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2002 年度雜誌訪問 |
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Tobey Maguire / Spider-Man Interview
Having seen Tobey Maguire's work in the likes of Cider House Rules and Wonder Boys, it is no surprise that many scoffed at the casting of the actor in the title role of Spider-Man, yet seeing him in the dual roles of the spider superhero and love struck nerd Peter Parker, there is a distinct feeling that one couldn't imagine anyone else. For Maguire, painfully shy and reticent to undertake the intense publicity required to promote what can only be defined as his first Hollywood blockbuster, or as the actor puts it, "an event movie" about which he says he is excited to be a part of. Yet during early press for the film, it was more the possible real-life romance between Maguire and his 19-year old co-star Kirsten Dunst that generated all kinds of rumours. His first experience dealing with the gossip press, Maguire says little on the subject, "except that I don't care what the media says or doesn't say, quite frankly," end of story. All he will say, is that the on-screen chemistry between himself and Dunst "was real because of the brave kind of actress she is," he admits smilingly. Beyond what was clearly a business decision for the 27-year old actor to don the Spider-Man gear and take on this ageless character, was the chance, he explains, "to work with Sam [Raimi] who was the perfect choice for this film" because "he's great to be around, encouraging as far as me contributing ideas." The character, as redefined by Raimi and company, has an unusual complex duality which clearly was beyond the norm for this genre, and for Maguire, Spider-Man "was as much a character piece as anything I had previously done," dismissing the often held notion that this was simply another comic book blockbuster. "I really loved the character that was just interesting to me with interesting, complicated relationships and a tough journey." Asked what set Parker / Spider-Man apart from other superheroes and their alter-egos, Maguire merely adds that "the popular answer to that question is that he's not a multi-millionaire or an alien." He wouldn't disclose what the 'unpopular' answer would be. "I don't think like that or in terms of comparisons." Maguire admits to never having been much of a comic book fan "so I really don't have much to compare it with anyhow." Maguire happily concedes that as a kid, he "never read comic books or watched them on television. I was certainly aware of the characters and probably pretended I was them." Maguire has never been associated with the kinds of larger-than-life event movies which Spider-Man has set up to be, yet Maguire dismisses any additional pressure he might be under as a result of doing a film like this and remains philosophical as to the after-effect of the film on his own level of stardom. "You know, I'm just going to take it as it comes," he nonchalantly responds. He didn't feel the need to get advice from friend Leonardo Dicaprio whose life changed after Titanic hit. "I was there, so I saw how he dealt with it and it is what it is. I'm not going to even think about it and there's no reason to get nervous about it. It was obviously something I thought about in making the decision to do it, then after that I pretty much haven't thought about it, because it doesn't make sense to me that I get worked up over something that hasn't happened." Not used to any degree of physicality on the screen, Maguire was required to perform his Spider-Man sequences in full costume, which required him to "act in a very different way when you have that suit on, requiring you to act using a very different kind of body language as the character," he explains. "Sam and I talked a lot about keeping the audience with the character even though you can't see his expression." As for his action scenes, "it was mostly fun though at times it was a bit monotonous because it takes too long to shoot tiny portions of the film, but in other ways it was exciting because I didn't know what it was going to look like and I just had to put my faith in to everybody who was making the film." In preparing to shoot the film, Tobey worked out extensively and retained a vigorous, protein-intensive diet, one which didn't include beef, because of his vegetarian stance. "I'm a lacto-ovo-vegetarian, meaning I eat dairy with egg products, though I don't eat eggs and I'm not particularly fond of dairy either." All of this is ironic given the fact that his father is a renowned chef. "He just has to cook me stuff that I eat." Maguire doesn't cook too much at home, "but occasionally I'll prepare the odd pasta dish." Maguire, who was born in Santa Monica, California, to a construction worker father and secretary mother, was raised predominately by his mother after his parents divorced when he was almost two years old. Maguire and his mother led an itinerant lifestyle, living with relatives all over the country, which perhaps may have attributed to his desire to become an actor. "I never know how to respond to those kinds of questions; I am who I am, my history is what it is, and I'm sure it contributed very much to me and brought me to this moment." This 'moment' is the pinnacle of his career, now defined thanks to Spider-Man, and he's already contracted to do at least two sequels, the second of which will remain under the helm of Mr Raimi. "It should be fun, though there's no script as yet, but it'll be with the same group of people." Maguire makes no distinction between future smaller films or larger studio ones, insisting "that I go where the characters are, because everything I do, including Spider-Man, is character work for me." |
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The Wizard Q & A: Tobey Maguire
The "Spider-Man" star describes a make-out session with Kirsten Dunst and touts how "Spider-Man" will clean up on "Episode II". "You're Spider-Man!" shouts a gleeful 5-year-old boy, gazing up in awe and tugging at the jeans of Tobey Maguire. Maguire, who plays both Peter Parker and his superhero alter ego in May's big-budget "Spider-Man" film, says he's getting used to that kind of reaction from fans - both young and old. "Well, I'm playing Spider-Man in the movie," corrects Maguire, leaning down to look the youth in the eyes as he sips his cup of tea outside The Coffee House, a trendy cafe on L.A.'s Sunset Boulevard. "But I play Peter Parker, too." The youngster doesn't seem to understand the difference between the man and the role though, but it's nothing Maguire can't handle. "You know, I guess I am Spider-Man, huh?" says the smiling 26-year-old. Maguire had adopted the Spidey identity officially from fans ever since he signed on for the role of Peter Parker over a year ago. In fact, after it was announced he won the part and was thereby attached to the most highly anticipated comic book movie in history - which boasts a blockbuster-sized budget of over $100 million - Maguire heard a lot from the fans. That he was too doughy for the role. That he couldn't hold his own against a Hollywood heavyweight like Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe ("Platoon"), who plays Spider-Man's arch nemesis, the Green Goblin. That there wouldn't be any chemistry between him and the fetching Kirsten Dunst ("Bring it On"), who portrays the comely Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker's love interest. Luckily, even before being cast, Maguire found an ally and friend in director Sam Raimi (the "Evil Dead" films), who immediately fought to put the young actor in the Spider-Man costume, instead of other hot Hollywood hunks like Wes Bentley ("American Beauty") and Freddie Prinze Jr. ("Summer Catch"). Yet despite Raimi's support, Maguire (last seen playing a troubled but gifted college student in 2000's "Wonder Boys") admits he had to convince the rest of the "Spider-Man" production team and Sony Pictures executives that he was the right guy to pull off both the demands of Peter Parker's emotional role and Spider-man's action-packed sequences. "I did a screen test where I went in and did a regular dialogue scene," remembers Maguire. "Then I had to get dressed up. I wore a unitard thing - like a full blue suit. I did an entire fight scene for them. By the middle of the scene, I had shed my top layer and tied it off at my waist. So I went topless and finished this kind of martial-arts fight scene. It was a good-looking screen test and I think it finally clicked with them that I could play both parts." Indeed it did. Maguire, of course, went on to suit up as the Web-Slinger, and has since won over the approval of fans. And if the reaction of his young admirer is any indication, the role may have changed Maguire's life - and perhaps also his career - forever. Cotton: What made you even want to try out for the "Spider-Man" movie? Tobey: First of all, it had Sam Raimi at the helm. I'm a script guy and a filmmaker guy, so if the script is really good and the filmmaker is really good then I'm interested in it. The dynamics of these characters and what this kid has to go through is a really rich story. I was a little hesitant at first. You hear about these big action movies and you go, "Are they going to make a goof film out of it?" But when I found out Sam [Raimi] was on board and read the script, I was very interested. There's so much in the story about Peter Parker that you can relate to. He's dealing with not knowing what's happening to him, then accepting what's happening. Then he's dealing with misusing his powers to then being responsible with them - and that's the first act. Then there's the love story and the aspect of a mentor figure in Norman Osborn. I just thought it was comparable to some of the other things that I've done, which have been heady, art house films. This has elements of that but in a bigger venue with a much greater audience and it was fun. I'm excited about it because I've seen the film. Cotton: You've seen the film? How was it? Are you happy with the final product? Tobey: Uh ... it's hard to say because I look at it from an interesting perspective. When I'm watching the film, I'm looking at my work as an actor. The first time I see everything I do, I'm not really watching it to enjoy it. I'm criticizing the things that I've done or didn't do. On the other hand, there's a lot of stuff in this film that I'm not aware of, because I'm in front of the camera and they're doing a lot of things behind the scenes. When it's all put together, it's pretty mind-blowing. I was really impressed with the CGI, the movement and the look of Spider-Man. Some of the stuff - like how he's hurtling himself through the air - it's unbelievable. To know all the work that went into that to put it together - it pays off. It's a lot of people working on that and to see it all come together, it's pretty amazing. Cotton: You actually snuck into a theater to see the trailer the night it debuted. How was that? Tobey: It was great! It was so much fun! I went to the first night of "Lord of the Rings," so you know there's certain energy of the people in the audience excited to see a film. They're the right people to see the Spidey trailer and it's good because we have a good trailer. It gave me a rush! It gave me a thrill! Cotton: When you watch the film, can you tell when it's you as Spider-Man and when it's a stuntperson? Tobey: [Special Effects Supervisor] John Dykstra has done such an amazing job. I'm in there a fair amount. I'd say a lot of the close-up stuff is me. I did some of the stunts but there are certain things that are beyond human capabilities, let alone a guy who's not a natural gymnast. Although, I did train in gymnastic, martial arts and yoga to get flexible and be able to roll around, or do flips in wires and stuff. So, I did some of it, but the stunt guys did an amazing job. Cotton: How much of the in-costume work did they allow you to do? It looks a lot like it was dangerous ... Tobey: I trusted [the stuntpeople] with my life, literally, you know? It's kind of a frightening concept. You're up on wires, extremely high, and then dropping or rising up. I did one scene where I was in a parking lot hooked to wires that pulled me up. I'm running and doing like a double air jump and as I jump they're sending me 30 feet into the air and 30 feet across. If something goes wrong when you're doing a stunt like that, something pretty tragic could happen. One of the stunt guys was sort of our point person for Spidey. He studied all the Spidey poses and movement. He was out expert. He would help me out on some of it to choreograph my more advanced moves. Cotton: How about the computer imagery? Can you tell what's you and what's CGI? Tobey: I honestly watch it, but I don't know. I remember what some of the shots I did look like, but sometimes I can't tell. I couldn't give you an exact percentage I did because there's also a decent amount of CGI in there. Cotton: I hear working with Willem Dafoe might get a little dangerous, too ... Tobey: Working with Willem was great. He's Mister Gung-Ho! He wants to mix it up, get in there and he banged me up a little bit. He likes to lay into you a little. Nothing too crazy, but when Willem's kicking me, he's really kicking me. I think I leaned into something once and he actually clipped me on the chin. I took a lot of shots. I might still have some bruises. [Glances at his arms] Cotton: Think of them as souvenirs. Speaking of which, did you make off with any web-shooters or anything? Tobey: I've got to talk to them about that. I'm still hiding about three or four suits. [Laughs] I think they found one, but I've still got the other three locked up. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Maguire is joking about the theft of four Spider-Man suits that were stolen during production.] Cotton: Well, if you've got the costumes ... Which of Spider-Man's powers do you wish you could keep? Tobey: Oh wow. That's not fair. I want a few of them. Wow. I don't know, maybe the webbing and shooting the webbing. Then I could swing around and have that freedom to basically soar around as if I'm flying. Or possibly I'd want his jumping or his strength. I can't really say. Spidey sense, climbing walls. Sh--, you choose man, that's tough. Cotton: Okay, okay, here's an easier question. Who wins in a fight: You as Spider-Man or Michael Keaton as Batman? Tobey: He's got some armor up in that Batman suit but here's the deal. [Pauses] I think there's an obvious answer to that question, but I don't want to disrespect Mr. Keaton. [Laughs] Cotton: There's a scene in "Spider-Man" where you hang upside down in the rain and make out with Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane. She said in a previous interview that with the rain and the set, it wasn't very romantic. Tobey: That was a challenging moment. It was unfortunate because it was like five in the morning, after working all night, and we were racing to beat the daylight. I was in a really uncomfortable harness upside down with rain pouring into my nose and I couldn't breathe. I had to literally spit on her when we were kissing. [He breathes in through his mouth, then fake spits from the corner of it.] Poor girl. [Laughs] I'm like blowing, sucking, and blowing breath out of the corner of our mouths just to breathe, but it was worth it. Cotton: Did you meet Stan Lee when he was on the set doing his cameo? Tobey: I did meet Stan, yeah. [Huge smile] He was a very nice guy, and he just seemed very happy and content. It was an honor to meet him. It was also so weird to meet one of the guys that created Spider-Man. I just wanted to make sure he didn't think we were ruining his creation. Cotton: How did it feel to put on the costume the first time? Tobey: It was such a long process that I can't even tell you I remember the first moment. I tried on so many different things and the final costume was after me having 15 fittings to get it exactly right. But it's interesting being in the costume - I can't really explain it. It gives you a freedom to do things that if I were doing them I might look kind of funny. Cotton: Was there something about putting on the mask that adds to that feeling of freedom? Tobey: Yeah, it's like an identity shift, like truly and alter ego for me as an actor. I jump in there and it's a different kind of acting because you're doing movements you'd never imagine. [He hops out of the chair to mimic Spider-Man's movements of web-shooting.] It's interesting, it's fun. Sam and I talked about the freedom Peter Parker feels when he's in the Spider-Man suit and swinging through the air. It's like this dance he gets lost in and that's where he has an immense amount of confidence about himself. Cotton: It sounds like you had a lot of fun making the film, but will "Spider-Man" be the best superhero movie ever? Tobey: It should be. [Smiles] I surely hope so. He's definitely the most relatable guy around. I mean, when you say superhero movie, I only really think of Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. There are other superheroes in movies, but I would say that the only contenders are the first "Batman" and maybe the first or second "Superman." I'm going to go out on a limb and say, yeah, "Spider-Man" will be the best. [Laughs] We'll see, I don't want people to be pissed off at me if it's not. Cotton: "Spider-Man" vs. "Episode II." Which one is going to be the bigger movie? Tobey: Are you figuring in terms of box-office receipts or excitement? You choose. It's always going to be hard to beat out "Star Wars" in any kind of monetary sense. Cotton: But in terms of buzz or excitement, which do you think will be the bigger movie? Tobey: I'm more excited about "Spider-Man," personally. If this was "Episode I," that would be really tough for me. But having seen "Episode I" - which I don't think is a bad film - it just didn't meet my expectations. I think we have a better trailer. I'm just excited to see "Spider-Man" hit and to feel the energy of the film out there in the public and the presence it has. My friends are more excited about seeing "Spider-Man." But I hope that "Star Wars" is a really good film, too. I'm hungry for it. I would hate to see us clean up on them. I would feel bad. |
