Giving his all. Andrew GarfieldHe spoke out about the sacrifices he made to be a priest in 2016. Martin ScorseseFilm Silence.
“I had an incredibly spiritual experience,” the England native, 39, said on the Monday, August 22, episode of the “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast. “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.”
The Amazing Spider-ManStar and Star WarsActor portrays 17th-century Jesuit priests, who travel to Japan in search of their mentor.
“It was very cool, man. I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food at that time,” Garfield explained.
To get into character, it is important to Under the Banner of Heaven Star took part in the Ignatian spiritual exercises that were created in 1500.
“It’s basically a 31-day retreat that you do where you actively meditate on the life of Jesus Christ, and you place yourself using your imagination into every stage and scene and moment in the life of Christ from his conception to his resurrection,” he explained.
Garfield added that the exercise is “more than just sitting and thinking” about Jesus. “You are actively, imaginatively creating a relationship with Christ through a series of prompts and questions and you end up in a pretty deep space.”
The Tony Award winner’s father is Jewish, but he wasn’t raised very religious at all. “I had a relationship with an imagined Christ by the end,” he said.
His dedication to imagining himself in someone else’s shoes — in this case, Jesus Christ — is really what method acting is based on rather than any kind of imposition on a movie’s crew. “I’m kind of bothered by the misconception, I’m kind of bothered by this idea that ‘method acting is f–king bulls–t,’” Garfield griped.
There have been several highly-publicized examples of “method acting” that don’t necessarily fit the technique Garfield studied. Jared LetoHe has been known to have infamously gone the extra mile to fulfill his roles, including sending rats to Margot Robbie while they played Joker and Harley Quinn in 2016’s Suicide Squad. He also reportedly used crutches when he was on set for this spring’s MorbiusHe made the cast and crew wait for 45 minutes while he hobbled to the toilet in an attempt to feel the pain from his injured character. Leto was eventually allowed to use a wheelchair.
Garfield didn’t name any specific examples, but emphasized that true method acting is important and should not be in the way of filmmaking. “It’s not about being an a–hole to everyone on set,” the Emmy nominee explained. “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 [the character] when you need to and staying in it when you want to stay in it.”
