Andrew Garfield to star in ‘Angels in America’ in London

Andrew Garfield will star in Tony Kushner’s epic drama "Angels in America” in a new revival for London’s National Theatre that is set to open in 2017. 

The two-part play, directed by Marianne Elliott, will be part of the National’s new season, which company leaders announced Wednesday. The season will also include Ralph Fiennes in Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” and a production of “Hedda Gabler” directed by the much-in-demand Ivo van Hove.

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In “Angels,” Garfield is set to play Prior Walter, a young New York man living with AIDS -- a role played by Stephen Spinella when the drama debuted in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum in 1992 and later on Broadway. (In the HBO adaptation, directed by Mike Nichols, the character was played by Justin Kirk.)

No other casting information has been announced for “Angels.” The National said on its website that the new production will begin in April 2017 at the Lyttelton Theatre. The drama consists of two parts at roughly three hours each -- “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika.”

Kushner’s dramatic exploration of the AIDS crisis was first performed in the early ‘90s and would go on to win multiple awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for drama. 

The National first presented “Angels” in 1992, in a production directed by Declan Donnellan. The cast included Stephen Dillane as Prior and a virtually unknown Daniel Craig in the role of Joe Pitt, a closeted Mormon man.

Garfield previously appeared at the National in 2006 in a bill of three plays. He subsequently shot to stardom in "The Social Network” and two “Spider-Man” movies. 

The actor played Biff Loman in the 2012 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” directed by Nichols. 

Garfield recently finished shooting the new Martin Scorsese movie “Silence,” based on the Shusaku Endo novel, in which he plays a Catholic priest traveling in 17th century Japan.

The National’s upcoming slate will also include a revival of “Amadeus” and a new play by David Hare, “The Red Barn,” based on Georges Simenon’s novel “La Main." 

Twitter: @DavidNgLAT