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The Immaculate Ascension of Tobey Maguire
"Once an outsider, Tobey Maguire stars as Spider-Man, that lithe dancer of the skies. And he convinces us that he'll be in the hot center of the new Hollywood for quite a long time." Scottie Pippen just gave me a lap dance. It's no big deal. Having an NBA star chase a loose ball into your seat is just one of the perks when you're courtside at the Staples Center with Tobey Maguire. The others are free snacks (popcorn and peanut M & M's for my vegetarian host) and Laker Girls crouching at your feet between routines. For Maguire, however, there will be no tomfoolery at tonight's game. And not just because he's dating actress Kirsten Dunst. No, the 26-year-old star of the forthcoming $100 million-budget Spider-Man has serious work to do: taunting the Portland Trail Blazers. Perched in his $1,500 seat, the five-foot-eight, 140-pound yoga enthusiast is perfectly positioned for his job. And tonight it is Rasheed Wallace who will feel his reign of terror. "Hey! Hey, Rasheed!" Maguire shouts in his reedy voice as the hulking power forward lopes into view. "Want to win some games? Then you should get traded to the Lakers!" It's a bit disappointing, Maguire's trash-talking, if you can call it that. This is not what you'd hope for from a charter member of Leonardo Dicaprio's latter-day Rat Pack, a.k.a. the Pussy Posse. Compared to the laser beams of intimidation Jack Nicholson fires through his shades here, or the verbal canings Spike Lee administers to Reggie Miller et al. at the Garden, Maguire's put-down packs as much wallop as those zingers Russell once laid on his fellow Cosby Kids ("Rudy, you're like a teacher on summer vacation: no class!"). The Nerf-level trash talk is palatable in part because Maguire doesn't come here, as so many stars do, for the scene. He comes because he's a true fan of the Lakers, the team that gave him a sense of identity during an itinerant childhood. Back then he played out his schoolyard hoop dreams against an imaginary sound track, with Lakers announcer Chick Hearn providing the play-by-play. A few years ago, he organized a team to play in the NBA's invitation-only Entertainment League. Alongside his buddy Dicaprio, Maguire suited up as a Laker and hired a former NBA assistant coach to teach them the skill-intensive Triangle Offense. It didn't work. (Of Maguire's on-court prowess, his team-mate Nick Cassavetes told me, "The good news is, you can put Tobey to guard the other team's best scorer. The bad news is, Breckin Meyer took him to the hole.") Regardless of his basketball skills, Maguire is now making his way as an actor. Although he may not have huge numbers at the box office, when it comes to turning in a subtle performance, he could take most of his contemporaries to the hole. If the metaphor sounds strained, it's not. Not when you listen to Maguire talk about himself: "I'm Kobe Bryant in his third year with the Laker. Back then he was getting his game together, but he wasn't at the top of his game yet," he says. In Maguire's estimation, the difference between his talent and Bryant's on-court mastery is a combination of discipline, age, courage and what he sees as "letting go of insecurity and embracing risk." The fear of failure, which once consumed him, is now receding. And by "embracing risk," Maguire means attempting roles that push him beyond the parts that got him noticed: playing the shy observer, the young man with a moral center, the lost boy whom female leads simmer for and then seduce. To the art-house crowds who watched Maguire in The Cider House Rules, Ride With the Devil, and The Ice Storm, pocketing $4 million to cavort in a spandex suit as Spider-Man might sound like an incongruous - and not exactly artistically risky - move. But to Maguire, playing the webhead is part of a bigger plan. Two years ago when he decided to pursue the part, he was looking not only to play against type but also to become a bankable leading man. He went after Spider-Man and looked into the Ethan Hawke character in Training Day as well. "I've had plenty of opposition from the powers that be - the money people. And understandably so, I guess," Maguire says as we watch the Lakers jump ahead. "They want to see the numbers. What movies has this person been in? What is he worth in these different markets? Can he open a movie? This may alleviate some of that opposition." Off-camera, Maguire is soft-spoken, smart and funny (both ha ha and the other kind). His most noticeable feature is his eyes - blue, but not dull or sharklike. Their intensity separates him from many of his contemporaries - the too-pretty, vacant-eyed WB spawn he bested for his current role. Perhaps it is no coincidence, then, that in Spider-Man he plays a superhero who wears a mask that is all eyes and no mouth. Maguire will talk volubly about his passions: hoops, backgammon and movies, but when the subject turns to him, his woman or the events that precipitated his decision to get over several years ago, he goes mute. The closest Maguire will get to insight involves his childhood: Growing up, he seemed to switch schools almost every year. He learned, above all, he says, that survival was based on observing and understanding others, not revealing himself. But right now, someone is observing Tobey. A few rows behind us, in the plebeian seats, a sandy-haired guy in a designer Spider-Man shirt stares at Maguire. He wants eye contact. He wants to be acknowledged. He is the kind of guy whose gaze you avoid. He finds his way a few rows closer and shouts, "Hey! Hey, Tobey! Did you have a good time at the Mansion the other night?" as if they were buddies who regularly pass Playmates back and forth in the Grotto. The guy edges closer, and as this Rupert Pupkin-in-training presses up to us, Maguire bravely shakes his hand. In this creepy moment - the moment before the disgruntled office seeker does something horrible - it's understandable why Maguire would want to retail himself to a mass-market audience from behind a mask. Every era gets the superhero it needs, a demigod to salve the collective neuroses of the age. Born during the Depression, Superman is a bullet-proof immigrant from another planet who mirrored many an immigrant's dream that truth, justice and the American way would defeat the toxic ideologies of the Old World. But teenage geek Peter Parker, who got his powers when he was bitten by a radioactive spider at the height of the Cold War, is more antihero than superhero. Spider-Man does not live in stately Wayne Manor or soar above the Metropolis. He resides with his aunt May and uncle Ben in Queens. He has glasses and can't get a date. He is, in the words of his creator, Stan Lee, "a very average kid who had a lot of personal problems, who unexpectedly got a superpower and had to learn that with great power comes great responsibility." Maguire admits he wasn't a comic-book fan growing up and under most circumstances he would have had little interest in playing a superhero. But it was Peter Parker's human frailty that drew Maguire to the project. "Superman is an alien. Batman's alter ego is multimillionaire Bruce Wayne, who seems like he lives a cold, isolated existence surrounded by all his riches," Maguire says. "When I hear people talk about Spider-Man and why they like him so much, I hear them say he seems more like one of them, as if what happened to him could happen to them too." As the Lakers head to the locker room at the half, Maguire seems perfectly happy to avoid the Staples Center scene. Courtside usually allows for all the schmoozing anyone can handle, but Maguire will have none of it. Instead, he heads to the men's room - and begrudgingly agrees to take me the VIP lounge (access is denied to all but those with courtside tickets, so I figure I may as well grab the opportunity). Inside I become my own less-than-super hero, a character we'll call Schmooze Man: able to have several vacuous yet oh-so-life-affirming conversations with agents, producers and executives inside a single five-minute span. When Schmooze Man rejoins his sidekick at courtside, however, he wonders if there is some connection between Maguire's origin and the way he avoids the VIP lounge. Though Maguire did not escape from the planet Krypton, he did have his own Smallville - in his case, Santa Monica, where, on June 27th, 1975, Tobias Vincent Maguire was born. His 20-year-old father, a sometime cook and construction worker, and his 18-year-old mother, who did secretarial work, were not married at the time. They split up when he was young. As a boy, Maguire was shuttled around, living with various permutations of relatives: his mother, his father, his mother and her boyfriend, his father and his uncle, his aunt, his grandmother, his dad and a stepmom and a stepsister and a half brother. He can't remember the exact order of the locations, but he lived for periods of time in the Pacific Northwest, in Ashland, Oregon; Vancouver, Washington; Battle Ground, Washington. He spent the majority of his time in Southern California - Hollywood, West Hollywood, Silver Lake, the San Fernando Valley and Palm Springs. It was in Palm Springs that the wandering first took its toll on the young Maguire. At the beginning of sixth grade, he awoke each morning feeling sick to his stomach. "I didn't realize until years later that it was nerves," he says as the second half gets under way. "I was just so nervous about going to school and changing schools and meeting new kids." As a defense mechanism, he developed his powers of observation. What better way was there for the perpetual new kid to survive than eyes open, mouth shut? He learned to watch people, to study the pecking order and figure out whom he wanted to be friend. It was a traumatic way to spend his formative years. "When I was a teenager, I felt like I wouldn't give myself to anybody - meaning friends or relationships," he says. "I needed to be able to walk away at any point, which I think has served me well in some ways and then not so well in others." Like many an actor who spend his childhood as an outsider, Maguire always felt comfortable onstage. He took his first acting class at 12, when his mom, who had entertained notions of becoming an actress, offered him $100 if he would take one. Her offer wasn't a tough sell, since Maguire always liked the attention he received when he performed, beginning with singing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" as a 4-year-old in a talent show. Acting began to have a positive effect on the peripatetic new kid. As his ninth-grade teacher, Jimmy Lennon Jr., remembers, "Tobey was a little more natural, a little more verbal, than the other kids. He wasn't rah-rah, wasn't with the in-crowd, but he was well liked." At the end of his ninth-grade year, in 1990, Maguire decided to leave school. He got his GED and started auditioning nonstop, landing bit parts on Walker, Texas Ranger and Blossom. (On the latter, he played a guy with a hickey at a make-out party.) He was living with his mother in Hollywood by this time and soon became tight with a group of other aspiring teen actors he'd see on the audition circuit, including Dicaprio, Jay Ferguson (Evening Shade) and Ethan Suplee (American History X). In between playing video games and reading books about acting and actors, he studied videos starring Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro, giving himself a tutorial in Method acting. When, in the wake of Titanic Leomania catapulted this circle of friends - who had once dreamed of nothing more than getting their first McDonald's commercial together - into being the all-beef patties in model sandwiches at Moomba, Maguire was along for the ride. But he was not the guy breaking paparazzi's cameras. He was the mellow fellow in the wild bunch. Part of his maturity stemmed from his decision, when he was 19, to quit drinking. "Basically, it came down to certain behavioral things getting in the way of work," Maguire says. "And so I had to make a decision: I could be a teenager and do all the stupid things that go along with that or focus on acting. Instead of going out and getting drunk, I ended up staying home and reading scripts." It wasn't that he was a bad drunk, he says, but he found booze's effects corrosive. His cynical sense of humor mixed with alcohol often turned mean-spirited. When pressed, Maguire will not offer anything else on the subject. Although he will admit a "definitive incident" precipitated his becoming a vegetarian, no such moment is linked with his going dry. Even now Maguire remembers the day he had his last bite of meat. It was nine years ago, in Texas; a buddy had been raving about a local hamburger joint. Maguire had been a picky eater for years, starting with his distaste for egg yolks. By that day of the bacon cheeseburger, his meat intake had dwindled down to the occasional boneless chicken breast. And then in Texas, the smell of the bacon put him over the edge. "It was one of those places where you could imagine them slaughtering the pig out back," he says. "And I couldn't help thinking about the connection between the animal and the food, and that was it." Around the time Maguire decided to go sober, actor-director Griffin Dunne gave him his break by casting him as the lead in Duke of Groove, a short film about a teenage boy who escorts his mother to a party in the Hollywood Hills where Janis Joplin is scheduled to drop by. The boy has a fabulous night-until the ride home, when his mother drops the bomb that his father is leaving her. The film was largely autobiographical, and Dunne wanted an actor who reminded him of himself as a teenager. At the audition Maguire showed that he could conjure up a full palette of moods-shy, intense, quiet-as well as capture the way adolescent boys mask whatever sadness they are feeling with humor. Before shooting began, Dunne told Maguire to watch The Graduate and read The Catcher in the Rye. Maguire did as he was told, then reported to Dunne that he liked Hoffman's performance but that he was not a fan of the book. "It sucks," Maguire said. "What do you mean, it sucks?" responded the director. "What a whiny asshole," was the actor's succinct literary critique. In recounting the story, Maguire says his career has felt like a series of stepping-stones. Duke of Groove got him the audition for The Ice Storm. His performance in that film - as something of a modern-day Holden Caufield watching his family disintegrate over a Thanksgiving Day weekend - caught the eye of Cider House director Lasse Hallstrom. Cider House, in turn, put him in the running for Spider-Man. Maguire knows his performances will always get him a meeting with a director. And once he's in the room, he seldom loses a part. As Ice Storm producer Ted Hope tells me later, he remembers seeing Duke of Groove and then auditioning Maguire with Katie Holmes in Los Angeles. They performed the scene in which Holmes passes out with her head in Maguire's lap. "There was," Hope says of that day, "a real intelligence in Tobey's eyes, a kind of charming insecurity." The tape of the audition was sent to New York, where Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus watched Maguire's performance. They were struck by what Schamus calls his "ability to be otherworldly and accessible." If it's any consolation to Columbia Pictures, Maguire was as leery of playing Spider-Man as they were of casting him. "They wanted the he-will-rock-you guy." he says, alluding to Heath Ledger of A Knight's Tale. Maguire was in no hurry to dissuade them. In his mind, big action movies were usually low quality. It was only when Sam Raimi, whose credits range from The Evil Dead to A Simple Plan, was chosen to direct that Maguire grew interested. Kobe Bryan steals a pass and leaves Rasheed Wallace in the dust. Maguire cheers, feeling vindicated. "Why do you pick on Wallace?" I ask. "He's a hothead, so I might actually have an effect," he says before launching into an explanation of how he got the part of Spider-Man. Raimi had always wanted to make a movie with Maguire, but Amy Pascal, the chairman of Columbia Pictures, had to be persuaded. She believed there was no young actor better equipped to capture and convey the subtleties of Peter Parker's character. But she was not sure she wanted to risk a potential franchise on Maguire, who had never done an action movie. At a certain stage in a movie star's career, he or she no longer has to audition. A star gets an offer, or meets with a director and sells himself in the room. When the studio asked Maguire to screen-test - not once but twice - it was a blow to his ego. It also stressed him out. Unlike in his teenage years when he was an auditioning machine and casting directors had little or no expectations, he was not accustomed to the process and now disliked it. (When