How Jesuit spirituality changed Andrew Garfield’s life
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How did Andrew Garfield first become involved with Jesuit spirituality for the film *Silence*?
Whether you're an actor or not, with social media and with just a kind of the mask of the persona that we give to the world, it's a prison that we're all, I feel, in. And it's a prison that I long to free myself of. Free myself into my ordinariness. Free myself into my ability to just be a very flawed, a very beautiful, very complicated human being.
Welcome to the spiritual life. I'm Father Jim Martin. On this podcast we reflect on how people experience God in their prayer and in their daily lives, and I am joined by my wonderful In person producer Maggie Van Dorn. Maggie, good to be with you in person.
It's great to be here in this cool kind of nineteen seventies style studio. For those of you who are just listening to the podcast, you can also watch Jim and I uh on YouTube. We are the Spiritual Life on American Media's YouTube channel.
Well it's a rare treat to have you and we have a rare treat for our viewers and listeners. Uh this time we are speaking with uh my friend Andrew Garfield. Andrew Garfield is an award-winning actor known for a very wide range of roles in films like The Amazing Spider-Man, We Live in Time, Hacksaw Ridge, Tick Tick Boom, uh and his most recent film, which he talks about a little bit, is The Uprising, and we're really happy to have him.
Yeah, he is a very talented and well decorated actor. He has won a Golden Globe, a Tony Award, a BAFTA Award, and he has received two Academy Award nominations. And in preparing for one of his roles as a Jesuit priest in Martin Scorsese's Silence, he actually spent some time, maybe the better part of a year, working with you. Jim, in spiritual direction and on the exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. So Maybe could you tell us a little bit about what went into Andrew's training to be a Jesuit?
Yeah, sure. So uh Silence is about seventeenth century Portuguese missionaries in Japan. It's uh based on the book by Shusako Endo. And both Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver had to prepare for their roles. And Andrew decided he wanted to do the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius. And basically for those who don't know, it's an extended retreat where you meditate on the life of Christ. And sometimes people can do it within a month, thirty day retreat. Um Yeah. at a retreat house. But these days, um, most people do what's called the um exercises in daily life or the nineteenth annotation retreat where you do it over several weeks or months. the nineteen. Uh and Andrew and I spent probably about seven or eight months going through the whole exercises uh and he really
as I say in this uh interview, gave himself generously to the exercises and you know, really uh had wonderful experiences of Christ, of God that he talks about very openly in our conversation. So it was really a privilege um for me to work with him that way.
It's important to know that the spiritual exercises are for anyone. You don't have to be a Jesuit. You don't have to be uh an actor in order to do them. And uh Andrew Garfield gives this really beautiful interview, which I can tell he has done the exercises because of the way that he is able to access the depths within himself, um, but also has nurtured a relationship. With Jesus. And it's it's very real. So I I think this whole conversation is testament to Your relationship with Andrew and uh his own experience of doing the spiritual exercises.
Yeah, and God's relationship with him. God was very generous to Andrew too, and you'll hear a little bit about that uh in our interview.
Yeah. Together, Father Jim and Andrew will answer an audience question, and this came to us through our listener survey, so it's anonymous, but it is a very powerful question, and that is, how do I transform my pain to stop transmitting it to others? So stick around because Father Jim and Andrew will tackle that question together. And if you'd like to ask Father Jim a question, you can write to us at thespiritualife at americamedia dot org.
Well thanks, Maggie, and thanks for coming by. Um it's wonderful to see you in person, right? For us it's a big deal.
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
How did Andrew Garfield first become involved with Jesuit spirituality for the film *Silence*?
0:03–23:48
2
What spiritual themes from *The Uprising* does Andrew discuss and how do they relate to justice?
23:48–41:56
3
Is there a distinct spirituality of acting, and how does empathy shape Andrew’s performance?
41:56–56:38