Andrew Garfield will only take hallucinogens where he feels safe to have a "freak out."
Andrew Garfield
The 34-year-old actor believes there's a huge stigma surrounding drugs, which he finds laughable, and, although he smokes cannabis because it makes him feel "nice", he's very selective about where he does the psychoactive agent - which can cause hallucinations, perceptual anomalies, and other changes in thoughts, emotion, and consciousness - because he wants to feel "free and safe" to express his inner mind.
Speaking to ES magazine, he said: "Drugs... The word has such a stigma.
"I can only really take substances if it's a ritual. I mean, weed, I can smoke because it's just nice. But with hallucinogens, I have to do it in a very conscious way in a place where I feel free and safe and can have a freak out if I want to. I want to be able to express my insights ... I find it pretty overwhelming being in any social situation that involves more than five people, to be honest.
"But outside of my closest friends and family, the theatre world is the place where I feel I most belong. It's the most welcoming community that I've ever experienced."
Meanwhile, the 'The Amazing Spider-Man' star believes his battle with meningitis as a baby, which almost killed him, has had a knock-on effect on some of the decisions he makes in life because the complications children suffer leave an "imprint."
He said recently: "Something I can share which is interesting, although it may be a bit tenuous to some people reading this, is that soon after I was born I contracted a strand of meningitis called coxsackie, which is almost a funny word but not a funny experience apparently. It could have killed me, or meant that I had severe mental or physical disabilities for the rest of my life.
"Some people might not agree, but I believe that our birth story, what happens in the womb, when we come out, the environment we come into, whatever complications at birth leave an imprint on the child. So I do believe that there is some innate knowledge of that experience in me somewhere. Some people may scoff at that."
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