Reese Witherspoon first saw Maguire at a Pleasantville audition, he was holding his stomach and lying on the floor groaning.) For the first test, he performed a three-page romantic scene as Peter Parker with Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Eliza Dushku reading the part of his love interest, Mary Jane - a role that subsequently went to Kirsten Dunst. For the second session, Raimi had him put on a unitard and perform some action moves. As the choreographer and the stunt coordinator were stretching Maguire out, he decided to pull down the top of the suit "in case that's what they wanted to see." He came across as what Raimi would subsequently dub "a ball-busting sledgehammer of an action star," and after a fullcourt press by the director on the studio, Maguire got the part. "Nobody knows what Spider-Man looks like," Raimi told the studio executives. "But even kids know his body type is not Schwarzenegger's. Spider-Man is a lithe dancer of the skies who performs his ballets fifty stories above the streets of Manhattan." Over the next four and a half months, the budding superhero worked out six days a week, twice a day. In addition to his usual yoga instructor, he had a weight trainer, a martial-arts instructor and a gymnastics trainer to aid him in his quest to become this aerial dancer. When shooting started, though, no amount of training prepared him for the suit-and its mask. Without a mouth the mask and suit became very hot. Once Maguire was zipped into it, he could not get out of it. This played with his control issues, he said, reminding him of being trapped in a sleeping bag by an older cousin as a kid. He became more comfortable with playing a knight in blue spandex when Willem Dafoe signed on to play the Green Goblin. As the movie's Jekyll and Hyde-like supervillain, whose own devolution into evil mirrors Peter Parker's transformation into a hero, Dafoe had a range of scenes with Maguire and found him to be different from many of his peers. A few weeks after the Lakers game, Dafoe called from Paris, where he was on tour with the Wooster Group, an avant-garde theater company, to explain, "What's amazing about younger actors is, they're obsessed with being comfortable, to the point that anything that gives them a hard time they'll try to expunge from a scene. Tobey's not like that at all. He doesn't come to work with a personal agenda, and that's the mark of an actor as opposed to a personality: being interested in transformation." Thanks to Maguire's hollering, the Lakers beat the Trail Blazers, 98-87, and as we scan the parking lot for Maguire's silver Mercedes, he talks about transformation. Not in terms of craft, but in terms of how he is starting to produce projects. He has been developing material. He has talked with his buddy, director Nick Cassavetes, about turning Tim O'Brien's book Going After Cacciato into a movie. He has no definitive commitments beyond Spider-Man, but he wants to have a firmer hand in his professional destiny. We find the car. He pressed down on the key fob. The Mercedes' locks pop open with an electronic squeak. He asks if I like backgammon. This is Maguire's game. He got the bug when he was shooting Pleasantville. He liked winning. He liked telling people how he was going to beat them while he was playing them. Why the move they were about to make was stupid. He liked gambling and winning. He was into the competition. I mention that I love playing the game but am tired of losing to my wife. I suspect it has something to do with the way I move my mouth and use my fingers when I count. He tells me to read Barclay Cooke and Jon Bradshaw's Backgammon, the Cruelest Game: The Art of Winning. "What is it you like about the game?" I ask, hoping at long last for a glimpse behind the mask. "There's a lot of skill, but you can't see it on the surface. People who assume it's about luck know nothing about it." And as we get into his car to head home, I'm not certain whether he was talking about a board game or about his career, too. |
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Paparazzi in Spin over Web-Slinger Access
The newest superhero to reach the cinema screen, Spider-Man, faced his first adversary in Sydney yesterday. A group of photographers, upset about the lack of access to the stars of the new Hollywood film, walked out of a press conference. If the Green Goblin stands no chance against Spider-Man in the $150 million film, the city's paparazzi were doing their best to disrupt his screen debut. It was an eventful start to a week that also includes visits by Hollywood studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg to promote the animated Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron and Jodie Foster for the premiere of the thriller Panic Room. With the paparazzi out of the way, the team behind Spider-Man faced the press on behalf of a still-unfinished film that won't be released in this country for two months. There was Tobey Maguire, from The Cider House Rules and Wonder Boys, who plays the nerdy kid who gets superhuman powers after being bitten by a genetically-altered spider. There was Kirsten Dunst from Bring It On and The Virgin Suicides who plays his butt-kickin' love interest and Willem Dafoe from Platoon and Shadow of the Vampire who plays the villain, the Green Goblin. In their midst was one-time schlock film-maker Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead), who is bringing the comic-book hero to the cinema screen after directing Russell Crowe in The Quick and the Dead and Cate Blanchett in The Gift. The film attracted attention last year with a flashy teaser trailer that showed Spider-Man spinning a web on New York's twin towers to catch a helicopter full of crooks. It was a moment that drew cheers from cinema audiences in the United States. Raimi said the terrorist attacks on September 11 had forced a re-evaluation of the scene. "After September 11, we didn't think it was appropriate to use that footage for a big cheer moment. We did feel, conversely, that it was proper to leave in all the twin tower footage in the rest of the picture. Other film-makers have different points of view but we wanted to honour the twin towers." Raimi said the lasting appeal of the superhero, created for Marvel Comics 40 years ago, was that he was "one of us". "He's a kid from our world. He grows up in a middle-class background. This average kid that we identify with, something extraordinary happens to him ... Through a hard journey, he becomes a hero." Maguire trained six days a week for five months for the role. His routine included gymnastics, martial arts, weight training, yoga, cycling and running. The budding superhero showed a human touch when he said he had not kept up the intense physical training. "But I've been eating a lot of doughnuts," he said. |
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'Spider-man' Tobey Maguire's Life Lessons
There's a scene in "Spider-man" where the scrawny teen Peter Parker looks in the mirror and discovers he's suddenly a hunky, buff specimen. It's every adolescent's dream to suddenly be thinner, taller, blonder or stronger. But to achieve those defined pecs and washboard abs actor Tobey Maguire spent five months, six days a week working out from one to four hours a day. So much for instant perfection. Maguire himself, who has built an envious fiefdom with roles in films like "Wonder Boys," "The Ice Storm" and "The Cider House Rules," admits that he had similar dreams as a teen-ager. "I had crooked teeth as a kid, and we didn't have money for braces so I always wanted to have braces when I was a kid, as silly as that sounds," says Maguire whose teeth seem nearly perfect now. "It was just the two teeth toward the front. I was wrestling with a friend and had a happy accident. I was wrestling and he stood up from underneath me (and hit him under the chin) and these two teeth got chipped and I had to get them capped. And I said, 'Well, since you're capping them why don't you make them look straight?'" Even though he had a bit of "cosmetic" dentistry at a young age, he didn't intend to be an actor. When he was a little boy, Maguire wanted to be a chef. "I think cooking is a great art form, a really high art form," he says. "I'm a vegetarian and I'll throw all kinds of things into it, I'll cook pasta and throw in nuts and tofu and mix all kinds of herbs and sauces. I cook for hours on one little dish, I'll just sit there and taste each little thing as I put it in. I love cooking, it's so fun!" Maguire says he became a vegetarian because he was so finicky about what he ate when he was small. "With the meat, I'd always have to inspect every little nook and cranny of one bite of meat. So it would take me five minutes to have each bite because I was so paranoid that there was going to be some blood vessel that would snap or a little gristle - which there is half the time and I'm picking it out of my mouth and nauseous and can't eat my food anymore. So at one point I said, 'Why am I putting myself through this torture?'" Maguire's passion for acting came after he'd been performing for three years. By the time he was 16 he knew it was something he wanted to devote himself to. The child of divorced parents, Maguire had spent most of his life moving from one place to another. Once he made the decision to be an actor it was his schooling that suffered. "As far as actual school, I didn't really go," he says, sitting with his hands to his sides and dressed in an oft-washed black T-shirt. "I was a great student, loved school and was athletic and one of the top of my class. I was in all honors and would get almost straight As. Mid-way through the seventh grade I left this one school and I was kind of done with school at that point." He became truant and constantly skipped school. "So my mother talked to me at the end of the seventh grade and said, 'Look, you've got to do something because you're not applying yourself in school. So you've either got to get serious about school or you have to pursue acting.' I don't know that she actually put it to me that way but this is how I reflect on it." He was enrolled in a professional school for the eighth grade. "It had shortened hours, the lunches were long, and if you were late or took a little longer at lunch they didn't really say anything to you. And I did the work I wanted to do, turned it in when I felt like it. There were only like six students in the entire school and you could go off and work and it was fine. So I look at the eighth grade as just paying for my grades basically and I got straight As that year too, but I didn't really do anything to earn them." For his ninth grade he attended private school, which was a little more orthodox, but he began working more hours. "I was leaving school to work and didn't really care anymore," he says. As far as Maguire's education, things went from bad to worse. "In the tenth grade I took home study but cheated the entire year - didn't answer one question myself. They sent you all the answers and your parents are supposed to check them but they sent you answers for the tests and everything, so I did my entire year in about two days, copying all the answers. Then I took my California High School Proficiency exam, equivalent to the GED, and that's my schooling." Maguire may have made up for his academic deficiencies with life lessons. Already a seasoned veteran in Hollywood at 26, Maguire has committed to two more "Spider-man" movies. From the salary he made on the first one, he's already a millionaire. |
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How to Get Super Fit
Spider-Man Tobey Maguire went from soft to solid in six months. Could you? Greg Joujon-Roche, founder of Holistic Fitness, the L.A. health studio were Maguire trained, says you don't need a star's time and money to get into tip-top shape. Here's what Maguire did and what you can do. Real-Life Routine Workout: Maguire exercised for at least 3.5 hours, six days a week, with his regimen varying "depending on how sore he felt," says Joujon-Roche. Mornings were spent improving his flexibility with yoga and splits, along with building strength through abdominal and lower-body exercises on an oversize ball. "We would just work on each body part until we killed it," Joujon-Roche says. "Then the next day we'd go to another and kill that one." Afternoons were devoted to cardiovascular activities like martial arts and cycling, to burn fat, plus gymnastics. "Tobey did his own flips with that Spider-Man hood on," says Joujon-Roche. "We gave him self-assuredness." Diet: For breakfast Joujon-Roche made the actor, a vegetarian, a "high-protein shake that included nuts, essential oils and vitamins." Lunch, he says, was often "marinated tofu with broccoli and walnuts and dinner a big veggie burger with brown rice." The menu varied with Maguire's output. "If his workout was pure weights," says Joujon-Roche, "he needed protein. If he did cardio, he'd have a shake of all carbs." |
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Spider-man: The Amazing Adventure of Tobey Maguire, Unlikely Superhero - Kiss of the Spider
Tobey Maguire has always played the sensitive and thoughtful boy next door and thoughtful boy next door in sensitive and thoughtful small films. But now, with his starring role as Spider-man, he's set to take the blockbuster summer movie season by storm. Which leads us to wonder, just who is this masked man? "Not a bad job if you can get it," director Sam Raimi interjects after dripping-wet Kirsten Dunst delivers her line. She then approaches an upside down Tobey Maguire, who, as Spider-man, is in head-to-toe red, black, and blue. With principal photography long since wrapped, Raimi, huddled next to editor Bob Murawski, observes the two actors on several monitors in a dark editing bay on the Sony lot. Raimi is preparing for a meeting with his visual-effects team, but he can't help taking a moment to admire the good fortune of his lead actor. "At this point in the movie, Spidey is like a misunderstood teenager. He's a misunderstood superhero - he's feeling bad," Raimi says, watching the flickering image on the screen. "One of the effects that Kirsten - I mean MJ [Mary Jane] - has on Spider-man is that she lifts his spirits." "Apparently. The scantily clad Dunst peels the costume down Maguire's face, revealing his mouth, and she proceeds to give him a ravishing kiss. "You see why I cast him," Raimi says. "It had to be someone I could identify with. The story [of Spider-man] is 'What if one of us became a superhero?'" Tobey Maguire is an unlikely summer blockbuster hero if there ever was one. But he has always been a confounding bundle of contradictions: an actor known for his sensitive performances as an often soulful in such meticulously chosen projects as The Ice Storm, The Cider House Rules, and Wonder Boys, but also for running with Leonardo Dicaprio's Young Hollywood Party set, as well as for fiercely guarding his privacy (Autograph Collector magazine dubbed him the "worst signer" in 2001). And now here he is - his generation's best approximation of Holden Caulfield - taking on a reported $100 million summer tent pole. But Spider-man was never your holier-than-thou superhero. The character, created by Stan Lee at Marvel Comics in 1962, marked a new breed of comic-book protagonist: Superman came from the planet Krypton, and Batman was an aloof millionaire, but Peter Parker was a lower-middle-class orphan from Queens, New York, who wasn't popular with the girls. During a museum visit, he happened upon a radioactive spider that bit him, giving him arachnid like powers. This was a hero cut from the cloth of the comic readership itself: awkward adolescents. Marvel's most popular character would go through various incarnations over the decades before finally crawling its way into the motion picture pipeline in the late 1990s. In January 2000, Columbia Pictures made the bold move of picking Raimi - a director who started out in the cult horror genre (Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness) and had recently switched to more dramatic fare (A Simple Plan) - to bring Spider-man to the screen. Raimi, a life-long fan of the web-slinger, was hired in part for his fan-friendly sensibility - his being more like that of a Bryan Singer (X-men) than a Joel Schumacher (Batman & Robin). He was not expected to deliver cookie-cutter confection - and he would start with the casting of his lead. "Spider-man is not the guy we admire and look up to physically," Raimi recalls telling Columbia. "He's the guy we look up to and admire spiritually. A lot of the picture is [him] coming to terms with this strange transformation that he's going through." But while director's nuanced vision of an intense character may be best realized by a complex actor, a blockbuster lead usually calls for an accessible, pop-friendly celebrity - not exactly what the 26-year-old Maguire embodies. "Tobey's very closed to people he doesn't know," Dunst says of her costar. "He's always in control." Maguire arrives for dinner at the Santa Monica vegetarian restaurant Real Food Daily in a pristine Mercedes S500, white T-shirt and with a few days' stubble. The restaurant is an old favorite, but he says he hasn't been here in a while, though after he orders a sumptuous meal of Salisbury Seitan (a hearty protein derived from wheat), mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy, he warmly greets several fashionable unkempt patrons and a waiter. (Waiter: "How are you doing?" Maguire: "Just hanging