Andrew Garfield says he hopes his 14th-century peasant revolt film leaves today's billionaires 'scared s--less'

So Andrew Garfield is starring in another period drama, but don’t expect this one to be a gentle BBC stroll through the roses. The Uprising is a scrappy medieval epic about ordinary people rebelling hard against their betters – to the point that Garfield himself apparently hopes it gives actual billionaires sleepless nights. And he’s not being coy about it.

Garfield’s Call to Arms

There’s never a shortage of films set in the muddy Middle Ages, but this one leans straight into class warfare. Garfield plays a farmhand called Ploughman – not the most subtle moniker – who becomes the ringleader of a proper revolt against King Richard II. We’re talking ugly taxes, inept rulers, and the powerful treating the little people as barely human. Fun for all the family, provided your ancestors weren’t land barons.

The tale borrows heavily from the legend of Robin Hood (rob from the rich, etc.), but Garfield told a recent Q&A (alongside director Paul Greengrass) that he hopes the anger at social injustice isn’t just stuck in the 14th century. When asked what viewers are meant to get out of this, Garfield did not go for the safe answer about “just enjoying the movie with a popcorn.” Instead, he wants the film to light a fire under the audience – and to absolutely terrify the ultra-wealthy who might wander in out of curiosity.

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Here’s Garfield in his own words during that event, when the topic of what he hopes viewers take away came up:

"I hope it’s galvanizing. I hope there’s some awakening that people feel, that they feel that their own, that we all feel like our own struggles are being reflected in the struggles of these characters from a distant time and place, and that it could be directive. And I hope that if any billionaires watch it, they’re scared s--less."

Not Just A Medieval Morality Play

It’s not just Garfield going off. Greengrass also weighed in, saying the film’s central theme – ‘There will be no peace until we are healed’ – is just as true now as it was six centuries back. Garfield then amped it up again, using words the ultra-rich probably won’t be jotting down for their next motivational poster. In reference to who might truly need this ‘healing’, he pointed squarely at the world’s billionaires, saying they might actually be the ‘most soul sick’ among us. Not subtle, is it?

He’s gone further in the past, too. Speaking to Esquire, Garfield pointed out the original context behind this uprising: medieval England ravaged by plague, suffocating taxes on the poor, leaders convinced they were morally and intellectually superior. It draws a straight line to our own century — Garfield thinks those patterns are alive and well on both sides of the Atlantic.

• The Uprising is set for release on 10 September.

There’s also an interesting footnote from Garfield, who’s called the film a ‘Rorschach test’ for audiences. In other words, depending on where you sit politically, you might see a very different takeaway – potentially projecting your own grievances onto the story of these dirt-poor rebels. Whether that fills cinemas with pitchfork-wavers or just a lot of thoughtful murmurs remains to be seen.

The Uprising opens in UK cinemas 10 September 2026.

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