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Tobey Maguire has come of age.
At 24, he makes the transition from wise teen roles in Pleasantville
and The Ice Storm to
manhood in two movies now in theaters - Civil War epic Ride With the
Devil and The Cider House
Rules, the adaptation of John Irving's novel.
To get there, Maguire, lounging in jeans and smoking a cigar, has
seemed to defy the odds,
emerging from a rootless West Coast childhood to a grounded,
steadily rising career.
His parents married young - his father, who worked a lot in
construction and as a cook, was 20
and his mom 18 when Tobey was born in 1975 in Los Angeles, and they
separated soon after, he
says.
"Each of them was doing their thing," he remembers, "and I would
jump back and forth. I moved
around a lot."
By ninth grade, Maguire "went from basically being a really good
honor student to not wanting
to go to school anymore. Not because I didn't like school, but just
because... I don't know,
it was just painful."
So he was home-schooled for part of 10th grade and later passed a
California High School
Proficiency test and started acting.
Did he miss being a "normal" kid on the usual path? "When people
talk about their experiences,
I wonder what it would have been like. But I am who I am and lived
the life I've lived, and I
wouldn't change my life."
Maguire credits his parents, particularly his mom, for helping him
find acting.
"They're both very supportive," he says. "And, you know, I've always
felt that I could do
anything, and the only limitations are the ones I put on myself."
Those who work with the actor agree. "Tobey is self-assured and very
mature," says Cider
director Lasse Hallstrom. "His emotional intelligence is very high.
He's very good at reading
people and their motivations and looking through them."
Yet Hallstrom was surprised to learn Maguire left high school to
act. "I know that he learned
some lessons very early and that his upbringing wasn't your typical
core-family experience...
He got out early into life and learned about the outside world...
It's probably why Tobey
seems to be such an old soul."
But Maguire, who patiently measures his answers, doesn't see himself
as special.
"I've just lived," he says.
© Harlan Jacobson, USA Today |