out. Did you have fun that night?" Waiter: "Yeah, it was a blast ... we're out of the stuffing, though, bro.") Maguire, a vegetarian for nine years and a yoga practitioner for eight, fold his right leg under himself in a half-crossed contortion and readies himself when a tape recorder is placed on the table. He pretends to go stiff and acts like a robot being turned on. "My initial reaction was on of the skepticism of a big studio action movie," he says of Spider-man. "Then I heard that Sam was going to be a part of it, and it made me pay more attention. And then I read it, and I liked the script. [Although] there were a few other movies floating around that were possibilities." Maguire, who refers to potential roles in Gangs of New York, Hart's War, and what was to become Ethan Hawke's Oscar-nominated part in Training Day, adds, "I went from being skeptical and chasing all those other films to diving headlong into pursuing getting the role of Spider-man. It was an effort." Indeed. First, there was the task of getting the studio to even consider Maguire. "The moment I saw Cider House Rules, I knew I had to have him," Raimi says. "It then became a question of convincing the studio." Avi Arad, president and CEO of Marvel Studios and a Spider-man executive producer, describes the process as "a hard soul-searching, because, well, the name of the movie is Spider-man. The weight of the movie is on the shoulders of this one actor. People tend to look around because it's a huge decision." The names that came up reportedly included Jude Law, Chris O'Donnell, and Freddie Prinze Jr., but Raimi held firm. "They simply believe that we needed a bigger, square-jawed, movie-handsome, but very capable actor in the role. I'm sure they would have been very happy with a Wes Bentley or a Heath Ledger. It was a process of communicating with them. They know who Spider-man is very well, but they don't know him [like] a kid who grew up with the books, as I did. The Marvel comic-book artists have always created the visual of Spider-man as a lithe and slender superhero. He was built more like an acrobat than a muscle man." Maguire came in for a screen test, but the studio still was not convinced. "They just couldn't make the leap," producer Laura Ziskin says. "They loved him as an actor, but they didn't get it." So Raimi decided to show the studio what Maguire was capable of in a fully produced action screen test. "Tobey didn't want to do it," Ziskin says. "He's an established actor." Being asked to make such a test is often considered insulting to a seasoned actor. But Raimi wouldn't give up. "I needed him in the movie so badly," Raimi says, "I said 'Tobey, I don't want to make this movie without you. They're not going to let me hire you unless they're convinced by seeing you on film. It's not about what you or I want.' We needed to create this tool to convince the powers that be." The choreographed scene - "all Bruce Lee-style," according to Maguire - costarred Eliza Dushku, who volunteered as a favor, and was shot by Spider-man cinematographer Don Burgess. Raimi then spent the night editing the piece and delivered it the next day. "They saw the screen test," Raimi says, "and they finally said, 'You know what, Sam? Now we see it the way you do: Thank you for showing us who the character is.'" Within hours of Columbia's decision, Maguire got the conference call from the studio execs, Raimi, and the producers. "We were so excited - as he. He was thrilled," Ziskin recalls. "Then we told him he had to start working out three hours a day." Maguire endured a five-month regimen of working out six days a week, doing gymnastic, martial arts, weight training, high-end cardio, and yoga, as well as eating a high-protein meal four to six times a day. "With the proper training and with the help of one of Hollywood's finest wardrobe men, James Acheson," Raimi says, "we could achieve the look needed for Spider-man." As the suit went into development, the director filled out the cast with Dunst; Rosemary Harris and Cliff Robertson, as Parker's aunt and uncle; Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn (a.k.a Green Goblin); James Franco as Norman's son, Harry. Screen-writer David Koepp's script would parallel the original Spider-man saga: Parker's coping with the responsibilities of a secret identity ("It's hard to get too close to someone who is hiding a big part of who he is," Maguire notes) and the powers bestowed upon him, all the while battling his nemesis, the Green Goblin. It wouldn't be long before the movie's many fight sequences would test Maguire's training: In January 2001, the Spider-man production began. "It was fun, but it was exhausting," he says. "[Dafoe] was delivering blows to me - kicks and punches. He actually beat me up pretty badly literally." Not according to Dafoe. "That crybaby," laughs the veteran actor, who raises the much-speculated-upon issue of just how often it was Maguire in the suit. "Spider-man has a lot of very gymnastic type stuff that I don't think Tobey could learn in the amount of time he had to prepare," Dafoe says. "I didn't have to be doubled that much. So sometime I was fighting with stuntmen." Raimi is quick to smooth out any possible misconceptions. "Every day we did a Spider-man thing, you'd have Tobey in the suit. If it was [a scene] where there was any danger, I would try to talk Tobey out of doing the stuff," says Raimi, who adds that "he was very insistent on doing a lot." According to Raimi, the high-flying acrobatics and wide shots were usually enacted via computer generation (CG) or by stuntmen, and the landing, takeoffs, and dramatic moments were Maguire in the suit. Of course, "dramatic" is often relative. "When he was in the suit, I really didn't 'do' scenes with him," Dunst says. "I was just usually screaming and he was carrying me." Which brings us back to just before sunrise, after a full night of shooting, in the early weeks of production, when that kissing-in-the-rain scene was being shoot. "I was freezing my ass off in a skimpy little outfit," she says. "It was also uncomfortable because Tobey and I hadn't been working together that long." For one setup, Maguire was out of costume standing just off-camera, while Raimi was shooting a close-up of Mary Jane as she's about to kiss Spider-man. In take, Dunst was not supposed to actually kiss Maguire, because he was just there for her to react to. "I'm supposed to lean in to kiss him, but really I just lean out [of the frame] and then I come back like I'd just kissed him," Dunst says. "The first take, I was like, 'All right, this is gonna suck.'" But on the next one, even though Maguire was still off-camera, "I went in and just gave him a kiss," she says. "He didn't know I was gonna do it, 'cause if you don't see the kiss, usually you just don't do it. It was so good because it really was the first time we kissed. It took a lot of balls. I was embarrassed at first [but] Tobey told me he was happy I did it because, ya know, it worked." As for the director, the moment went unnoticed. "It didn't have the same special magic for me as it did for her, probably," Raimi says. "I think that's probably their thing." With dinner over, Maguire heads to Coffee House, a casual nightspot on Sunset Boulevard that a friend owns, to listen to another buddy play music. The valet drags his finger across his neck indicating that there is no room in the parking lot, but Maguire pops out of his car and greets the man with his famous Cheshire grin. The valet affectionately shakes Maguire's hand and waves the car in. Coffee House is hip but subdued, with couples reading by a fireplace. Maguire embraces two below-the-radar actor friends in beards and baseball caps. No Leo. No fawning hotties. There's been plenty of gossip about Maguire's personal life, most if concerning his relationship with Dicaprio: An Internet photo of the questionable authenticity showed the two friends sitting in kimonos with magician David Blaine, and Maguire has a tremendous, shall we say, endowment - apparently doctored - exposed in full view. There was also Don's Plum, a shoestring-budget film made by a then-friend of Dicaprio's, about the lives of several young Angelinos-over which the produced filed litigation against Maguire and Dicaprio, claiming the two had tried to halt the film's distribution. And then there's Dicaprio's so-called "pussy posse". "I am sure whoever came up with that term was really pleased with themselves, because it stuck for a little while," he says. "I don't get angry. It's just disgusting, the implications of what that means. It's just very degrading." Dunst contends that the reputation is unwarranted. "Leo's been with his girl [model Gisele Bundchen] for two years. Tobey and Leo seem like much older men now. They still are wild," she says, "but they've calmed down." Actually, most of the recent conjecture centers on Maguire's relationship with Dunst. Despite reports that they became an item during production (and that they've since broken up), Maguire simply says they are "just friends," and Dunst asserts, "It's not like he's my man." Maguire recoils from any prying into his private life. "I will never talk about who I am dating until I am married," he says. "I dated a girl for two and a half years and didn't talk about it." As for Dicaprio, Maguire would rather focus on his friend's work. "Leo opened it up for young people in general," he says. "After Leo did This Boy's Life and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, it was like, 'Oh, wow, someone can be young and a good actor.'" Similar praise could be bestowed upon Maguire. "He is perceived by the industry as an actor's actor," Ziskin says. "Actors really watch him, and [they] are in awe." Director's aren't complaining, either. "Tobey is a real talent. Only the best have the quality of believing what they are doing," says director Ang Lee, who has worked with Maguire twice, on The Ice Storm and Ride with the Devil. "Most actors don't. They just plan what they want to do. They perform." Raimi made sure to exploit that talent. "I got a lot of great Tobey performance-time," he says. "A lot of [his] screen time is spent alone." One such moment happens after Parker's uncle has died at the hands of a criminal who Parker, as Spider-man, could have caught before the fatal act. "He is consumed with guilt, and his aunt says, 'This is not the proper way to honor your uncle. He had expectations of the person you could be; now, become that person,'" Raimi says. "And she leaves Tobey alone, and I see Tobey think about those words and pull himself out of his self-absorbed guilt and sorrow." The scene last about 35 seconds. It's the end of the first act of the story, a crucial moment when parker must grapple with his new powers and responsibility. Tears and all, Maguire nails it, Raimi says. "Maybe it's because he's not acting. Or he's acting, but he's thinking those real thoughts in that moment. He's a very soulful person, and he's very honest about his performances. I think he really doesn't try and fake thinks. He tries to feel them." Maguire downplays the process of becoming Parker by keeping things on the surface. "There's a physicality to him - he wears glasses and clothes. I bring my shoulders down a little bit and stick my head out," he says, making the gesture of a dopey, head-sunken kid. "It's subtle. Stuff you wouldn't necessarily see." Sure, but how does he do it? "I prepared a lot," he says. Prodded for more, he adds, "My teachers believe in using the given circumstances, but if the given circumstances aren't working, then you should have a tool bag to pull things out of, because if you take 15 the given circumstances aren't working, what are you going to do? You are going to need backup." So, what's in the tool bag? "I can't talk about that," he laughs. "That stuff is personal." Maguire's parents - his father was a construction worker and cook, his mother a secretary - separate when he was two years old. He then lived with various combinations of relatives in several homes, mainly in the Los Angeles area. "My relationship with my parents is more as friends than as parents," he says. "My mom was 18 and my father was 20 when they had me, so I do not feel like I had strong parental figures." (Perhaps Lee is touching upon that when he notes, "I think Tobey probably has problems with being bossed around or with anyone who shows signs of authority.") His family was "super-duper poor," Maguire has said. He attended so many different schools that he went through a period where he would vomit in the morning because of the anxiety of meeting new classmates. But how that led to Maguire becoming one of the best actors of his generation is a navel-gazing exercise he is unwilling to indulge. "I don't know how that shaped me as an actor," Maguire says. "Sure, one can speculate." What's a matter of record is that at the age of 11, Maguire was considering following his father's career path by taking a cooking class, but his mother gave him $100 to take an acting workshop instead. After later switching to a professional acting school, Maguire landed bit parts on television and in film (This Boy's Life, S.F.W), as well as a new friend, Dicaprio, but his career didn't take off until a bad haircut got him through the door. In 1995, actor Griffin Dunne was directing a short film, Duke of Groove, for which he had all but cast a young actor, who then came to call-back with a shaved head. Dunne was appalled - he turned to a list of actors and picked Maguire. "As far as I knew, he was some kid off the street," says Dunne, who had Maguire read with co-star Uma Thurman. "We started shooting a week later." Groove led to Maguire getting noticed by Ang Lee, who was casting The Ice Storm, the story of a '70s suburban family coping with the strains of change. "I was very attracted to his soothing, innocent quality," says Lee, who had Maguire read for him twice. There is a moment in that film that helped sear Maguire's performance in the minds of audiences - and casting agents - everywhere. It happens toward the end, when Maguire's character, Paul Hood, travels to New York City to go on a sort-of date with his school crush, played by Katie Holmes. She takes a sleeping pill and passes out, with her head literally falling in Hood's lap. "Tobey does what is not on the page," Holmes says of that moment. "That's what makes him a great actor." It's a scene that distills Maguire's talent. "I like it when I don't have to say anything and [the camera] just gets in there. There is a lot going through that kid's mind: 'God, this is great and a bummer at the same time.' And, 'Should I be bad?'" He laughs. "But you are not saying anything. It is great to pull that off." And he does. In fact, it's an accomplishment that reverberates through the best of his subsequent performances. "Where film is unique, is in that close-up, when the audience knows exactly what's going on because they're watching the character think, and they know what he's thinking," producer Laura Ziskin says. "The really good film actors don't need dialogue." Maguire soon landed parts in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry and Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, before scoring leads in three top-notch dramas: Gary Ross's Pleasantville, Lee's Ride with the Devil, and Lasse Hallstrom's Cider House Rules. The Pleasantville and Cider roles were similar to his part in Ice Storm - a clever, slightly dorky innocent coming of age - but in the elaborate Civil War drama Devil, Lee guided him to another level of performance. The stark epic centers on the complex relationships between a band of Confederate "bushwackers" who battle against the Union, nature, and, ultimately, themselves. "I had the pleasure to start [with him] when he was really innocent, in the Ice Storm," Lee says, "and then to see him grow from that innocence and pick up skills and be able to carry a whole, heavy-duty movie. As a person and as an actor, the innocence is no longer the only thing he has." Next up was the role of a student prodigy in Wonder Boys, which also stars Storm alum Holmes. "He was more confident," says Holmes, who acknowledges that challenge of working with Maguire. "He's very smart and he's very precise about his work. You have to have your game face on, because you never know what he is going to throw at you. He is constantly thinking." It's something Holmes had noticed on the set of The Ice Storm. "Tobey was very much into doing his own thing and doing it his way. I respected him for that," she says. "When actors initially get into the business they want to jump into everything. He doesn't rush. He takes his time." Why would a guarded, meticulous actor, one who shies away from the invasiveness of the telephone ("It is like an uninvited guest. It's suddenly there in your room, and you are obligated to take care of it"), walk right into the Spider-man spotlight? "I really like the story," he says. And sure, Raimi was a big pull. So was the allure of something new. Dunst has another idea. "Smart career choice," she says. "He wants to have more control and to produce. Now he's more studio-friendly." Dunst sees a businessman at work. "The kid's blowin' up. He's gonna be a major producer." (His producing debut is Spike Lee's The 25th Hour.) She adds that she and "even Leo" ask him for career advice. "Tobey loves money," Dunst adds. "And he's the smartest with business. He could manage himself." In effect, he does, despite having a publicist, an agent, and a manager. "I am basically the