Actor tells of week in Welsh silent retreat house

HE can be seen in cinemas playing a Jesuit priest in Martin Scorsese’s new movie Silence – and Andrew Garfield says it was a week at a silent retreat in Wales that prepared him for the challenge.

The Hollywood star spent eight days at St Beuno’s Jesuit Retreat House in North Wales, along with co-star Adam Driver.

Garfield, 33, told The Graham Norton Show on Friday night that after leaving the retreat, the pair felt crazy.

“We spent all that time together and didn’t say a word but there was some miming and mouthing of things,” he said.

“It was a beautiful experience but when we got out it was like we had lost our minds.

“We spent a three-hour car ride in an outpouring of vile language and imagery. There was a lot of giggling and crying, too.”

Director of St Beuno’s Jesuit Retreat House, Father Roger Dawson, has previously said: “A few of the staff were briefed and sworn to secrecy, and he was booked in under the pseudonym of Jonathan Jokovic.”

In November The Social Network star told The New York Times: “On retreat, you enter into your imagination to accompany Jesus through his life.

“You are walking, talking, praying with Jesus, suffering with him.”

British actor Garfield has been Oscar nominated for best actor for the Mel Gibsondirected World War II film Hacksaw Ridge.

He said that his nomination was “remarkable, surreal and abstract”.

“I found out while in the canteen eating a tuna salad on a break from rehearsals for Angels In America at the National (Theatre). The rehearsal wasn’t going well, so to find out I had been nominated felt rather ironic and strange,” he said.

The Amazing Spider-Man star said of working with Gibson: “Quickly I felt very comfortable and happy to work with him.”