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The sequel to 'Spider Man' finds the hard-working actor
slinging webs, scaling walls, and engaging in some serious
introspection
LOS
ANGELES -- Tobey Maguire is bored with his own back story. Not the
part about his unwed but hardworking teenage parents, nor the
decision to drop out of school in ninth grade to pursue acting. He
means his actual back, which has ached for years and spawned more
rumors than he cares to rebut. For the record, all that horseback
riding in "Seabiscuit" did take its toll. He did feel obligated to
disclose his condition to the company insuring "Spider-Man 2." After
all, despite the emphasis on Peter Parker's love for Mary Jane
Watson, the script called for even more wall-climbing,
back-flipping, ground-slamming stunts than the original. But Maguire
says he never feared paralysis or considered turning down the
multimillion-dollar payday. Now he's worried that's all anyone wants
to hear about.
"The topics that interest me have nothing to do with my own
celebrity or whether I relate to Peter Parker or what happened with
my back or these kind of things," Maguire said. "What interests me
is: What is existence? Who are we as people? What are we here to do
individually, and collectively who are we? I like to hear what
people have to say about that sort of thing."
Maguire, as it turns out, is every bit as introspective in person as
Spider-Man's teenage alter ego is on-screen this time around.
Sometime-party-boy image aside -- and he does run with a group of
Hollywood he-hotties -- Maguire says he prefers the spiritual to the
superficial. He's interested in all facets of faith. At one point he
even prayed regularly in his own way, in the evenings with gratitude
for all he had and in the mornings for all he wanted, more often, he
says, to be a more loving person rather than an even richer one. As
he approaches his 29th birthday, Maguire is rich, all right. After a
steadily impressive career that often called for him to blink those
blue eyes hard ("The Ice Storm," "Pleasantville," "The Cider House
Rules," and "Wonder Boys"), he transformed himself into an action
figure, albeit one whose story has historically emphasized the human
over the superhuman. The special diet, the hours of pushing weights
in the gym, paid off: "Spider-Man" went on to gross more than $820
million worldwide. Maguire's performance silenced the critics -- and
comic-book geeks can be some of the harshest. It also helped him
more than quadruple his salary to a reported $17 million for the
sequel.
As Kirsten Dunst, whose real-life beau, Jake Gyllenhaal, was being
considered to play Peter Parker to her Mary Jane Watson if Maguire's
back didn't hold, put it, "He's my boyfriend, but . . . Tobey is
Spider-Man. It wouldn't have been as good without him. . . . He's an
every kind of man in this movie. He's relatable."
Maguire himself appears to relate best to Spidey's save-the-world
side. After a testy encounter with a soundstage full of journalists,
where he scoffed at what he considered the simplicity or stupidity
of some questions, Maguire sat down for a longer chat, saying he
preferred organic conversations to predetermined ones. Forgoing talk
of blue-and-red spandex (the undergarment does ride up in the
crotch, but, no, the outfit doesn't itch), he speaks instead of
giving back some of the good fortune that bought him a $3.7 million,
5,000-square-foot mansion in Beverly Hills. He can afford his vices
now, too. A keen card shark, Maguire paid $10,000 to play the
opening hand of the World Series of Poker Championship in Las Vegas
last month. He was knocked out in the first round.
But entering a tournament, regardless of how expensive, is easier
than deciding where to focus his charitable efforts and how --
making behind-the-scenes donations or lending his recognizable face
to some worthy cause.
Sitting straight on a couch, in shirttails and days-old stubble,
Maguire said, "It's a little bit confusing to me. Education for kids
is important -- not just books but how to live, how to make choices,
how to listen to your own intuition, both to really lock into it and
get a sense of what path to choose. How to unlock barriers, not
stifle yourself, and imagine anything that you can achieve and do
anything."
Maguire manages to say that mouthful without sounding silly, not
always easy in a Hollywood that tends toward the touchy-feely
pronouncement. Long interested in spiritual and philosophical texts
("That's what interested me as a teenager; I've read nothing but
scripts since," he said with a laugh), Maguire has of course
attended a few meetings to learn more about the kabbalah teachings
now associated as much with Madonna as with Jewish tradition. But
Maguire says he isn't seeking faith in anything organized as much as
he is hoping to understand faith itself.
"Forget about what people believe in terms of the physical world --
I'm talking about concept or the principle of faith," Maguire said.
"To operate on faith in some sort of higher power than the human
intellect, what does that give you? It gives you a direct line or a
communication to God. What is God? It's this high power. How do you
communicate with it? I think it's some kind of internal process
where you're listening to your own intuition."
Maguire the movie star believes in harnessing the universe to
manifest his desires, which has worked well for him so far. He says
he visualized the house he wanted and imagined he had already found
it. He's done the same with movie roles and nonmaterial needs. He
says he's read -- and that he'd like to read more -- about how "the
universe helps in mysterious ways" when one commits himself in
advance.
And, once his concerns about his sore back were resolved, commit
himself he did to Sam Raimi's vision for "Spider-Man 2," letting the
director smash him into wall after wall, hitting the ground so hard
for a scene that even Spider-Man complains, "My back, my back." But
it was Maguire's ability to make Peter Parker's dilemma -- save
strangers or save himself for love -- real that mattered most to
Raimi. For him, Spider-Man's story has always been about a boy
trying to do his best and not always succeeding.
"Tobey has the ability to be a very real person on-screen," Raimi
said. "He's a good person, simple, doesn't put on a lot of airs. He
doesn't pretend on-screen, he just is."
Well, sort of. Just being on-screen for the two "Spider-Man" movies
required intensive training, unlike anything Maguire had undergone
before. Nothing spiritual about it, except perhaps the yoga Maguire
has practiced off and on for almost a decade. At the same time, he
had to regain the 20-plus pounds he had lost to play a jockey in
"Seabiscuit." Then he had to resculpt himself into something other
superheroes wouldn't sneer at. The training was tedious, the results
impossible to ignore.
The first "Spider-Man" was "the first time I'd ever been in shape
like that, and it was crazy, I was obsessed," said Maguire, who
hasn't kept up the body since filming ending, although he has hardly
gone squishy just yet. "I just wanted to prove it to myself and to
other people. . . . I was like, `Grrrrr." I was just hungry to work
hard. . . . I was in sick shape, ripped up, cut up, body fat was
like zero."
Maguire, whose clothes tend toward the baggy and who doesn't have a
section of his closet set aside for his Spider-Man-sized body,
amazed even himself. He admitted: "I looked in the mirror more than
usual, I did do that." The physical transformation was less
awe-inspiring the second time. He expects his third round as
Spider-Man, with Raimi at the helm again and Dunst at his side, to
barely merit a mention of his muscles.
That's fine with Maguire, who has little formal schooling and dreams
of time off that would allow him to mix vacation and study. But he's
been working as long as he can remember, first in commercials, then
in TV, now most famously in movies. The son of a cook father and
secretary mother who did marry and then divorce, he says he has the
work ethic in him, although he can imagine going in other directions
while also continuing to act. He just has to meditate on what they
might be.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company. Lynda Gorov can be
reached at lgorov@aol.com. |
