Andrew Garfield says his new film, The Uprising, gave him a way to channel grief into his work, drawing on deeply personal territory as he steps into the role of Ploughman, a farmer whose entire family dies in the bubonic plague before he becomes an unlikely leader of England's 1381 Peasants' Revolt.

Speaking ahead of the film's September 11 release, Garfield described his character as someone stripped down to something almost elemental by loss. "There's a glimmer, there is a connection there that, well, it's there all the time, whether we're aware of it or not," he said, reflecting on the emotional undercurrent that runs through the role.

Director Paul Greengrass, known for grounding historical and political material in the tension of a modern thriller, said the film's themes of economic injustice and simmering public anger felt deliberately resonant with the present moment.

The Uprising also stars Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Thomasin McKenzie, Cosmo Jarvis, Jonny Lee Miller, Woody Norman and Katherine Waterston, and opens in theaters September 11.