Andrew Garfield worked with two of Hollywood’s finest on his two most recent films — Mel Gibson on “Hacksaw Ridge” and Martin Scorsese on “Silence.”
“They’ve lived right in the sense that, as they’ve gotten older, they’ve gotten softer,” Garfield told TheWrap. “That’s my experience. The edge is that they are firm inside but on the outside, they’re permeable, malleable and, I don’t know, wise. There’s a wisdom… Marty has got to this place, it feels like in his life, where he’s in greater acceptance of who he is, and making this movie was a great part of that process for him, [it] was acceptance of his own humanity.”
Of Scorsese, who directed “Silence,” Garfield added, “to be an elder, you have to integrate all aspects of yourself by the time the exit door starts flashing. That’s the journey he’s on, for sure. And he’s integrating all aspects of himself and knowing them all and giving them to us as an audience. That’s what he has devoted his life to, inspiring to be around him.”
Garfield stars in “Silence” as a Jesuit priest in 17th-century Japan alongside Adam Driver and Liam Neeson. But Garfield also saw a certain similarity between his character in “Silence” and the character of Desmond Doss Sr., in Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge.”
In the film, Garfield plays the conscientious objector who fought for his right to take the battlefield without a gun, serving as a medic in Japan. He rescued 75 soldiers during the battle of Okinawa and was the first conscientious objector in history to be awarded the Medal of Honor, which is designated for battlefield heroics.
Of Gibson as a director, Garfield only sung praise.
“Mel has had his challenges and he’s worked,” Garfield said. “He’s done the work, and he’s still with us, and he’s made a film of profound beauty and profound love. He’s turned a war film into a love story. Not everyone can do that; only someone who has been to war in their own way and who has survived it.”
“Silence” expands nationwide on Jan. 13, while “Hacksaw Ridge” was released last month.
Watch the video above.