The debate on actors going “method” on set remain contentious to some and sacred to others, including Marvel star Andrew Garfield who previously spoke about how valuable he found it. In a previous interview on Marc Maron’s podcast, the Oscar nominee opened up about how he uses it in his roles, including becoming celibate and fasting quite a bit for hsi role in the Martin Scorsese movie Silence, where he played a Jesuit priest in the 17th century. Though Garfield made these comments a few weeks ago, Drew Barrymore brought them up on her talk show today, revealing that the half a year timeline for Garfield…isn’t that impressive to her.
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“I get abstaining from sex, I mean I did that my entire 20s, right?” Barrymore joked on her series (H/T Decider), “What’s wrong with me that six months doesn’t seem like a very long time? I was like, ‘Yeah so?’” That said, Barrymore revealed she’s been one to dabble in “method” at times, adding: “I definitely, on certain projects, like when I did Grey Gardens, this film I did where I played beloved real-life woman Edie Beale, I was so nervous I didn’t really chit chat with everybody on set, I just really stayed in character.”
In context, Garfield wasn’t really calling the six month time frame as being a long time to be celibate, just highlighting the level of preparation that he went through to maintain the truth of his character ahead of and during filming. “There [have] been a lot of misconceptions about what Method acting is, I think,” Garfield said in the interview. “People are still acting in that way, and 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.”
He continued, “I’m kind of bothered by this idea that ‘Method acting is f-cking bullsh-t.’ No, I don’t think you know what Method acting is if you’re calling it bullsh-t, or you just worked with someone who claims to be a Method actor who isn’t actually acting the Method at all. It’s also very private. I don’t want people to see the f-cking pipes of my toilet. I don’t want them to see how I’m making the sausage.”
Method Acting has been a controversial subject for some, in particular after reports of bizarre behavior by some alleged participants including Jared Leto. Others have been quick to point the finger at other strange takes on the method like Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon.
