Silence's Martin Scorsese Opens Up About Drug Addiction Past

Andrew Garfield and his Silence director Martin Scorsese pose on the cover of THR.

Here’s what the pair shared with the mag:

Andrew, on filming on location: “[It] does things to your mind, especially when you’re on location in Taiwan, not knowing anybody. I would have about three hours’ sleep a night and have dreams and visions of the greatest meals of my life with the closest people. It’s very isolating and lonely and creates a spiritual hunger and a longing for comfort and connection.”

Martin, on his drug addiction past: “After finishing New York, New York, I took chances,” he says. “[I was] out of time and out of place and also in turmoil in my own life and embracing the other world, so to speak, with a kind of attraction to the dangerous side of existence. Then on Labor Day weekend, I found myself in a hospital, surprised that I was near death…Misuse of normal medications in combinations [to which] my body reacted in strange ways. I was down to about 109 pounds. It wasn’t only drug-induced – asthma had a lot to do with it. I was kept in a hospital for 10 days and nights, and they took care of me, these doctors, and I became aware of not wanting to die and not wasting [my life]. I prayed. But if I prayed, it was just to get through those 10 days and nights. I felt [if I was saved] it was for some reason. And even if it wasn’t for a reason, I had to make good use of it.”

For more from Andrew and Martin, visit HollywoodReporter.com.