Actor Andrew Garfield Reveals Method Acting For Movie Role Led to ‘Wild, Trippy Experiences’ While Giving Up Food and Sex

Actor Andrew Garfield believes method acting really does work and led to “wild, trippy experiences” while he was preparing for a Martin Scorsese film.

Garfield was interviewed on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, about his career and time in Hollywood.

The conversation turned to breaking down Garfield’s methods for preparing for roles out of his comfort zone. In particular, a 2016 film directed by Scorsese called Silence.

In the film, Garfield plays a Portuguese Jesuit priest in the 17th century.

He spoke about the lengthy process and his idea of throwing himself into understanding religion.

“I had an incredibly spiritual experience and combined with that, I did a bunch of spiritual practices every day that I created. New rituals for myself. I was celibate for six months,” Garfield said.

“Wow,” Maron reacted.

“I was fasting a lot, cause me and Adam (Driver) had to lose a bunch of weight anyway. So it kind of added up. So there was all these spiritual kind of practices that we got to do while we were praying, meditating,” he added. “You know, having all the intentions that we had as those characters.”

“That’s wild,” Maron replied.

“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 added.

“Of course. Your brain’s gotta do something — when you don’t — when you’re not satisfying any of that dopamine, it’s gonna go somewhere else,” Maron observed.

“It gives you some gifts for sure,” Garfield agreed.

Listen above via WTF with Marc Maron.