Andrew Garfield recently weighed-in on the method acting debate, by describing how he starved himself of food and sex while filming Martin Scorsese’s Silence. You may think that intense psychological preparations are only limited to drama movies, and can’t be applied to something as seemingly frivolous as superhero movies. But you’d be wrong!
While the two Amazing Spider-Man movies weren’t exactly critical hits, most people agree that Garfield made a great Spider-Man, and was certainly committed to the role. He also had great chemistry with Emma Stone, who played Gwen Stacy. So much so, they were in a real-life relationship during filming. Incidentally – this is a trend in Spider-Man movies, as Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Holland and Zendaya all either were or are real-life couples.
Garfield took the role of Spider-Man so seriously, he prepared for Gwen Stacy’s tragic death scene by not seeing Stone for a week leading up to it being filmed. In a new book called With Great Power by Sean O’Connell, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 VFX Supervisor Jerome Chen describes how Garfield mentally prepared himself.
“I remember when they were filming that scene, Andrew and Emma deliberately didn’t see each other for a week. Andrew [Garfield] said, ‘I don’t want to see you! When you come into that scene, you have to pretend like you are dead to me.’ It was very quiet. The sets were almost always very quiet. Marc [Webb] likes to work very focused. So it was very quiet, a totally closed set. And I just remember Andrew coming in and just crying uncontrollably. It was hours of that. That was grueling but powerful,” says Chen [via The Direct].
Reportedly, Garfield was sold on the idea of his No Way Home cameo because they included a scene involving Zendaya’s MJ that is similar to Gwen Stacy’s death scene. In No Way Home, Garfield’s version of Spidey gets to save the girl this time.
If you’re a Spider-Fan, check out our guide to the best Spider-Man villains.