head of a company," Maguire says. No small feat for someone who considers himself formally "uneducated," with the equivalent of a ninth-grade education. For now, Maguire has not committed to any projects other than Spider-man (he's signed on for two sequels). "I look forward to moving on from playing kids who are in high school. In four or so years, roles will open up," he says. "I have cracked the first layer. But there is a shortage of good material. It was easier eight years ago when I just needed the money. With more choices, it makes it more difficult: 'Shot, what do I do? Who do I want to work with? Am I getting too comfortable?'" Lee commends this sort of questioning. "He needs good projects. He has to stay a good actor. He has to work hard," the director says. "He's not like the good-looking movie star. He has to stay being a good actor to be around." Maguire concedes that it's harder than he imagined. "When I was a kid, I thought, 'I'll just beat everyone out by being the better actor,'" he says. "And now I realize how impossible it is to get a good role." Maguire cites a book he once read about castrato singers - the castrated 18th-century sopranos who endured arduous training - as a metaphor. "This [castrato] teacher and his student are in the audience, and the teacher is saying, 'You see that, that guy has all the talent in the world, but he doesn't work hard and he'll never be as good as that guy who doesn't have half the talent that he has, but he works constantly,'" Maguire says. "And then, of course, the real magic comes from the people who have all the talent and work twice as hard." His sacrifices may not be quite as dramatic as losing his testicles, but Maguire will certainly have to give something of himself to live with his Spider-man success. But maybe there will be other benefits, as Maguire found wearing the Spider-man suit. "It took getting used to," he says. "I'm zipped up completely in the suit, so I am at other people's mercy, which, I guess, is good practice for me - to not be in control." There will be other adaptations to come. "There's an upside and downside of what's going to happen to him," Ziskin says. "I think his life is going to change in a big way with this movie." Last summer, Maguire snuck into a Westwood theater to see the first Spider-man trailer hit movie screens. "I went in the dark. There were three trailers - Planet of the Apes, The Lord of the Flies, and Spider-man. I am pleased to say that we got the most applause," he says. "It was a good ego moment." Still, doesn't it bother him that he works in a world that revolves entirely around how others perceive him? "It's interesting when there is a really knowing, calculating guy behind the guy who's talking to you right now," he laughs. "I'm kidding." Huh? "There is a guy who is really aware of all the perceptions about him and he's in control of everything and completely manipulating everything constantly," Maguire says. "I'm only kidding." Perhaps. "You're asking me to give insight into my personality or my philosophy of acting. I just don't think that deeply about it," he says. "What it means when I do this or that - I don't know. That's coming outside of myself. I prefer to live my life from inside of me, rather than come outside." Which is why he'd prefer not to shed much light on that great kissing scene with Dunst. "I hate reading things that give insight to the shooting [of a movie]," Maguire says. "I mean, I was upside down in a harness, which is somewhat uncomfortable. We were rushing to get the shot before the sun came up, and water is raining up my face and down my nose." He'd rather leave it at that. Maguire worked hard on that scene, as he did creating his Peter Parker-Spider-man persona. The least we could do is leave it to him to decide when - or whether - he removes the mask. |
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Tobey Maguire, Hollywood's Go-to Sensitive Young
He prefers board games to bodybuilding. He gets queasy at the though of eating meat. But mild-mannered Tobey Maguire is no slouch as a superflirt. While filming some banter with Elizabeth Banks, who plays a Daily Bugle secretary in Spider-Man, Maguire veered from the script and began spinning a web of charm, "Hey was like, 'Hey, why don't you give me your phone number?'" says Banks. Confused, she improvised the character - until she realized Spidey was slinging a practical joke. Director Sam Raimi "finally yelled, 'Cut,'" she says, "and everyone cracked up." More than a decade into a career built on playing nerdy loners, Maguire, 26, is determined to defy expectations. Spider-Man netted a record-smashing $114 million in its opening weekend, dwarfing Maguire's well-received art-house outings like 1997's The Ice Storm and 1999's The Cider House Rules. His reported $4 million paycheck portends a big change for an actor known more for his brains than brawn, but "I'm not worried about being pegged as on Spider-Man or a superhero," Maguire says. "I waited long enough in my career to show that I obviously have other characters in me." He is equally self-assured about his offscreen choices. Though he hits hot spots with pals like Leonardo Dicaprio, Maguire quit drinking at 19 after realizing his precocious partying was getting out of control. "Tobey made a conscious decision that he didn't need alcohol to buffer himself for the real world," says friend Morgan J. Freeman, 32, a director. Instead, he busts stress by playing basketball or backgammon. "Tobey doesn't just play backgammon," Freeman says. "It's like, 'I'm going to slice your throat, take every red cent out of your pocket.'" Maguire applied the same grit to Spider-Man. Before he was cast, he hit the gym to show skeptical studio execs he could fill out the suit. He trained up to four hours a day for five months, doing gymnastics and yoga as well as weight lifting. "I worked very hard to get that body," he says. Less arduous were his romantic scenes with Kirsten Dunst, who plays Spidey's neighbor Mary Jane. Even an upside-down smooch - "Rain was going up my nose," says Maguire - wasn't bad at all: "I still managed to derive some pleasure." Maguire and Dunst, 20, have stepped out to restaurants and L.A. Lakers games, but as for reports of a romance, he is mum and Dunst scoffs. "We really bonded," she says, but "we weren't dating." (Maguire spent Spider-Man's opening weekend palling around with Nicole Kidman in L.A., but they're just friends, say their reps.) Maguire, whose 2 1/2 year relationship with Boston Public actress, Rashida Jones ended in '00, is closest to friends from his early acting days. Born in Santa Monica to construction worker and cook Vincent and secretary Wendy, Maguire moved frequently from after his parents divorced when he was 2. When Tobey, at 12, wanted to take a cooking class, Wendy, who had once dreamed of becoming an actress, scraped up $100 to bribe him to study acting instead. He found gigs on TV shows like Roseanne and acted with Dicaprio in 1993's This Boy's Life. Roseanne alum Sara Gilbert, 27, a friend, calls Maguire "a little bit" reserved. It takes a while for him to show you who he really is." With two Spider-Man sequels in the works, he might just shake that shy-guy image for good. "He has a strong side, a very masculine side, that people have not seen much of," says Gilbert. "It's not that surprising to people who know him. It's just not the side that Hollywood saw first." |
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Tobey or Not Tobey? On the Actor's Trail
Saratoga Springs - It's day two and no one has seen him. I'm asking everyone I can find. A few people aren't even sure who he is until I mention "Spider-Man." Oh, yeah: Him. Tobey Maguire is in town to film a movie, and while no one has seen him, everybody knows where he is. Maguire arrived Monday night. By Wednesday afternoon, sources were saying, for sure, he's staying at the Gideon Putnam. And the Sheraton. And the Holiday Inn. He also likes to hang out at One Caroline Street, The Parting Glass, Sperry's and Starbucks - all at the same time. The Amazing Tobey Maguire. A movie version of Laura Hillenbrand's nonfiction bestseller, "Seabiscuit: An American Legend," is being shot through Saturday at locations in Saratoga Springs. In his first big movie deal since starring in "Spider-Man" (which coincidentally comes out on video and DVD today), Tobey Maguire plays Seabiscuit's half-blind jockey, Red Pollard. Jeff Bridges portrays Charles S. Howard, owner of the famed horse. Filming Tuesday took place around Saratoga Race Course, and on Wednesday in Congress Park, where the Canfield Casino became the National Jockey Club. All sets were closed to the public. Period. The assignment - Tobey-spotting: "It's like an Elvis sighting, right?" says an older woman in Bruegger's Bagels. Uh, yeah, except Tobey is definitely, without a doubt, alive. The Tobey trail: With just a five-day stint in Saratoga Springs and only a few scenes to shoot, the odds of a Tobey sighting are about as long as Seabiscuit's were in his early races before he became a champion. After all, there are five horses playing the fabled Seabiscuit, but there is only one Tobey. And he'll look different, too. Maguire has traded in his Spider-Man tights for jockey silks and Depression-era garb. Not only that, to look more like the slim Red Pollard rather than a muscley, web-spinning superhero, Maguire has dropped 25 pounds. (Pollard and Tobey are the same height, 5-foot-7.) Furthermore, Maguire is now a redhead and sports a 1930s bob. At the Saratoga Race Course on Tuesday, I am the only person peering through the fence. A man with a cigar rides up on a bicycle from inside and says he's a transportation coordinator. According to backstage lowdown, Maguire flew in on his own private jet with his own private yoga instructor and own private makeup person. Maguire has a very luxurious trailer and apparently calls Jeff Bridges' trailer "a ghetto" in comparison. "Jeff Bridges is over there now," the cigar man says, pointing toward the backstretch. "He's a really handsome guy. He must be a vegetarian or something." On Broadway: I give up at the track and head to Broadway. Gloria Hamilton and Virginia Hays, who work at the Putnam Market, say they've made a number of food deliveries to the "Seabiscuit" crew, but they haven't seen Maguire. Hays says her 18-year-old daughter, who works in the cafe at Borders Books and Music, would be "extremely ecstatic" if Maguire came in there. The folks at Borders haven't seen him, but they'd heard he was at Starbucks with Jeff Bridges that morning. A Borders employee offers to call her friend who works "backstairs" at the Gideon Putnam Hotel. She says into the phone, "Hi. Is Tobey Maguire staying there? Oh, you can't tell me. That means yes, right? That's a good answer? Great. Thanks." With a satisfied smile, she says, "That's the place." I sense the trail is hot and make tracks for Starbucks. Behind the counter, the eyes of two young women grow wide and twinkly at the mere mention of Maguire. But they clam up and say they aren't allowed to talk about it. The manager emerges and says that Maguire may have been in Starbucks, but she didn't personally see him. The Gideon Putnam is quiet for late afternoon. The bartender, Earl, admits he would recognize Jeff Bridges, but not Tobey Maguire, but, anyway, he hasn't seen either of them yet. I recommend he rent "Cider House Rules," and he promises to call if Tobey stops by for a beer. The trail goes cold. On Wednesday, Maguire is to film an outdoor scene in the park, on a bench, just before sunset. Interior scenes in the Canfield Casino are being shot in the afternoon. I arrive and walk straight toward the building like I'm taking a stroll. In less than nine minutes, from two different entrances, I get thrown off the set twice. Meeting Maguire: Another security guard is moving a group of five teenagers out. Both Josh Weakland, 15, and his friend Brian Powers, 15, say they met Tobey about an hour before behind the casino. "He seemed really nice and he has a great smile," says Josh. He and Brian sneaked through the park's woods to get on the set. "He asked if we lived around here, and he shook my hand." Jenna Weakland, Josh's twin sister, and her two friends are weak-kneed with envy. "I think it helped that we're big and dressed like the stage hands," says Josh, glancing at Jenna and her friends, who are thin, have long flowing hair and wear snug-fitting jackets and pants. Josh and Brian, both large young men, wear thick coats and big jeans. "Yeah, we tried to get close with these guys, but they threw us out. I really wanted to see him. He's really cute. He's Spider-Man," sighs Jenna. About 5 p.m. Wednesday, about 20 people gather on the east edge of the park, looking toward the casino. We are kept in place by a friendly security guard. "Tobey Maguire means a lot to me," says Adina Donlon, a redhead in her early 20s, peering through binoculars. "I came here from Troy to see him. He seems so decent and nice. I'd be happy with just a glimpse." "I want to see him because he's really cute and, of course, he's a great actor and all that," says Christina Peterson, 16, standing with her sister, Kara, 12. Both girls and their mother, Anna Peterson, are bouncing on their toes trying to stay warm as daylight fades. "We've been here since 3 p.m.," says Anna Peterson, from Schuylerville. "Tobey, we love you, we're disappointed, but we're frozen. We're calling it quits." The filming shifts to the front door of the casino. Several men in costumes stand in the doorway, but even with binoculars, we can't pick Maguire out of the group. "I'm glad to watch the filming. It's neat to see all this stuff going on here," says Andrea Green, 15. "I've seen Tobey Maguire's movies and I think he's a very good actor. And he is really cute." |
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Web Master
After years of playing awkward adolescents, Tobey Maguire was nobody's idea of a superhero. But then he slipped into a skin-tight body suit and surprised everyone. Daisy Garnett meets the new spider man. Now, of course, he is famous - on the cover of Time magazine, even - but three weeks before Spider-Man opened in America, when I told people I was going to interview Tobey Maguire, most of them said, 'Tobey who?' Maguire plays the eponymous hero in Spider-Man, the big-deal action movie based on the Marvel comic strip, directed by Sam Raimi and co-starring Kirsten Dunst and Willem Dafoe. Until Spider-Man, Maguire was known for playing introspective, gawky teenagers - thinkers, rather than doers - in films such as The Wonder Boys, Pleasantville and The Ice Storm. He excelled at depicting the confusion of adolescence, the awkwardness and exhilaration of sexual awakening, and the burden of carting around a complex inner life. His work was so quiet and understated that Saturday Night Live, America's weekly television sketch show, recently parodied his lack of animation by portraying him as a zombie with a monotone voice and glazed stare. So although Maguire has never received a lukewarm review, he was not exactly the obvious choice to play an action-driven superhero who leaps from building to building while saving the world. I met Maguire in a quiet coffee shop on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. He arrived by himself, without hoo-ha, publicist or entourage, and if he was recognised, no one let on. In pale blue tracksuit bottoms and an old white T-shirt, he could not have seemed more relaxed or less bothered. He was not shy or awkward. He was pleased with himself and, indeed, why wouldn't he be? - he's a star. In real life Tobey Maguire is far removed from the angst-ridden teenagers he is so good at portraying. He is a rich, handsome vegetarian 26-year-old with all the right answers. And somehow being un-macho, un-earnest and un-ironical got him the part of Spider-Man. The studio was equally bemused. Maguire? Spider-Man? The two things - at least until the film's opening weekend - didn't seem to tally. Ewan McGregor, Chris Klein, Wes Bentley, Heath Ledger and Maguire's good friend Leonardo Dicaprio were all, apparently, considered for the role, and all seem more appropriate choices, but Raimi knew he wanted Maguire after seeing him in The Cider House Rules in 1999. He just had to persuade Sony. "They were thinking of somebody who had a sexier public appearance," explains Raimi about the studio's reluctance to hire Maguire, "someone who had done successful action films before. It was a healthy reticence on their part. But once they saw the screen test, they understood." A screen test? Maguire hadn't done a screen test since 1998. He had starred in an Ang Lee movie, and held his own with Michael Douglas since then. He may not have had as sexy a public appearance as Dicaprio or Brad Pitt, but he has long since enjoyed his own teenage following. "Yep," he says, "I had to do a test. I knew I wanted the part after reading the script, and I was 100 per cent sold after meeting Sam. He told me I was his choice for the film, but it still took me two, maybe three months to get the job. Sam was pretty straight up about the fact that the studio was not particularly excited about me. So, I said, fine, let's just do a test. We shot a scene in an empty room on a video camera. It took the studio two and a half weeks just to see the test, and then they said, this is great, but we need to see something else. We know Tobey can act. We need to see Tobey doing action or Tobey in a suit. Something like that." Maguire pauses in