Andrew Garfield Confirms What We Suspected About His Method Acting In Silence
Method acting, which is the acting technique of staying in character for the entirety of production (even when the camera is not rolling), has been around for a long time — actors such as Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Daniel Day-Lewis are famous examples of method actors in Hollywood (via The Cinemaholic). Despite the fact that all of these performers are highly revered in the field, some reports of method acting are not as respected. For example, Jared Leto, a method actor, recently made headlines when "Morbius" director Daniel Espinosa confirmed to Uproxx that Leto insisted on using his crutches even in between takes to go to the bathroom, which led to so many delays in production that the crew had to find a solution to the problem. As a result, they got him a wheelchair, and a crew member was tasked with wheeling him to the bathroom to speed up the process while allowing Leto to continue with his method approach. Basically, eyebrows begin to raise when it seems as though method acting is making other crew members' jobs harder.
On the other side of the coin, plenty of actors have spoken out in recent years to express their dislike for method acting. For example, Will Poulter told Independent UK that method acting too often becomes an excuse for inappropriate behavior, while Mads Mikkelsen told GQ that he finds the process pretentious.
The most recent actor to speak out on the matter is Andrew Garfield, who has revealed that he engaged in method acting for his role in Martin Scorsese's 2016 historical drama "Silence." Garfield's answer offers a more nuanced take on the debate of how ethical method acting is — here's what the actor had to say.
He thinks there are misconceptions surrounding method acting
Andrew Garfield was recently interviewed by Marc Maron for his podcast "WTF with Marc Maron," during which Garfield talked in detail about his experience method acting. Garfield began by noting that there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the technique. He explained (via The Playlist), "It's not about being an a****** 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".
Garfield expressed his annoyance of people who dismiss the concept of method acting. He added that he believes those who think it's not a valid technique either don't know what method acting actually is or have only experienced it from an actor who claims to be a method actor but actually isn't.
The actor then described how method acting helped him on the set of "Silence." Garfield said (via "WTF with Marc Maron"), "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 [co-star] Adam [Driver] had to lose a bunch of weight anyway ... I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food for that period of time."