was among the 2011 Oscar nominees) and Garfield deserved recognition for their work. 

The Laptop Smashing Scene Alone Should Have Gotten Andrew Garfield A Nomination 

Plenty of actors have been recognized for roles that had little screen time. Famously, for example, Judi Dench won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, and she was in the film for less than six minutes. If a great performance like hers can be nominated based on one, maybe two, memorable scenes, then Andrew Garfield should have been a shoo-in for a nod solely because of the scene in The Social Network when he finds out his shares were diluted. 

Over the years it feels like the climax of this movie where Eduardo confronts Mark has slowly become one of the more iconic scenes in modern movie history. As a refresher, Garfield memorably screams:

That line was then followed closely by:

This scene tracks Eduardo’s realization that his shares in Facebook have been diluted. It flips back and forth between him recalling the moment during a deposition, and the situation happening in real time at the social media company’s office. Garfield shows his character going through every stage of grief, and every time he tells a lawyer “it wasn’t” when referring to how the other shares weren’t diluted, it feels like a knife being twisted in an already painful wound. It ends with him smashing a laptop, and leaving Mark in the dust.

For the entire movie, the tension between the two builds up to this moment, and the primary reason it works is because you can feel the heartbreak, anger and betrayal in Andrew Garfield’s performance. Not many people can make me care about diluted shares, but because of this singular scene and his performance in it, I was heartbroken with Eduardo. 

This sequence, along with the whole movie, has stood the test of time. I mean, Dylan O’Brien even recreated it and it went viral. Plus, Garfield is still asked about it to this day, and he revealed a fascinating story in 2021, saying that he had to film the climax 40 times, per Collider. The recreation of and consistent fascination around this sequence shows the appreciation for it, and I don’t know how The Academy missed it.

This Was The Beginning Of The Academy Not Fully Recognizing Andrew Garfield’s Talent 

If you look through Andrew Garfield’s filmography, you’ll notice that he’s only received two Academy Award nods, and he’s never won. I’m a firm believer that he should have taken home a trophy for Tick, Tick…Boom! And I’m even more adamant about the fact that he should have at least been recognized for the incredible work he did in The Social Network.  

Eduardo’s arc is vital to the story, and the movie wouldn’t have the same emotional punch without Garfield’s performance. The Social Network deserved all eight of its nominations, however, the major oversight in this whole situation was this incredible actor being fully excluded from the Best Supporting Actor category. 

While Andrew Garfield doesn’t have anything on the 2023 movie schedule, he has lots of projects in development that could appear among 2024’s new film releases. Also, the 2010 film’s screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has supported The Social Network 2, so a reprisal of the role, while unlikely, is not totally out of the question. So, here’s hoping we finally see this fantastic actor get the recognition and awards he’s been deserving of since 2010 when The Social Network was released.