Actor Andrew Garfield has spoken out to defend method acting, which for him has involved "starving" himself of food and sex.
The 39-year-old touched on his role in Martin Scorsese's 2016 film Silence, where he played Sebastião Rodrigues, based on a real-life Jesuit priest. In preparation for the part, Andrew says he was celibate for six months and also fasted, and that there are a lot of misconceptions about what method acting actually is.
"It was very cool, man," Andrew said on the WTF podcast with Mark Maron. podcast. "I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food for that period of time.
"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 a**hole to everyone on set."
Famous method actors include Christian Bale, Jeremy Strong and Jared Leto, who shared an insight into his process for 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club. "I stayed in character the entire shoot," he told The Guardian of playing transgender woman Rayon. "I couldn't imagine doing it another way. I'd gone too far to pick it up and drop it off.
"I lost around 40lbs and then I stopped counting. For me, it was about how it made me feel, how it made other people treat me. I got down to something like 114lb [about eight stone], and that was enough to do what I wanted it to do, which was to change everything about me."
The performance ended up winning him an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor.
