Andrew Garfield Does Not Recall Waving At Sam Altman On ‘Artificial’ Set: “Very Confused By That”

As Andrew Garfield prepares to unleash his portrayal of Sam Altman in Artificial, the OpenAI CEO claimed he got a sneak peek of the performance.

Following Altman’s account that he “waved” at Garfield when the Luca Guadagnino-helmed film shot outside of his San Francisco home, the 2x Oscar-nominated actor claimed he “wasn’t there” during the moment Altman described.

“I saw that interview and I replayed it a few times to try and discern what he was actually saying, because I was very confused by that,” he told GQ. “I never had any interaction with him. I’ve never seen him in real life. We were shooting outside of his house. It was an eerie day, for sure. We were told that he wasn’t home and his security people were there. I think I saw one security guard.”

Garfield continued, “But, no, I never saw Sam, so he maybe mistook someone else for me. I have no idea, but I’ve never waved at Sam. I’ve never seen him. I was curious about that.”

The interview came after Altman emphasized to Vanity Fair that he “waved at him that one time and that was it,” admitting that Garfield “did walk like me” while filming.

“Actually, I’ll tell you something. They filmed outside of our house,” he recalled. “There were these notices on our street that there was going to be some filming or whatever. I didn’t realize what was going on. I paid no attention.”

Altman added, “And then one morning I was walking down the street to get coffee and there were all these cameras and there was a guy dressed exactly like me with my same backpack walking so much that I felt I was in some weird glitch of the simulation or something. It was very strange. And then I immediately figured out what was happening. We waved and went on, but it was really weird. I mean, it’s like a strange thing to see someone that has nailed your kind of quirky mannerisms or whatever.”

Penned by Simon Rich, Artificial centers around the controversial firing and subsequent rehiring of Altman by OpenAI’s board of directors within a span of five days in November 2023.

The cast also includes Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Cooper Hoffman, Ike Barinholtz, Jason Schwartzman, Chris O’Dowd, Mark Rylance, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Koch and Billie Lourd.