Andrew Garfield hopes new film will raise awareness about eviction issue

Former Spider-Man Andrew Garfield hopes his new movie 99 Homes shines a light on the plight of families trying to survive after evictions.

In the film, the Brit plays a father desperately trying to secure a permanent roof over his family's head after losing his home to foreclosure. He eventually turns to the ruthless businessman who kicked him out of his house and becomes one of the heartbreakers who take homes when owners fall behind on their mortgage.

Garfield admits he didn't have to do too much digging to research his character as he has a good friend currently going through the eviction process.

He tells WENN, "She lives in kind of a communal housing project. I trained with her as an actor and she's this incredible friend and brilliant actress that happens to live in this kind of commune environment which is a rare thing, where they only spend money on what they need to spend money on and they give each other support and they share bathrooms.

"It's just this very rare thing in London, and this new housing company is attempting to literally oust them; they could split their commune up into apartments just to make more money.

"For me, it's the underlying treatment and the psychology and perspective of those who are doing the law's bidding, as it were. There's all this finagling and manipulation going on, like what the film depicts. And it's the treatment that she's experiencing from the powers that be, from these people who are literally looking down their noses and subliminally letting them know they are leeches and not pulling their weight in society.

"Again, it comes back down to this divide, this separateness and this lack of compassion for the other that the film is trying to speak to."

And Garfield had a permanent reminder of the broken system on set, revealing, "A lot of those non-actors have been through the very thing that they were reliving in the (eviction) scenes. It added a whole other profundity to what was happening. There's this big gaping wound between the haves and the have nots."