Born in Los Angeles and raised in the south of England, the 30-year-old actor is clearly in the majority. There are legions of people around the world who seemingly cannot get enough of this particular Marvel Comics superhero.

The Amazing Spider-Man took in more than US$750 million at the box office when it was released in 2012, an amount that was not that far off any of the earlier films starring Tobey Maguire. Garfield again has the web slinger’s role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

“People were taken aback by the speediness by which they jumped in and did another one,” he says. “But we’re onto a new chapter. We’re able to feel free within this movie in a way we didn’t feel we could in the last one. We have more to explore and more freedom to play.”

When we last left Spider-Man, he had vanquished Dr Curt Connors, a scientist with the ability to turn into a monstrous lizard, who was preparing to unleash a mutation serum across New York City. In this tangled tale, Connors had worked with the father of Spider- Man’s alter ego, Peter Parker.

Parker was also grappling with the death of his uncle and trying to honour a promise to protect the love of his life, Gwen Stacy, who is played by Emma Stone.

“One of the truths about being a hero, if you’re going to truly live out your heroic destiny with the power you’ve been given, is you mostly have to sacrifice your own needs and wants,” Garfield says.

“It’s the archetypal struggle that Peter is going through, and a painful one for someone who is desperately in love. It’s a really interesting dynamic to play.”

Garfield is entirely believable as the tortured superhero, managing to play the bullied school student, who is conflicted about his gifts and occasionally jubilant about his powers.

All the while, he manages to get across that his character would rather be working a regular job and hanging out with his girlfriend than saving the world. The actor also wants to convey something more meaningful.

“In our culture right now we have a huge outburst of violence around the world,” he says. “I think we have a responsibility to young people, and giving a message of how to treat each other; how violence is not the answer.

That was something I wanted to do, which I’ve achieved in the best way I could, by portraying Spider-Man as a pacifist.

“Instead of having him throwing punches and beating the crap out of his enemies, he uses their weaknesses against them. I think that’s more entertaining and intelligent and smart.”

This time we see Spider-Man face off against Electro, portrayed by Jamie Foxx. In his human form, Electro is Max Dillon, a mild-mannered and reclusive electrical engineer who is the victim of a workplace accident that leaves him with the ability to control electricity.

Foxx is the latest award-winning actor to join a big movie franchise. He claimed an Oscar for best actor for his work in the 2004 biopic, Ray. “It makes perfect sense for anybody who dreams of being able to go somewhere in a movie,” Garfield says. “Heath Ledger as the Joker really set the precedent. Michael Caine as the butler, he just opens his mouth and you forget you’re in a Batman movie. Robert Downey Jnr, when he doesn’t have the Ironman suit on, he still compels you.

“What Jamie has brought to it is incredibly empathic. He gives insight into those darker impulses that we all have, and having compassion for that part of us.

“Max is not born bad, but he goes bad. He’s forced into a position where he had to behave in a certain way to get noticed, and then he gets sick of being shoved into the shadows all his life and bursts out.”

Foxx says he connected with the role because of Dillon’s vulnerability. The character is insecure and takes it especially hard when nobody remembers his birthday. On a lighter note, the actor sounds like he found Electro a more exciting role. “It was fun coming to work, putting that costume on, and walking around the streets of New York. I was able to disappear into the character,” he says.

As his compelling portrayal of Ray Charles showed, the 46-year-old actor is all about disappearing into his characters, even in a big-budget superhero film. In this incarnation of Spider-Man’s frequent nemesis, Electro has a terrifying look, with veins of light running through his shaved head and electric-blue eyes.

“Any actor will tell you, getting into character is 80 per cent about the makeup,” he says. “Once I put the make-up on, the voice started to change, I wanted to do a low whisper, like in old Clint Eastwood movies, and I watched Alec Baldwin, who I call the great whisperer, and I put it all together.”

Foxx approves of the look for Dillon as well. In particular, he was intrigued by the shy character’s comb-over.

“You’ve never seen a black man in a movie with a comb-over. So I wanted to try that,” he says.

Both and its sequel are directed by Marc Webb, who had mainly worked on music videos and short films before his first feature film, the 2009 romantic comedydrama (500) Days of Summer. Garfield says he and the director have a kind of shorthand communication. “We give each other what we need in an efficient and economical way. It’s very cool. He’s such a sensitive person, he tunes into you, and gives you what you need.”

Foxx, too, welcomed the opportunity to work with Webb on The Amazing Spider-Man 2. “He came from video, which is great for something like this. It’s smart for a franchise to attach itself to a great video director because it’s so much easier to do CGI [computer-generated imagery]. It’s a real point of reference to come from.”

Foxx also has an appreciation for the filmmaker’s standards. “As a director, Marc would often say, ‘It’s not quite there. Let’s get it,’ and to press us, which brings the best out of the actors, and makes the movie so much better.”

Foxx has signed up to play legendary civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jnr in the DreamWorks project that focuses on the relationship between King and his wife, the late Coretta Scott King.

“We found a wonderful love story when we researched him,” Foxx says.

“The love that Coretta had for him ... he was only in his 20s when he did his first march. He was trying to save the world and she was holding the family together, dealing with his transgressions.”

Foxx says that whether he’s playing an assassinated historical figure, or a mythical comic book one, he likes to bring the same emotional gravitas to the table. “You have to find that thing, that one emotional thing, that everybody at that the table agrees on, and you build from there. You have to find something intriguing and try to connect all the dots to that moment,” he says.

“Spider-Man is cool because he’s still a kid, in high school. And he’s up against this villain. And inside the villain is a 42-year-old man who still needs someone to tell him happy birthday. It’s a real human story. I thought it was an actor’s paradise.”

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens on May 1.