Andrew Garfield recalls “starving myself of sex and food” for movie role
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Some actors, including Stranger Things‘ David Harbour, have been critical of Method acting, but for multiple Oscar-nominee Andrew Garfield, it’s worked out just fine.
On the latest episode of WTF with Marc Maron, the Spider-Man: No Way Home star explained his experience playing a 17th century Jesuit priest in the 2016 Martin Scorsese film Silence.
“I had an incredibly spiritual experience. I did a bunch of spiritual practices every day. I created new rituals for myself. I was celibate for six months, and fasting a lot, because me and Adam [Driver] had to lose a bunch of weight anyway,” Garfield said.
“There were all the spiritual practices we got to do while we were praying, meditating … It was very cool, man. I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food for that period of time.”
Garfield credits Ryan Gosling for turning him on to Method acting after screen testing together for a project.
“I was overwhelmed. I was like, ‘This guy has figured something out. He’s doing something on a deeper level here,'” Garfield recalled.
Garfield, 39, says he ultimately sought out Gosling’s acting coach, Greta Seacat, who took him under her wing.
“There’s been a lot of misconceptions around what Method acting is, I think,” notes Garfield. “It’s actually just about living truthfully under imagined circumstances, and being really nice to the crew simultaneously, and being a normal human being, and being able to drop it when you need to and staying in it when you want to stay in it.”
“I’m kind of bothered by this idea of ‘Method acting’s f******* bull****.’ It’s like, no, I don’t think you know what Method acting is if you’re calling it bull****.”
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