Andrew Garfield Admits To 'Starving' Himself Of Sex, Food To Portray Role As Priest

Andrew Garfield revealed some sacrifices he had to make to embody his character as a Jesuit priest in the 2016 film "Silence."

While promoting his new limited series "Under the Banner of Heaven," the 39-year-old award-winning actor revealed to "WTF" host Marc Maron on Monday that he had to deprive himself of "sex and food" as part of his method acting approach as he prepared for his role as Fr. Sebastião Rodrigues in the historical drama film.

"I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food at that time," Garfield told Maron.

Garfield took a year studying under a Jesuit and spiritual writer Father James Martin, where he read and researched Catholicism and underwent spiritual exercises brought by St. Ignatius of Loyola. After that, he went through different spiritual practices to get into the depth of his character for the Bandung Film Festival-winning film.

"It worked for me. It worked in a very beautiful kind of [way]. I had an incredible spiritual experience, and combined with that, I did a bunch of spiritual practices every day that I created new rituals for myself," the Martin Scorsese film star shared when asked if he went through the process of becoming a Jesuit priest.

He continued, "I was celibate for six months. I am fasting a lot because me and [Adam Driver] had to lose a bunch of weight anyways."

Garfield made the revelation while talking about method acting, often perceived in a bad light because of its dangerous repercussions to famous Hollywood actors, including the late Heath Ledger, who "went into" the dark mindset of the villain Joker while doing the film "The Dark Knight."

Method acting is a method in which actors use their "physical, mental, and emotional self" to create a character and stress how their personal experience can spark an actor's imagination, according to Strasberg.edu.

However, the "Tick, tick...BOOM!" star debunked the notions, saying it was "far more internal" than what people perceive as dangerous and pretentious.

"I'm kind of bothered by the misconception, I'm kind of bothered by this idea that 'method acting is f---ing bull----.' No, I don't think you know what method acting is if you're calling it bull----, or you just worked with someone who claims to be a method actor who isn't actually acting the method at all," Garfield explained.

He continued, "It's also very private. I don't want people to see the f---ing pipes of my toilet. I don't want them to see how I'm making the sausage."

Garfield is a Tony and Golden Globe awardee famous for a variety of films with different genres, including "Hacksaw Ridge," "Breathe," "Mainstream" and the infamous "Spiderman" film series that started in 2012.

Currently, Garfield stars in the limited investigative series "Under the Banner of Heaven," alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sam Worthington, Rory Culkin and Wyatt Russell. The series streams on Hulu.