Almut Brühl (Florence Pugh, left) and Tobias Durand (Andrew Garfield, right) sit inside what appears to be a diner with food in front of them.

In the lead-up to the release of their new movie We Live in Time, Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh put on a masterclass in charm, as they effortlessly bantered their way through interview after interview.

It’s no wonder their on-screen chemistry in director John Crowley’s poignant romance feels so real. These two really do like each other. But as Garfield told Complex ahead of the film’s release, the stakes before their first meeting were high. “What if we didn’t click?” he wondered. But as he and Pugh recounted, the opposite was true. The two UK stars hit it off immediately, which made the task of playing a couple whose romance is interrupted by a health crisis all the more natural.

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Below, check out our conversation with Garfield and Pugh on their first meeting, working in the UK vs. the US, and if they’ll ever act together again.

A lot has been made of your chemistry, and obviously on this extended press tour we’ve seen it firsthand. Was there any trepidation before you guys met about whether or not you would hit it off and what might happen if you didn’t?

Andrew Garfield: Yeah, I think it’s pretty high-stakes. It felt high-stakes to me when we were getting ready to go, because this film really lives and dies by whether the two people in the roles are the right people for each other in this particular moment. And so, yeah, it was genuinely like, ‘Fuck, man, we don’t know.’ There’s no way of knowing. You get an instinct, you have hope, but also you go, ‘Well, you have to be willing for it not to work.’

And yeah, as you say, thankfully, it was very, very apparent pretty quickly that we both wanted to work in a way that was complementary of the other in terms of the process, but also in terms of wanting the other person to succeed, wanting the other person to be as full-bodied, free, safe, creative, and expressive as possible in these parts. And as soon as we realized that there was this huge weight off of what could have been, it’s like, ‘OK, now we get to just let this process be what it is and see where these two characters want to go together.’

It feels like for a film like this, it would be more beneficial or intuitive to pull from your past real-life experiences. Would that be fair to say?

Florence Pugh: I certainly haven’t gone through even half of the things that this couple goes through, but it’s a lot easier to imagine yourself in that situation. And also I think in terms of everything that Alma is going through, with her constant juggle between choosing her career or whether she has a baby, is something that I have faced with many of my friends and my girlfriends and my siblings. And that’s something that I can definitely try and imagine and wanted to make sure was correct.

But in terms of this love story, it really is very simple. It’s just about these two people that really just want to be with each other for as long as possible. And that’s something that we both could easily understand, I suppose, how intense and magical that actually was. So a bit of both, I think a bit of pretending and a bit of pulling.

Garfield: It absolutely is both. It’s a wonderful combination of imagination and personal, lived experience. I think for me, I felt like I was in the midst of a lot of what the themes and the struggles in this film are. That’s why I wanted to do it. I was like, ‘I’m living this anyway in certain ways and I’m longing for certain aspects of this.’ So it felt very alive in me. I was like, ‘This feels like I could have written it somehow.’

So I was like, ‘This is going to feel therapeutic actually,’ and actually hopefully be putting my own soul, my own struggles, and my own longings to good use to service an audience, to service a story, something bigger than me. So it felt like a very natural, organic process to bring all of my own feelings and heart and longings to this story and these characters.

Do you remember a specific moment on set with the director, John? Did he say anything to you specifically that maybe helped you unlock your characters?

Pugh: I think there was definitely a moment where there were so many things with Alma where I assumed that that’s probably how she would feel. And maybe in those moments I was probably pulling more on Florence’s instincts and I would find things sometimes more emotional than I think John had in mind, which was really amazing and beautiful for John to come in every now and then and say, ‘No, no, no, don’t let yourself go there and let yourself be the strong woman in the family that you have constantly been playing.’ And that was really fascinating to have someone say, ‘Don’t do the stereotype of you melting in this moment.’

It’s just about these two people that really just want to be with each other for as long as possible. And that’s something that we both could easily understand, I suppose, how intense and magical that actually was. — Florence Pugh

That kind of opened my eyes up even more into just how strong-willed and how powerful you really saw her. And so yeah, that definitely unlocked something for me in regards to who she actually was.