his story to order a plate of food. He is a good, unapologetic storyteller. Never once does he stumble or check to see if he is holding my interest. It is as if he is acting and I am his audience, which of course he is and I am. (A little later, when we are talking about getting beyond self-consciousness in order to act and I tell him that I could never do it, he says, "Yes you could. You're acting right now. You're playing a role and so am I. That's all you've got to do. Only you do it for real.") The arrival of our waitress is a cue for another performance. Maguire practises yoga and is a strict vegetarian. "Is the lentil soup made with chicken broth?" he asks her. She assures him it is not. "Are the veggie-burgers made with mushrooms?" (He doesn't eat mushrooms.) "Yes," she says, "they are." "What other vegetables do you have?" "Broccoli and spinach. Zucchini, eggplant, beets." Maguire doesn't like any of those. You are a vegetarian and you don't like vegetables, I say, staring at him. He nods unabashed. That must make life ... I stop to think of an alternative word for pointless, but Maguire interrupts. "Challenging," he says, smiling and raising his eyebrows. He asks the waitress for the lentil soup and a plate of brown rice, "and throw in some garlic and onions just for fun," he says, before getting back to his audition story. "Well," he continues, "I was like, 'I did a screen test and now they want me to do this other thing. I don't know, Sam, it kind of irritates me that they didn't just ask for that in the first place. It just doesn't make any sense to me, you know. Is this a breakdown in communication or what?' Sam said, 'Tobey, listen. You gotta do it 'cos I'm not sure that they will give you the job without you doing it and I need you to do this. Like I don't know exactly where I'm at without you as a partner in this film.' Which was flattering. It was nice to know I had his support that way. So I said, 'OK, here's the deal. I'll do the thing. I'll do it on Thursday, but I want an answer by Friday. And that's it. That's the only way I'll do it.' I was just like, I'm over it. I want to know if I've got the part, so this is how it is." Did you do the test in the suit, I ask. It is all I can think of to say, after such a speech - Maguire v The Studio - told with such laconic and knowing playfulness. "It wasn't the suit," he says and pauses. "I did it in a blue unitard." He looks at me. The story around town, which of course he is aware of, is that Maguire is fabulously well-endowed. Everyone seems to have a friend who has a friend who swears to this, and there is a photograph on the internet of him with Dicaprio and another friend, the magician David Blaine, eating sushi dressed in nothing but undone kimonos. The photograph might well be doctored, but if not, it more than respectfully proves the rumour true. At all events it makes sense. Certainly, he is full of swagger. "I did a fight scene for the test, and I was in pretty good shape from my yoga, and I hit the gym a couple of times a week. I was small but I was lean. But the problem with a unitard is that it is so tight, it compresses your muscles. You can't see the line of the triceps through the cloth. You could see a good shape on me, but you couldn't see definition. So I unzipped the top of it, tied it off at my waist and did the scene topless. I didn't want to fuck around. So there you go. I just went for it. And it worked out." It took 10 years of development (even James Cameron, the director of Titanic, wrote then abandoned a treatment) and $139 million to get the comic-strip hero from the page to the big screen, but it turns out it was worth both the wait and the money. When Spider-Man opened in America it took $114 million on its opening weekend - more than any movie has ever taken in any three days. No movie had even hit the $100-million-in-one-weekend mark before Spider-Man. "This is a cultural phenomenon," gasped the box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "Nothing has even come close to this box-office record. The significance of it cannot be overstated." Actually, it can. I overstated the film's impact when I asked Maguire, very gently, if he was ready for what was about to hit him. Are you concerned about how Spider-Man, once it hits the cinemas, might change your life, I ask. I had read that Sony and its sister studio, Columbia, are relying on Spider-Man to help them regain their glory days of 1997, the year of Jerry Maguire, Men in Black and $1.3 billion in domestic box-office sales. Plus, Maguire, apologising for being late, has told me that he is run off his feet promoting the film in New York, LA and Japan, just for starters. At the moment, he explains, his time is not his own. And so my question seems a reasonable one. To me. "Am I concerned?" repeats Maguire. "Not really." He has wonderful pale blue eyes, and he is good at using them. He looks right at me and yet I find him difficult to engage. I feel like I can't catch his eye. You're not worried about being hit with fame, I ask, incredulously. Not even a little anxious ... "No," he says, as if I am asking him something absurd and outlandish. "Not really. That's the future. I don't know anything about that." Well, you live in LA, you've worked in the film industry for 10 years. You are close friends with Leonardo Dicaprio. You must be able to speculate on what might happen to you. "No," he says, shaking his head firmly and giving me a little smile. "Ultimately the only thing that is happening to me now is that I'm sitting here with you. That's all that's really going on." But you are sitting here with me now because I've flown here from London to talk to you about a movie you've made. Right now we are playing the fame game, which is fine, but it does result, on the whole, in fame. It will affect your future. Maguire interrupts me. "Will I be alive after this moment? After today?" Well, of course, who knows? But ... He interrupts again. "Right," he says with studied patience, his blue eyes dancing away. "Who knows? So why even waste our time speculating about the future?" So you didn't think about the future when you decided to pursue this role? About the prospect of earning $26 million for the two sequels, if this one is a success. About how this would be a certain marker in your career ... "Everything is a certain marker in my career. Every decision I make." But some decisions carry more weight than others. "I don't know if I agree with that. I think so carefully about every decision I make, that I couldn't think any more carefully about this one." He has a point there. He has worked with Woody Allen, Lasse Hallestrom, Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Michael Caine, Robert Downey Jr and Joan Allen among others. There is not a misguided or grabby choice on his CV. He started to act when his mother bribed him with $100 to take drama instead of cooking classes (his father, Vincent, was a cook, but his mother, Wendy, who was a secretary, had once wanted to act. The $100 tipped the balance.) He was 11 years old and caught the bug enough to pursue acting with more energy than his schoolwork. He dropped out of high school at 14 - choosing to study at home instead - and began going to endless auditions, which is how he met and made friends with Dicaprio, and every other young actor on the circuit, and every casting director in LA. Two years later, when he discovered the cinema of the Seventies and that he could hold an audience (he was performing in a play at the time), he decided that that was it: he would become a professional actor. Did you know, back then, that you were going to make it, I ask him. "Yeah," he says, "I knew I could do it if I wanted to do it. I feel like if you can imagine it, then you can do it. Of course, you have also to examine your motivations for doing what you do. Those have to be real." What were his motivations? "Well, for one thing, I didn't want to be poor. I grew up poor and I didn't want that." Maguire's mother was 18 when she had him. His father was 20. They married when he was two and divorced a few months later. He grew up moving between his mother and father, their various new lovers and his aunt, uncle and grandmother. He switched high schools almost every year, and did not appreciate the constant changes, which explains why he dropped out at such a young age. "Home study," he explains, "meant sitting at home staring at pieces of paper and then cheating when it came to the tests. But," he adds quickly, "before I withdrew - and that was because of the social aspect of going to yet another new school - I really liked school. I was very good at school. I got good grades. I'm competitive so I like to do well." Maguire's competitiveness is well known, and if he was sick of making new friends in high school, he had no lack of them outside. He met Dicaprio at a 1989 audition for a TV show (Dicaprio won the role), but they remained close despite being rivals. A few years down the line, Maguire had his first taste of tabloid fame as a member of Dicaprio's infamous "pussy posse" - David Blaine, actor Lukas Haas, among others - who went out en masse and partied hard. Maguire doesn't drink or do drugs, and because he practises yoga and is a vegetarian, he was often pegged as being the odd one out among the group of revellers. But in fact, the fun seemed to be more about access to private jets, VIP rooms and other mega-stars - Robert De Niro, say - than mere booze and cocaine; necessary fuel for some perhaps, but not Maguire. He and his friends play dominoes, poker, backgammon and basketball; they work in the same industry, share managers, agents, wealth and, presumably, an easy shorthand. Plus, the group didn't get its name for nothing. There must have been a lot of pretty and willing girls around, and you don't need to drink or eat meat to enjoy that. These days, what with Dicaprio away in Rome making Scorsese's Gangs of New York and Maguire busy with the biggest movie of the year, there is less time for such time-consuming get-togethers. The boys are busy acting. "I like acting, I enjoy it," he says. "I'm a huge fan of movies. I like things that can move you; that give you insight. I love the creation of film, the process of it, the whole thing. I wanted to explore all those things. And I thought I could do well at it." It didn't take long. At 20 he got his first proper break playing an awkward teenager (of course) in Griffin Dunne's short film, The Duke of Groove. The film, starring Kate Capshaw and Uma Thurman, was nominated for an Oscar, which meant that everyone in the film industry saw Maguire's performance, including Ang Lee. This led to his first big part as Paul Hood, Joan Allen and Kevin Kline's teenage son, in Lee's film, The Ice Storm. One of the most memorable scenes - and the film has many - is Maguire's. He is sitting on an empty train half reading - coincidentally - a Marvel comic. All he does is read, look up and think. There is a storm outside, and the lights on the train flicker. That's all that happens, but you can't take your eyes off him. He is, for whatever reasons (the stillness of his eyes, his total ease in front of the camera, his lack of ticks), riveting to watch. He has an equally magnetic presence in Spider-Man. It turns out that Maguire is a brilliant choice. The only tedious moments are when, kitted out in his $100,000 suit (23 were made for the movie, four were stolen), he has to fight his nemesis, an evil and irritating green goblin played by Willem Dafoe. He is completely convincing as Peter Parker, a nerdy, clever teenager in unrequited love with his neighbour, MJ (Kirsten Dunst), the prettiest girl at his high school. (Parker gains his superhuman, spidery powers after being bitten by a genetically altered spider on a school science trip.) "The strength of Spider-Man is that Peter is a character we identify with as a normal middle-class kid," Raimi says about choosing Maguire. "We needed someone who was completely vulnerable and lived with a certain amount of doubt and angst. And Tobey was so grounded and subtle, I simply believed him." It is so easy to believe Maguire's Parker that it is not hard to buy into his Spider-Man. It is also great to see Maguire, normally so reticent on film, actually do something. Still, even when he's playing a super-hero Maguire can't seem to escape being cast as the gawky teenager. "I know," he says, rolling his eyes. "I'm kind of old to play a 17-year-old. I'm 26, and haven't had trouble talking to girls in over 12 years." No kidding. Although he tells me that he is single, three weeks after our interview he is photographed with Nicole Kidman, who is eight years his senior. The pictures show them arm in arm, joshing around early one morning - apparently, the tabloids gushed, after a night of passion; perhaps one of many. Their publicists say they are just friends. And they probably are. He was also, for the record, "just friends" with co-star Kirsten Dunst on the set of Spider-Man. All in all, things are going well for Tobey Maguire. If only he were just a little bit more charming, you would be happy for him. He grew up poor and has become rich working hard, doing what he loves to do. His peers have long since respected him and he now has movie-star clout, which he does not seem likely to jeopardise by disappearing into drugs or alcohol. In fact, he seems so much in control of his fate that it comes as no surprise when he tells me that he is about to produce his first film. It is an adaptation of David Benioff's The 25th Hour, an acclaimed New York suspense novel that everyone in the film business wanted to get their hands on. Spike Lee is set to direct. Edward Norton will star. They start shooting any minute now. "Of course I'm excited about that," he enthuses. Then, almost without missing a beat, he says, "I think have to go now", and just as quickly he is gone. |
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Tobey, or Not to Be
With standout performances in The Ice Storm, The Cider House Rules and Wonder Boys, cover subject Tobey Maguire spins a new acting web as the title character in Spider-Man. But can Maguire, like Spidey, really be just an ordinary guy with extraordinary talents? The lobby of the Chateau Marmont, vaguely funereal even on a spring afternoon, is eeirly, unnervingly still. A handful of Industry types are scattered around the room, stugged into brocade chairs like nesting pigeons. Every 30 seconds or so they glare sullenly at their cellphones, willing the little bastards to ring. But even when some pinky sized Nokia does whine for attention, it doesn't put so much as a dent in the all encompassing silence - so oppressive a force it practically stagnates the blood. If Jack Nicholson suddenly came tromping down one of the hotel's Stygian hallways with an ax and a leer, no one would be at all surprised. The crazy-making quiet doesn't bother Tobey Maguire one bit. Sipping over-priced herbal tea from a white china cup (he has a touch of a sore throat), he surveys the room. He doesn't fidget, he doesn't yawn. he doesn't fill the void with aimless chatter. His cellphone stays tucked somewhere in the folds of his grey-hooded sweatshirt. The 26 year old actor actually seems happy to sink into a graceless velveteen sofa, eat guacamole and half of an artichoke, and simply be - Buddha-like and serene. "It's funny, but people just talk all the time. And I sit back and watch," he says in a measured voice. He seems sincerely baffled by the nattering masses, maybe a little sorry for their unquiet minds. "I mean, I can talk too, but I don't feel the need to create an experience." And neither do most of his characters: young men who quietly endure neurotic swingers (The Ice Storm) doe-eyed orphans (The Cider House Rules) and unraveling academics (Wonder Boys) with an unstated grace. As Maguire plays them, these wallflowers invariably blossom as the calm, cool centers around which a conversation, a room, even a movie's worth of angst can resolve. And when he makes his debut as Peter Parker-cum-Spider-Man this summer, he'll likely turn that everyman prototype (the wallflower as superhero hiding an impossible secret beneath his mask) on its ear. Maguire, with his wide blue eyes and not-quite-handsome face, doesn't seem like the obvious choice to play the world's most famous webslinger. But most of us have forgotten that beneath the red leotard Spidey, like Maguire, was just an ordinary guy with an extraordinary skill. Maguire coaxes audiences into trusting him as their eyes and ears. He's a protagonist just cynical enough to arch an eyebrow when it all becomes too much, yet open enough to guide us into the heart of the film with a minimum of pretense. With most movie stars relying on hair flips and freaky facial tics to get their point across, critics have slavered shamelessly over Maguire, often blurring the line between the actor and the man. Pick up any review and you'll read quivering prose about his quiet, seeking wisdom, his egoless poise and his preternatural, "I'm sweet and innocent and wise beyond my years, blah, blah, blah," Maguire says with the slightest insinuation of a smile. There's no exasperation in it, just a detached wonderment, the way you might react when your best friend weepily vows she'd take a bullet for you after ten too many Applentinis. Having spent half of his life in the Industry (Maguire shot his first commercial at 13), he's wary of buying into any media-manufactured hype, even when it's in his favor. "I do a lot of wacky stuff, actually," he