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Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black’s seven-episode miniseries (“My Name Is Harvey Milk”), ‘By command of heaven’, features Andrew Garfield in another spiritual character as Detective Jeb Pyre. Since he took off the Spiderman suit, the actor has inhabited a significant number of religious characters; from a Jesuit in Martin Scorsese’s film ‘Silence’, to an evangelical preacher or the soldier member of the Adventist Church Desmond Doss. Now, the British investigates the events that occurred within the Lafferty family while uncovering buried truths about the origins of the Mormon religion and the violent consequences of unwavering faith. As Pyre, a devout Mormon, what Garfield discovers leads him to question his own faith.
“I have been asked that question many times and I am still not clear why I am inclined towards this type of role. It is something mysterious. I think about questions of spirituality, questions of faith and doubt, questions of how to live one’s life, questions of the meaning of life, and I think about what it means to live on the edge of a knife, between life and death. Characters who question the meaning of life make me think about my own mortality. I ask myself a lot of existential questions about what we are doing here, breathing on earth. Movies and TV shows and stories about spirituality that deal with the subject interest me. I think this is the juiciest answer I have. As a narrator I feel compelled to question myself, just as an artist, but I also do it in my personal life », admits Garfield in conversation with ABC.
‘By command of heaven’ is based on a best-selling non-fiction by Jon Krakauer about a series of events leading to the 1984 murder of Brenda Wright Lafferty, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, and her young daughter in a Salt Lake Valley neighborhood (Utah). “I have been a fan of this book since its publication. Jon Krakauer is a magnificent author with deep and fascinating prose. I found the story exciting and horrible at the same time. Ten years after reading it, I got a call from Ron Howard [aquí productor] to star in the series and I thought they were the perfect team to do it. We have not only honored what Jon Krakauer wrote, but also the lives of Brenda and Erica Lafferty. It’s not easy to dig up human rot without adding sensationalism, but we’ve done it with this series.”
The case becomes both a spiritual and criminal investigation for Pyre (Garfield), forced to confront the faith he was raised in and the darkest episodes of his past, portrayed through flashbacks. Although he never definitively breaks with the church, by the end of the series it becomes clear that he has become disillusioned with the beliefs that once anchored his life. “I wanted to find out everything about Pyre and I read the book writing in the margins. I spent an entire day feeling his presence, asking him to guide me on the path of interpreting him. I asked him to tell me how to be him in the best possible way and I must admit that in a mysterious way I felt his presence on the set. We all soaked up his spirituality »reveals the British actor.
When Krakauer’s book was published in 2003, the church issued a forceful disclaimer of the work, calling it “a slap in the face of modern Latter-day Saints (as Mormons call themselves) and a misunderstanding of religion in general.” ». Criticism from the Mormon church fueled sales of ‘By command of heaven’ to making the work an international bestseller and one of the most widely read books on the Mormon faith.
The church has not officially commented on the series since it premiered in the United States in April, but David Bednar, a member of the governing body of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, recently suggested that it was part of a long pattern of discrimination and misunderstanding against they. “We have been mischaracterized since 1830 when the church was established and that idea will never go away.” The series also focuses on the pressure Mormon women are under to take on traditional domestic roles and blindly support their “priesthood holders,” that is, their husbands.
“For me it was a no-brainer to accept the role. Not only because of the people involved and because the subject interests me deeply, but because it is a very important story for human beings. I think we need to look at how we create myths that we then live with and how those myths infect and affect our behavior in society,” says Garfield.
This is not the first time that the sacred ceremony, the details of which are not publicly disclosed, has been shown on television: a 2009 episode of the HBO series ‘Big Love’ dramatized the ceremony and provoked a viral reaction that forced the network to issue an apology. “There are sensitivities around the depiction of what happens in the temple, so it was important for all of us to get this as accurate as possible. That meant a lot of research, because of the costumes, because of the set design, bringing people who had gone through those ceremonies in that exact room, “explains the protagonist.
‘By command of heaven’ paints a true-to-life portrait of everyday Mormon life during the 1980s. “It’s ultimately about the search for truth versus the potential loss of family, social structure, life,” Garfield concludes.
‘By command of heaven’, the Disney + series that shows the uncomfortable reality of Mormons