Garfield: I'm hero for the underdog (From Bridport and Lyme Regis News)

Garfield: I'm hero for the underdog

1:08pm Friday 1st June 2012 in Entertainment News © Press Association 2013

Andrew Garfield has said he feels he is "standing up for the underdog" by playing geeky superhero Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man.

The Social Network star plays teenage social outcast Parker in the reboot of the Spider-Man series and told GQ magazine he identifies with his character because he was bullied at school.

Andrew said: "As a teenager I was... I'm not saying that I was suicidal or anything like that...

"It was a symbol of what got me through tough times in terms of being a skinny kid.

"I was very confused when I first went to school and there was a kid who was just mean and I didn't understand it, and right into my teenage years, where I would be mugged in the street... and I wouldn't be able to do anything... and I'd come home feeling so disempowered and angry."

The 28-year-old actor - who refuses to talk about his personal relationship with Emma Stone, who plays his on-screen girlfriend in the film, because "I just want to be an actor" - admitted he had sought therapy.

He said: "I have been to therapy. And I'm not ashamed of it. I've always been a little reserved about it, but I've loved it."