offers. "I just don't tell anyone about it." Considering he's sipping tea and picking over soggy artichoke leaves as he says this, the idea of Maguire, say, sucking Jell-O shots off a hooker's ass seems laughable. A yoga practicing vegetarian who doesn't drink or smoke, he worked out three and a half hours a day to fill in his Spider-Man lycra. he talks about New-Age-things - like living in the present, personal responsibility, and showing respect to the people around him - with obvious sincerity. At the moment, he seems like one of the characters he plays ... quiet, self-effacing, and very grown-up. And maybe he senses that, because with the next breath, he completely, intentionally blows it. "See that guy over there? He looks kind of like Elijah Wood. It's in the eyes and around the mouth," he whispers, innocently delighted with this observation. "Shit, he's seen us, he knows we're talking about him. Fuck!" He leans back in his seat, avoiding eye contact, and looking a hell of a lot like the kid who got caught making fun of the teacher. Wise old soul my ass. It's easy to forget, but Maguire's just a guy in his twenties like any other, with the same stupid screwups on record. A few years ago Maguire's onscreen subtlety was overshadowed by his membership in Leonardo Dicaprio's so-called pussy posse, a gang of not-quite-men with just enough money and power to be annoying. The gang developed a rep for reputed behavior both childish (setting off stink bombs, tossing grapes at the paparazzi) and thuggish (allegedly harassing Showgirls star Elizabeth Berkely and throwing punches with her then-boyfriend Roger Wilson"). "They were just being young and having fun, and the tabloids got a hold of it," sighs longtime friend and former roomie Sara Gilbert. Maguire never talked much about his tabloid-worthy exploits, and he isn't talking now. Given how the media lavished headlines on Dicaprio's every post-Titanic hiccup, it's hard to imagine there could be anything less to say. Still, with so much juicy material available, it's tempting to cast Maguire as any one of a stable of recognizable Hollywood characters. he could be the bad boy with an angel's face, maybe, or the old soul who escaped the ghetto of child acting through sheer will. None of that's wrong, exactly. But it's not enough. As meticulous as he is in his performances, revealing only so much and letting our over burdened psyches fill the rest, he is just as circumspect in what he reveals about himself to the media, his coworkers, his friends. We catch a glimpse of one facet and think we've seen the full brilliance of his soul. But there's a world below the surface more than anyone could excavate even if he let them. "When I saw Cider House, I thought, Awww, what a sweet boy, he's so innocent!" laughs his Spider-Man costar Kirsten Dunst. "He's a wolf in sheep's clothing, but you know what? I've seen other sides to him too. He hasn't even begun to show all the things he can do, and it's going to be interesting when people realize how much he has going on." The Choir Boy With some Reader's Digest spin, Maguire's life plays like a Horatio Alger story, hitting all the familiar beats in the poor-boy-makes-good genre. His parents were barely more than kids when he was born. Though Wendy and Vincent Maguire tied the knot shortly after his arrival, he was still in diapers when they divorced. He grew up never making himself too comfortable in any situation. He lived with his mom, with his dad, his grandma, an aunt and countless combinations of the above, plus or minus boyfriends, the new wife, the new kids. His mother was marginally employed as a secretary, his gather a cook. They were both poor. There were food stamps, welfare checks, embarrassment over his crappy clothes, his dad's beater truck. He was a good student, but as adolescence loomed, he started skipping school. He felt sick in the mornings, queasy at the thought of having to face another set of new faces in a bad pair of corduroys. He became a wise ass, talking back, acting out. He was well on his way to becoming a certifiable little shit. And then his mom, who had once dreamed of becoming an actress, changed everything with a bribe. For $100 all he had to do was choose drama over cooking class. It was the easiest money the 12 year old ever made. Soon he was peddling burgers on TV, making guest appearances on early 90s sitcoms like Blossom and Roseanne. Despite his initial indifference, he developed a passion for acting, but it was a complicated love affair. "At some point I became the main support in my family," Maguire says matter-of-factly. "I have friends who have their parents as a safety net, and that's different to me." He doesn't elaborate. This isn't a sore point per se, but he edges away from any line of questioning that might nosedive into a pool of self-pity. He knows most people his age aren't making four million dollars a movie (his Spider-Man payday), that most twentysomethings couldn't afford his leftover guacamole. "I don't think about it that much." Maybe he doesn't think about it, but he acknowledges that on some subterranean level those years color his approach to life. "I live well below my means," he explains. "I eat wherever I want, I have a really nice car, a nice home. But I don't blow money." Some of his best friends like Dicaprio, come from similar hard-luck backgrounds. And, as much as he hates talking about his private life with a tape recorder running, he understands that his ascent from food stamp brat to Spider-Man could be some other kids $100 bribe. "I don't want to be some poster boy for how you get rich or something stupid like that, but I like the idea that someone can read something and go, Wow, that kid believed in himself and did well." He mulls that over for a minute, as if it sounds a little too "awww shucks" to his ears. Pedestals, no matter how innocuous, make him nervous. "I wonder if that's my justification for doing it or if I really feel that way." He thinks it over some more, then shrugs and changes the subject. The Wise Ass There are limitations to a truncated, feel good version of Maguire's life story. It leaves out the hard work. It leaves out the flops (remember his starring role in the 1992 sitcom Great Scott? Didn't think so.) Mostly it saddles Maguire with an ill-fitting, all purpose halo. Nice try, but he's not dead yet. "He does do yoga and tries to be spiritual, but don't be fooled," says Dunst. "He's not some little yogi dude or anything." Right out of the gate, he was a cocky sonofabitch. "Before I could even get a job, I thought I was a hotshot," Maguire admits, slightly chagrined. When writer-director Gary Ross asked him to audition for Pleasantville, the young punk shot him down. "I refused to read for him for four months because I felt he should give me the job." Though he finally agreed to take a meeting, it wasn't necessarily to make nice. "Here I was 20 years old, he had been nominated for two Academy Awards, and I had a couple of pages worth of notes on his script," he says. He laughs at himself, then hesitates. "I'm ultimately not difficult at all. I just have ideas I want to communicate." Even so, his ego couldn't completely override and ingrained shyness. And for a while the combination of traits wasn't 100 percent charming. Before the tabloids were running grainy pictures of Maguire and Dunst's offscreen caboodling (Dunst takes the "just friends" defense and Maguire politely refuses to answer), Maguire simply shined her on, a move his costar now chalks up to an attack of bashfulness. "I saw him at the SAG awards one year and told him I liked him Cider House," Dunst recalls with a giggle. "He wasn't very nice to me. He was like, 'Whatever.'" She's lucky he didn't level her with a zinger. Though he's rarely had an opportunity to show it onscreen, Maguire's funny. Really funny. "He has this mischievous side that lets out a lot of that childish stuff we all have inside," says Gilbert. "Right now, I can just picture him laughing devilishly." He hasn't always used his powers for good. Back in the bad old, good old days, Maguire established himself as the quiet guy who observed your flaws at the back of the room, then tossed them back at you with a punchline attached. "I can be a clever guy, but at the same time, I used to be funny at other people's expense," he remembers. "It would create a pecking order in the room. I would take power with my wit." His voice is low. Taking the poss out of your buddies is something we've all done, but the way Maguire explains it, it doesn't sound so funny anymore. "Those things don't matter ultimately," he explains. "Whenever there's a power struggle and somebody wins, both parties lose." The Seeker On paper that may sound like canned self help patter. And maybe it is, but in person, Maguire makes it sing. He's serious about being a decent guy on a daily basis, not just when it's convenient for him or when Entertainment Tonight is rolling tape. "The better I live my life, the better choices I make, the better I'm going to feel about myself," he says. "If I go shopping or work on a movie or help a friend move or who knows what, I ask myself, Am I being present and showing respect towards whomever I'm with? And don't think my level of fame has to do with how responsible I should be in my life." His quest for self improvement began on the set of 1995's Empire Records. Partying had overshadowed acting, and his teenage insecurities made him bitter, biting. He couldn't connect with people. He had what he described as a "semi-breakdown." he quit the film, stopped acting for six months and got his shit together. Ten years later, he's still working on it, fine-tuning and adjusting. So far, he seems to be getting it right. On the first day of rehearsal for Spider-Man, he bought Dunst a yellow flower, signifying friendship. "He told me, 'if you hadn't done this movie, we wouldn't have a movie.' He was a doll, so sweet." He's unflinchingly loyal to his friends, many of whom have been around for over a decade. He gives good advice. "He won't say something unless he really means it," says Gilbert. "He's just thoughtful, and grounded and very, very smart." There are still some issues. "I'm 26, my self-esteem can't be that great, he shrugs. "But I'm on my way. I figure it's better than it was at 23, but not as good as it's supposed to be when I'm 30." He's also trying to find that balance between a fast moving train of a career and the more important things. "I wouldn't compromise myself or my relationships or do anything I wouldn't feel good about as a human being to achieve success," he says. "But I am very ambitious. And I'm still pretty hungry." The (Spider) Man Spider-Man should fill him up. It's guaranteed to be huge (a Spider-Man sequel already in the works). And now the quiet observer best known for critically lauded roles in films that barely made their money back is facing fame, full impact. "I don't know, I guess it happens when you're ready for it," he says, as if the transition to big-screen superhero was no more stressful than changing banks. "I'm not sure if he completely grasps what it will be like," says Dunst. "Basically, he won't be able to live outside of his house for a while. But I'm sure he'll handle it fine." Fame might not be as tough for him to grapple with as the idea that he may not have been a fan favorite to play Spidey. "A few people have said that to me, but that wasn't my experience of it," he says, and for the first time this afternoon, he seems unnerved. "I didn't pay any attention to fansites before I got the job, but afterward Avi Arad [Marvel Studios CEO] faxed me hundreds of pages of responses and it seemed to me 80 to 85 percent positive, and I'm being conservative." He pauses and says, "I'm not trying to have an ego about it. But Ben Affleck got a 50 to 60 percent approval rating on Daredevil, and I don't think anyone's asking this about him." Maguire wasn't familiar with the comic book, but read every issue of the first four or five years to catch up. He got in shape (yoga, gymnastics, martial arts, and weights), got into the suit ("The shoes didn't have a lot of support and the lenses would fog up sometimes," he says), and handed over his life to Sam Raimi ("It ended up being two years with the training and the press," he explains.) Now there's only the press and the great unknown. He's in no rush to line up his next project. He's holding out for quality, and no wall-crawler in a leotard is going to change that. "I could not work for three or four years and be okay with my lifestyle the way it is now," he says. So for today he's happy to sit back, observe the guy who looks like Elijah Wood, and let the day come to him. He asks the waitress for another cup, his tea has gotten cold - and that's fine. "There really is no boredom," he says. "The experiences happen. They're happening now. In total silence." |
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Like All the Best Superhero's Like all the best superhero's Spider-man [or Peter Parker when he's out of his spider suit] isn't just separated from us mere mortals by his ability to hang upside down from the ceiling, shoot webs from his wrists and swing across the vast avenues of Manhattan like a inner-city Tarzan. No, a true superhero is always a mis-understood outsider who lives in a strange, schizophrenic existence, and never ever, gets the girl. Well, for Tobey Maguire, who plays Peter Parker, it's the same story. He's spent much of his career playing sensitive loners who have problems with girls, in art-house hits such as The Ice Storm and The Cider House Rules. The difference is that this time Spider-man fans around the world have been waiting decades for a film that would do justice to a comic and Maguire, previously known as Leonardo Dicaprio's best mate, is becoming a star in his own right. But Maguire is the cautious type and while he's not opposed to the prospect of global fame, he isn't about to anticipate it. "It would be pretty silly for me to say that I didn't want it. If I heard someone say that they didn't want fame after the chose to make a film, I'd think they were a w**k**." he offers. "You know, I'm frightened of it and part of me is reluctant to accept it and sometimes I reject the idea of it, but I just have to make the best of the situation. Remember, I'm still a kid." You might say the same thing if you passed him on the street. Nondescripive in his khaki pants and T-shirt, 5 ft 6 with stocky shoulders, he looks younger than his 26 years. That said not many kids roll up in a Merc from a meeting with their agents smoking a cigar. Maguire may dress like all other 20-something wannabee's who inhabit in LA but he's been acting since he was a teenager and you get the feeling he knows that this is his time. That self confidence is partially disguised by a lazy charm that he switches off and on when he pleases. Over lots of bottled water - he gave up alcohol when he was 19 - he comes across as a guarded, calm and undemostrative character whose manner is as understated as most of his performances have been. It's what sets him apart from his contemporaries and makes him so watchable; you always think there is more to come. "I'm not afraid to just be still" he stresses. "A lot of people have fear of not communicating something; they're too busy, they feel like they need to show you otherwise, you're not going to get it. I think people are smarter than that - you can do very little and people can sense something. Sometimes I err a little bit too much that way, but a lot of my training was on film and not in private." Perhaps that lack of showiness was why the studio behind Spider-man, Sony, were initially unconvinced when director Sam Raimi suggest Maguire for the role of Peter Parker, the high-school student who gains amazing powers after being bitten by a genetically altered spider. Certainly the physically unimposing Maguire doesn't look like a conventional superhero. In the end he had to parade in front of the Sony produces in a early version of the costume before they agreed to cast him. "My ego didn't like it but I wanted to fight for the role, even if part of it meant wearing tights" he says now. His desire to play the part stemmed from an interest in working with Raimi rather than a childhood interest in Spider-man. "I wasn't a big comic-book kid" he notes. "When I was a kid I used to pretend to be Paul McCartney or John Lennon; they were my superheros." Taking the role (for which is reportedly received $4 million) meant spending time in the gym, although Raimi wanted Maguire not for his physique but for his convincing, shy, mixed-up teens. Peter Parker certainly qualifies for one of those. "We didn't want to play it up too much, but he's definitely awkward with girls and he's a science whizz" grins Maguire. "You know, he's so smart that he can build web-shooters, then it sort of alienates him from normal people." The contrast between geeky Peter Parker, who can't summon the courage to ask out his flame-haired dream girl Mary-Jane (played by Kirsten Dunst), and his fearless alter ego is the essence of the character, and Maguire gets it just right. He's wide eyed in the beginning, as he tests the extent of his new found powers, funny as he struggles to maintain the pretence that he's just an ordinary student, and surprisingly effective in the action scenes. He's already been signed up for the sequel. It amuses Maguire greatly that is has become so associated with sensitive types that he's often portrayed as one in real life. "It's pretty funny