Andrew Garfield on the meaning of 'no kings' in 'The Uprising'

It was a line that I think Paul thought he should cut

The king is the law. We have nothing more left. He says pay taxes, you pay taxes

The 1381 revolt is one of the defining moments of English radicalism

Locate us, where we meet your character at the start of the uprising. In his home in Essex, in the Fen, on his little plot of land that doesn't belong to him

that he has to work because he is tied to that land through a legal framework at the time

where no man was really free outside of the oligarchs and royalty

And we learn that the ploughman has lost both of his children

and his wife to the plague. So he's been alone carrying the weight of that loss

and the confusion and the betrayal that he feels he's experienced with that loss

and a meandering meaninglessness and a kind of sense of deep injustice

that's been coursing through his veins ever since that loss. So, yeah, that's the cheery beginning of our little story

The land is broken. We are forced to work beyond what our souls can take

You've done some serious prep work for films before. I mean, for Martin Scorsese's Silence, you went on a silent retreat

Was there anything that you did specifically for The Uprising? I mean, there was a lot of research into daily life of a man in his position

There was a lot of time spent making sure that I knew how to work the land in a way that felt specific and true

Handling the tools, being with our ox, that primary relationship was very, very important

And learning about daily life and village life and the specifics of the disease of the plague

and how it coursed through the body, particularly of a young child

the kind of horror of that felt very, very important to understand deeply

so that one can carry the weight of that kind of devastation and awfulness

Even though it very specific to this moment in time it relevant to uprisings across the world across history And at one point your character quite literally says the line

No Kings, which is very different politically for viewers in 2026. What does it mean to see that line and pull it across time like that

Yeah, it was a line that I think Paul thought he should cut after

because he had written it before all of the No Kings protests that were happening in the United States

against Trump and he was worried that it would feel like we are trying to say something specific

in response to something that's just happening um but in fact it was pre it predated any of that

stuff happening in real time so it felt like the right thing just to go no this is something

universal this is something that is unfortunately uh timeless um and it's a beautiful sentiment

It's like the idea of hierarchy that is preordained being deconstructed feels very important

Definitely. And there's sort of this dalliance between the divine right to rule and all people under God equal

particularly in this time of history. And then we find your character, as the sort of resistance gains momentum

your character comes across two legendary figures who are played by Cosmo Jarvis and Jamie Bell

We have the military man, Tyler, and the radical priest, John Bell

How does your character sort of sit between them in their sort of sense of justice and what the mission is

Yeah, I think the ploughman is coming to this moment very naively and very instinctively

and it's almost like he's being led by some other force. that is awakening in him

And he's kind of a semi-willing participant. He's kind of following the wind

He's following a calling that he doesn't know where it leading him but he trying to walk the middle way He has no desire to lead anybody He has no desire to cause any trouble but there something that erupts in him that wants all the trouble to happen

in order to get freed, to free himself and to free others, ultimately

Osmo's character, Watt, is coming at it from a more militaristic standpoint and having fought in the previous war with the previous king

has seen a lot, has felt a lot, and has seen some of the world

and knows the injustice in a conscious way, knows that the world is out of joint

John Ball, that Jamie plays, he was someone who was radical and who challenged the ideas of the church

and was therefore oppressed by the church. So he has a lot of his own vengeance in him

They know that these things cannot be won without some bloodshed. Whereas the ploughman is struggling with that

He has no desire. I think what he's really struggling with where there's this terror that he's leaving his family behind in some way

even though they're no longer with us. To go on this journey, he fears that he will lose that connection

But the idea is that maybe as he does go on this journey, it's what they want of him

They want him to avenge and to set the world in order

That's the calling that is on the wind for him. And you've obviously got a lot of combat in this film

It's a different sort of level of combat because, you know, everyone that was in the uprising is using sort of rudimentary tools

as their weapons against this sort of, like, armour of steel. I wanted to speak to your weapon, which is a particular farming tool

What is it about this tool that is representative of the fight

Yeah, the sickle. I love that it's reappropriated. I love that it's a symbol of communism

I love that it's very evocative. I've never really seen it before

I've never seen it employed in the way that we employ it in the film. It's cool. It's like a cool weapon

And I love that it's practical. I love that it just taken from the nearest thing that could be the most effective object of self And you just using it all the way to the Capitol And obviously you done a lot of action films

from The Amazing Spider-Man to Hacksaw Ridge. How did you find Plowman's style of combat this time

Yeah, I mean, again, so nice to get into the specificity and the development and the growth

because I think he's someone who starts out just completely against his will that he's involved in this situation

But then by the end of the film, where he has a big transformation

and he kind of steps in into more of an embodiment of his own being an instrument

He becomes himself an instrument of nature as well by the end of the story

And to explore the journey of that physicality and also the expression of grief

and rage within those acts of violence feels really important. To make them not gratuitous and to make them not purposeless

but to make them completely connected to the emotional state of the character

and their need to survive. And the power of song is used in a really beautiful way in The Uprising

Yeah, I love that. What did you love about this element of the film

and how does it sort of link to this modern sense of songs of resistance

I love that and it feels very important. and it feels for people that are in a position of resistance

that they feel they're forced into a position of resistance, art and creativity becomes a big part of that resistance

I remember visiting Cuba a bunch of years ago and feeling the frustration and the limitation

that regular people were having to live under was being expressed very, maybe most freely

within the dance clubs and musical, you know, live music. And, yeah

So I think, yeah, I think it's a really, really important element

that I'm really, really glad that Paul included