Andrew Garfield says he gave up sex and starved himself for 6 months for method acting

Andrew Garfield has gone through "trippy" experiences while giving up sex and starving himself as part of his method acting.

The Spider-Man actor, 39, said he went celibate and without food to prepare for his role as a 17th century Jesuit priest in Martin Scorsese's 2016 missionary film Silence, which also featured Liam Neeson and Adam Driver.

Andrew told Monday's episode (Aug 22) of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast: "I did a bunch of spiritual practices every day, I created new rituals, I was celibate for six months and I was fasting a lot.

"It was very cool, man. I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food at that time."

Andrew also spent a year studying in preparation for Silence under Jesuit writer Father James Martin, 61, who helped the actor research Catholicism.

The actor added about the sacrifices, which led to a 2017 best actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Sebastião Rodrigues in Silence: "There have been a lot of misconceptions about what method acting is, I think.

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"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."

Andrew recently hinted the technique may have taken its toll, saying he is taking a step back from Hollywood to be "ordinary for a while."

He told Variety: "I'm going to rest for a little bit."