because the people who know me know my complete personality and, while I can be sensitive, I also have other characteristics, like anger, as well." He has a more pragmatic take on why he suited various movies such as Ride with the Devil and Wonder Boys so well: "I saw them as perfect for because I was close enough to still feel it, but far away enough to be objective about them." He is a observant, self-contained person and it's not hard to see why. Born in LA to teenage parents, he spent most of his childhood shuttling between relatives on the West Coast before returning to live with his mother in LA in his early teens. Always the new boy in the class, he quickly learned to check things before committing himself. "I'd go to a new school and just keep my mouth shut and see what people did and assess the situation," he recalls. "I'd get the lay of the land before I decided where I was going to enter the society of that school." He says he'd loved to have been settled and be part of a gang. "Absolutely, but I wouldn't change any of it. Everything that's happened has brought me to this moment, so it's like saying 'Would I like my existence to be different?'" Back in LA his mother, a frustrated actress, bribed him to take drama rather than home economic course he signed up for. His father's job as an itinerant cook had led Maguire harboring an ambition to be a chef, but acting quickly consumed him. Before long, he was a regular on the teenage audition circuit and the other child actors became the crew he'd never had at school. "In a way, you come to like those kids. Although they are competition, you start to like seeing them there. It's comforting." He soon began to think that he was going to outlast most of them. "I came to a point where I realised that my future was inevitable as far as success goes and I don't mean that in an arrogant way. I just believe you that you can basically have anything you want." A firm believer in self-help mantra, Maguire is completely serious about this. "I believe in manifesting your own destiny, so it felt like it had already happened for me and it just had to unfold," he says. "I'm not saying that I considered myself to be a great actor, but I knew that I was in a good position and people seemed to respond to what my qualities were. I just knew it was a matter of focus and commitment." By this time, he also had the example of Dicaprio to follow. Having met at auditions, they became firm friends. Then Dicaprio was picked over Maguire to play opposite Robert De Niro in 1993's This Boys Life. "I wasn't jealous," insists Maguire. "He was right for it and I wasn't. Also, we had a kind of pact that if one of us got a part in a big movie, they'd try and get the other in it as well so we could work together." Dicaprio was true to his word - Maguire made his movie debut alongside him. He says that the only time they get competitive is when they're playing basketball. So who wins when they play each other? "Nine time out of ten he'd win and the one time I'd win would be when I was on fire and hitting lots of shots. Actually I feel pretty uncomfortable saying that but luckily we don't play one-on-one very often." Maguire has tended to avoid the subject of his friend and spent many early interviews fending off questions about Leo and their gang, then known as the "P*^*% Posse". Now it's his turn to carry the weight that comes with being the lead in a much anticipated movie. "Thats definitely something strange about fame. Sometimes you can feel people, who maybe are decent people, just giving you a little more energy," he says ruefully. "That's understandable, I've probably done that myself, but you set boundaries." Has he spoken to Dicaprio about dealing with stardom? "Sometimes. The subject probably won't come up as an in-depth conversation but sometimes business will come up. It's nothing extraordinary. Most of the time we're talking about basketball or whatever." Indeed, you are most likely to spot the pair together at a Lakers game. Certainly Maguire is as tight lipped about his personal life as Dicaprio is. Asked whether it is true that he's seeing his Spider-Man co-star Kirsten Dunst, he just smiles. "She's great but I don't comment on that kind of stuff until it's legal and undeniable. I just feel like it's nobody's business and if I got in a relationship it puts unnecessary pressure on it. It's fine, people can talk and rumours can fly, but I won't confirm or deny anything ever. That'll come back and bite me in the ass because I said 'ever'. But for now, that's how I stand." As much as Maguire seems in control, there was a period when he seems to have had a mini-meltdown. It happened during the filming of 1995's Empire Records (his part was cut out of the finished movie). "It isn't an extremely dark story," he points out. "My behaviour was getting in the way of what I wanted to do with my life. I had a pretty biting sense of humour, where I'd make jokes at other people's expense. I was angry and I don't know where it came from, but it didn't please me." Typically it was the fact that it affected his work that most annoyed him. "I wasn't pro-active in realising my dreams and I had to give up some behaviour and grow as a human beginning to take the next step," he says, reverting to the self-help texts again. "It was me taking hold of my life. Like one of my acting teachers said, 'You're driving the car, the car isn't driving you.' I just needed to realise that. I think alot of people live that way, they're victims of their own lives." At around the same time he gave up drinking: "It was counter productive to my goals in life. You know, if one has to drink to lubricate oneself socially, or because you want to obliterate your problems, that's fine, I don't want to sound judgemental. But for myself, I wanted to stop because I didn't want to medicate the problem, I wanted to deal with it." Instead of hitting the party circuit he can be found at home or in meetings - he's busy setting himself up as a producer. "I'd like a producing career and I'm developing a few projects," he explains. "I'm kind of doing it on my own, which is great but very time-consuming because I don't really have too many people to dole out the responsibility of reading to. Also, trusting somebody else's opinions and taste's is difficult." he muses. A loner on and off the screen, he might have the change that in the future. |
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Tobey's Worldwide Web
Thanks to the lead role in Spider-Man, everyone's favourite boy next door just got super-buffed and dangerously sexy. Tobey Maguire talks to Emma Forrest about women, hanging out with Leonardo Dicaprio and ... his fear of Spiders. Ladies love Tobey Maguire for being a sensitive outsider in a world of cocky bastards. He seems the moral center of any film he appears in - The Cider House Rules, The Ice Storm, Pleasantville, Wonder Boys - a bug-eyed observer, both accessible and otherworldly. He comes across as the kid who didn't get picked for basketball, a welcome relief from the parade of male idols who can handle any situation. It's hard to imagine him being part of Leonardo Dicaprio's appallingly named '@#%$ Posse'. Yes, he spent his adolescence auditioning for the same commercials and sitcoms as Dicaprio, but could the sensitive oddball really, on seeing Jennifer Love Hewitt take the dance floor at LA nightclub Moomba, have, as the tabloids claimed, growled, "Man, I gotta get with her!" There's also been much speculation about his relationship with Glamour's cover-girl Kirsten Dunst, his co-star in this summer's must-see movie Spider-Man. Oscar gossip says he ditched Kirsten to spend the night pursuing Amelie star Audrey Tautou. But according to Tobey, "I have never date her. I have no idea why everyone said that I did." And Kirsten confirms that they have always been "just good friends". However, Spider-Man director Sam Raimi says, "As soon as they started filming I thought, 'My God, there is such a thing as chemistry.'" The day we meet, my image of Maguire as the quiet loner crumbles further: he is wearing dark glasses and high-filing admiring buddies as he walks intop the hip coffee shop he's chosen for lunch. "I'm a guy who likes sports," he protests. "I'm actually fairly good socially. A lot of the characters I play aren't representative. I look forward to hopefully surprising people many times throughout my life. I look forward to my future because of that - breaking people's perception of me, which I have the utmost confidence I will." Maguire is 5 ft 8 in, with a reedy voice and pale skin. He looks like the love child of Jared Leo and Steve Buscemi, equal parts hottie and nerd. But it's his most striking feature - an intense blue gaze - that makes him perfect for playing the masked superhero whose eyes are the only feature we get to see. Columbia Pictures, who supplied the $100 million budget visualized a big, bankable leading man, were surprised when Raimi insisted on casting Tobey as the superhero. Although they could see him as Spider-Man's alter-ego, geeky teenager Peter Parker they had trouble picturing him as an action star. He had to audition twice - unusual for a star of his magnitude - before they were convinced. "I was resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to get it unless I did this and my ego was battling me a little bit, but Sam was on my side. I wouldn't have bothered otherwise." It seems odd to move from dark independent films to the lead in a mega-budget, Happy Meal tie-in action flick, but for Maguire the choice was conscious. "I was so ready for that. When Sam asked if I could get in shape, I said, 'That's the least of our worries. Give me the opportunity and I'll just rip it up.'" "Rip it u in a skintight Lycra suit? Was that emasculating?" I ask. "Not really. For the screen test they wanted to see if the action would be believable with the thoughtful kid from Cider House. I was in pretty good shape at the time and I wore this blue, one-piece body suit. It was the first time I had to put something like that on." Apparently he also pulled the top of the suit down just to prove what good shape he was in. Even so, for the next four-and-a-half months he upped his workout regime to six days a week. In addition to his usual yoga he did weightlifting and gymnastic training so he would be appropriately nimble in scrambling up walls. An obstacle that Tobey did have to overcome was the little matter of arachnophobia. Peter Parker is bitten by a genetically modified spider while on a school trip and soon discovers he has strange powers: the strength and agility of a spider along with otherworldly, ESP-like spider sense. Tobey Maguire, however, is not madly keen on spiders. "I get a little freaked out by them. But the way I think about it, take Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger - any of those tough guys - put them in a room with spiders and one of them would jump up on the table." Before he went after Spider-Man, he decided to take a break from the movies. Wonder Boys, in which he was wonderful, had just been released to underwhelming business and he felt he needed time out. Six months later he started sniffing around again. "I was sort of sitting back and waiting for the right thing, but actively searching for it." He considers this a moment then adds, "but also sitting back." Sounds uncomfortable. I ask if he has any mentors - after all, he has worked with everyone from Michael Caine to Michael Douglas. "I guess. I mean, I have friends, but it's hard for me to five credit to anybody in a major way." A big factor behind Maguire's ambition and insecurity is his background. He was born in Santa Monica on June 27, 1975. His mum was 18 when she got pregnant. His father, who soon left her, was 20. He grew up being shuttled between states - Oregon, Washington, California - and relatives as his mother tried to keep the family afloat. When he was a kid, he changed schools so often he'd wake up in the morning's sick with dread at having to make new friends. His survival tactic was to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut. His mum, who'd wanted to be an actress, bribed him to take acting lessons from the age of 12. He left school in 1990 to start auditioning. "I've always been ambitious because I grew up pretty poor - I just didn't wanna be poor. My mom had a car that cost less than my car payment is each month now. Every time we went out it'd break down. You're 13, pushing your car to the side of the road, going to a payphone to get help from a friend because you can't afford AA. It's not that I even want a fancy car: I just want something that doesn't break down." When, as an adult, he had money and his own gang - Leonardo, David Blaine & co - things were different. Nonstop partying, red carpets, adulation from the most beautiful women. I want to ask him more about the **** Posse, but refuse to say the word '****' in front of him. "Do you think it hurt your image to be see as part of the um, you know, I'll say 'Party' Posse"? "The 'Party' Posse?" he laughs. "You know what I mean." "Say it. Go on. Say it. Say the word I mean." "You know." "No, I don't know. I want to hear the word." "You know, Tobey, I bet people who have seen Pleasantville think you're a nice guy, but I think you're secretly a bad boy." He cracks up, collapsing into hysterics as he tried not to choke on his peanut butter sandwich. "You know how I know?" "Tell me," he says, attempting to compose himself. "About a year ago, I saw you wolf whistling at girls outside the Crunch gym in West Hollywood." That's not very Tobey Maguire, I thought at the time, but it seems it is. "So? I'm a red-blooded male!" he splutters. He actually seems delighted to have been caught. "But from your movies, you'd think you were so nice." "Yes, but the thing you hear from girls all the time is, 'He's so nice to me, but I'm bored.'" It's as if a girl has ever said that to him and his mood darkens. "I'm not discussing my personal life," he says. And yet he must be aware that Spider-Man is going to catapult him into a whole other realm of fame and inquisition. It was the most sought-after role in years, but one that, with its inherent iconography, could also be difficult to escape. "Listen, I am just me, Tobey, a single guy, a human being. It's nobody's business who I date. Jeez, it's just like the gossip around a water cooler in an office." Suddenly he starts shrieking in a gossipy voice, enacting a conversation between two secretaries. "Did you hear that Janet went on a date with Boy?" "No, they did not! Really?" He's jumping about, miming, and here he is: the weirdo I first fell in love with. He may suppress it behind those baby-blues, dark glasses, the bulked-up body, the macho demeanor and the lady chasing, but it's still there, somewhere. That's what you see on screen, and that's what makes him so damn appealing. |
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From Indie Kid to Spider-Man, the Transformation of Tobey Maguire
Tobey Maguire is vigorously stirring a cappuccino - no-doubt one of the few unhealthy substances the vegetarian, teetotal, yoga-practising actor allows to pollute his body. His brow is furrowed, and the cappuccino is being agitated more than strictly necessary. Empire, it seems has said something that distressed him. "But I think Top Gun is a really good film!" he finally announces. Absolutely. The point we were trying to make is that a similar point in his career, Tom Cruise was busily inventing himself as a multiplex megastar, while Maguire has spent the time cementing his rep. as a quality indie actor. Until now, when he's seemingly decided to 'do a Tom' and go all blockbuster on us. "I just looked at it as another character I wanted to play rather than anything else." He says. But surely it's a departure for him? "You know people talk about it being a departure, but it's all just work to me. I just want to enjoy what I do. I want to see myself in different ways in film. I love movies, I like big action films dramas scary movies. I just want to make a lot of good films." It's a promise that so far he's made good on. Since his debut in This Boy's Life (co-starring buddy Leonardo Dicaprio - "I think Leo really opened the door for a lot of people. I think he got people writing better roles for younger actors"), he's delivered a stream of classy flicks, among them Pleasantville, The Cider House Rules and two Ang Lees: The Ice Storm and Ride With The Devil. But then along came a spider. "I suppose what appealed to me was that Peter Parker's a good human being with a lot to share," he says. "And he's not the coolest guy, but still knows that if only he had the opportunity, if a girl would give him time and got to know him, then she would come to appreciate him. I could relate to that aspect of the character." What might not have appealed so much was the need to bulk up. "It was definitely a lot of work," he recalls. "The hardest part is coordinating all the meals. You have to have four to six meals a day, and then there are the work-outs. But then, a lot of it was fun. You get to enjoy pushing up weights. You find yourself wanting to go the gym - like, 'I gotta get to the gym.' Which is a strange thing." Is he still keeping the iron-pumping up? "Not at all. It's tough. I'm working out a little and being active. You know, I'm not the kind of guy that if my day starts at eight I get up at six to go and work out. I'll just say, 'Well, I'm skipping the workout today.'" |
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