Garfield: And we talked about opposites a lot. We talked about not playing one note, not letting Tobias be just the doting, devoted partner he is. Part of his calling is to support this amazing big woman, this woman who has a big life and has big dreams and ambition and destiny, and he is a devoted, loving partner, and it’s not his whole identity, obviously, but also we didn’t want him to be a doormat. It was really important that he wasn’t spineless.

And yeah, as you say, thankfully, it was very, very apparent pretty quickly that we both wanted to work in a way that was complementary of the other in terms of the process, but also in terms of wanting the other person to succeed, wanting the other person to be as full-bodied, free, safe, creative, and expressive as possible in these parts. — Andrew Garfield

So I think we really worked on making sure that we really created the occasional moment where he could set boundaries, show his strength, show that just because he is a quieter, more sensitive, feeling man, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have access to his power and his own strength and his own ability to say ‘No,’ and ability to say, ‘You fucking piss me off,’ or ‘I will bear the wrath of you. If it is fine, I am going to show up as powerful as you show up when I need to.’ But thankfully, I don’t need to very often.

Do you guys feel like this movie fits in a certain lineage of British films from filmmakers like Mike Leigh and Richard Curtis?

Garfield: Yeah.

Pugh: The dry humor.

Garfield: And the wit. But also the situations and the locations and the weather and the colors and the feeling.

Pugh: The people that they meet.

Garfield: Yeah, all these amazing, unique, eccentric, ordinary characters along the way. It feels very slice-of-life and yeah, it’s beautiful. It was a beautiful thing to do. We don’t often get to shoot in England and to be able to stay in our own beds. It felt like we were embedded into our home and then we were able to bring all of that cozy feeling to these two characters.

Is there an ease that you feel working in the UK as opposed to working in America?

Garfield: I think it’s just different. I don’t know if it’s better or worse. It’s just a different flavor. We love British crews. It’s all meritocracy. There’s no real hierarchy. Everyone is just doing their work and we’re all in one group together and there’s not much separation, which I love. I think ultimately I do feel more at home working in the UK than in America.

Pugh: I prefer working in either, but it definitely felt like a treat to be home. I haven’t filmed in London in years, probably since I was 21, 22. So it felt like a real treat to be able to have my family.

I’ve often been told that shooting a movie can feel like summer camp, where you become so deeply close with the people that you work with—and then, when you wrap, it’s ripped away from you. You may never see these people again, or you lose touch. Do you two think that because you’ve become close friends, you’ll try and maintain a relationship outside of the film or even look for ways to work together again, because it was such a pleasurable experience?

Garfield: No.

Pugh: Absolutely not.

Garfield: Yeah, I hope so. We have already, and we spoke all the way through filming. I would express my longing to continue to do this with Florence. I just feel like this is the first of many that we could do together because it’s such a treat and a beautiful feeling when you find someone who you just absolutely adore working with and spending time with in that way. So for me, it was very quick, like, ‘Oh my God, tribe, tribe, tribe, tribe.’ There was that kind of feeling.

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Why do you guys think A24 is a good place for this film in terms of their sensibilities?

Garfield: I love A24 as a company, and I think they’re really smart. They have such exquisite taste. They’re very, very current without trying to be in the moment, which says they’re very aware of the culture while not trying to ride the coattails. They’re their own thing. They kind of create culture with all the content that they make around a film and how they release a film and how they support a film. It’s been very, very joyful.

We’ve been doing really interesting interviews all day that have been so outside of the box, and they really get the film in terms of the themes and the feeling, and they just know what the hell they’re doing. And I think it’s a really rare thing.

Pugh: And they’re dedicated to providing entertainment in all forms, not necessarily one genre.

Garfield: Yeah. It’s their own creativity that actually enhances the film. You feel like you can have an idea about how you want to promote a thing, and they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, let’s give it a try.’ And then it becomes this. The creativity doesn’t stop. It doesn’t become this kind of stale, stuck thing.