Andrew Garfield “starved himself of sex and food” to prepare for Silence movie role

23 August 2022, 15:00

Andrew Garfield explains viral texting picture from at the Oscars

By Katie Louise Smith

"It was very cool, man. I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food at that time."

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Over the years, method acting has got a bit of a bad reputation thanks to some of the more wild stories that have been shared by certain actors (...Jared Leto, in particular, comes to mind.)

Recently, actors like Sebastian Stan, Robert Pattinson and Will Poulter have all been pretty vocal about their thoughts on method acting, too. Will recently told the Independent: "Method acting shouldn’t be used as an excuse for inappropriate behaviour — and it definitely has."

Now, Andrew Garfield has stepped in to defend the whole thing, and has called out the misconceptions and the criticisms of the practice while discussing his own experience of method acting.

Speaking to Marc Maron on the WTF podcast, Andrew has discussed how he uses the acting technique, revealing that he once starved himself of "sex and food" for a big project back in 2016.

Andrew Garfield defends method acting and reveals he went celibate for a role. Picture: Alamy, Everett Collection via Alamy

Speaking about his own experience of method acting, Andrew detailed the preparation he underwent in order to play a Jesuit priest in the 17th century, in Martin Scorsese's 2016 film Silence.

Andrew said he spent a year preparing for the part by studying under Jesuit writer Father James Martin, reading and researching Catholicism, and undergoing various spiritual exercises. On top of that, he also went celibate for six months, and took up fasting, too.

"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," he explained.

"It was very cool, man. I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food at that time."

Andrew Garfield in Martin Scorsese's Silence (2016). Picture: Paramount Pictures

Discussing the acting technique further, Andrew continued: "There [have] been a lot of misconceptions about what method acting is, I think. People are still acting in that way, and it’s not about being an asshole to everyone on set. 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."

Andrew then added: “I’m kind of bothered by the misconception, I’m kind of bothered by this idea that ‘method acting is fucking bullshit.’ No, I don’t think you know what method acting is if you’re calling it bullshit, or you just worked with someone who claims to be a method actor who isn’t actually acting the method at all.

"It’s also very private. I don’t want people to see the fucking pipes of my toilet. I don’t want them to see how I’m making the sausage.”