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 Fame
weighs heavily on Tobey Maguire, star of 'Spider-man' and its
eagerly awaited sequel. He tells all to John Hiscock
Peter
Parker – the student who, according to comic-book lore, was bitten
by a radioactive spider and became the superhero Spider-man – is
miserable with the choices he has made and their cost. This analysis
comes from Tobey Maguire, the actor who portrays Spider-man on
screen. He could easily be talking about himself.
For 29-year-old Maguire is clearly uncomfortable with the trappings
of being one of Hollywood's most in-demand stars. He resents the
attention he attracts and is disparaging of his fellow celebrities
who play the fame game.
"I see celebrities who spot a camera and go running up to it," he
says scornfully. "I'm always baffled by it. I chuckle and go, 'Oh,
my Lord, how badly do these people want attention?'"
Maguire, on the other hand, shuns publicity as a vampire avoids
sunlight.
"People get my autograph and sell it and it really pisses me off,"
he says. "If I don't sign, they say nasty things, like 'Fuck you,
fuck Spider-man, I hope it bombs.' I heard one guy say the worst
thing. Alicia Silverstone was there and he said to her, 'I hope your
dog dies.'"
Sometimes he is fooled by autograph seekers who hire children to do
their dirty work. "I came out of a Los Angeles Lakers basketball
game and some kids asked me for my autograph and I gave it to them
because how can you say no to a kid?" he recalls.
"Then I realized they were employed by professional autograph
hunters, so now I ask them their name and I write it and put my
autograph over their name, because otherwise the sellers will just
take my name and superimpose it on something."
We are talking in the corner of a huge soundstage at Sony studios in
Los Angeles. Although polite and friendly, he is clearly anxious to
get away to join Jack Nicholson courtside at the Los Angeles Lakers
game that night.
Maguire is an odd mixture of contradictions: on the one hand, he is
a teetotaller and vegetarian who is an ardent student of yoga; on
the other, he is a party-loving young man about town and is by all
accounts a leading member of Leonardo DiCaprio's so-called "Pussy
Posse", a group of young actors whose tireless partying won them the
kind of notoriety once awarded the Rat Pack.
He is uncomfortable talking about his private life and turns aside
all such questions, although it is common knowledge that for the
past year he has been dating Jennifer Meyer, daughter of Universal
Studios chief Ron Meyer.
It was Jennifer's father who helped him regain the title role in
Spider-man 2 after he was dropped amid reports that he was being
"difficult" when he demanded that the shooting schedule be arranged
on his terms to allow him to deal with a recurring back problem.
Sony lost patience with him and replaced him with Jake Gyllenhaal,
who, ironically, had also just become romantically involved with
Maguire's ex-girlfriend and Spider-man co-star Kirsten Dunst. Meyer
convinced Maguire that he was making the mistake of a lifetime to
let the role go without a fight and lobbied on Maguire's behalf,
using his contacts to help him win back the role.
Maguire has a slightly different version of the story. "I had a
pre-existing back condition for about four years and sometimes it's
worse than others," he says.
"Coming off Seabiscuit, it was not good and I saw the stunts I was
supposed to do for Spider-man 2 and I was concerned I would be able
to sustain it through the whole movie. I felt it was my
responsibility to bring it to the attention of the director, the
studio and the insurance company because I didn't want to be
responsible for an x-hundred million dollar movie shutting down.
"They were rightly concerned but I worked with the stuntmen to see
how I felt and it was easier than it was on the first movie because
the harnesses and wires were better and I felt confident I was going
to be fine. So we went ahead."
Maguire comes from a tough background. His mother lived on welfare
when he was a child and his financially desperate dad even turned to
bank robbery to make ends meet. He committed the crime in 1993 while
attempting to provide for his ex-wife (they divorced when Tobey was
two) and their young son. He was also looking after the two children
of his sister, who had died of cancer.
He presented the teller of a bank opposite his home with a note
demanding money and indicated that he had a weapon in his pocket. He
ran out of the bank with a bag full of money and was arrested
shortly afterwards. He later pleaded guilty and served prison time.
The young Maguire spent his childhood moving up and down America's
West Coast, bouncing between parents, grandparents, aunts and
uncles. He changed schools so many times that he went through a
period where he would vomit in the morning because of the anxiety of
meeting new classmates. He was, he says, "a survivalist".
"I felt like an outsider," he recalls. "We moved like crazy. Man, I
lived in so many situations. I've been pretty independent for a lot
of years."
He initially intended to be a cook, like his father, but his mother,
who had acting ambitions of her own, steered him into taking acting
lessons by offering him $100 if he did so.
He made his feature film debut in This Boy's Life, which starred
DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro, and then went on to star in The Ice
Storm, Ride With the Devil and The Cider House Rules.
Director Sam Raimi believed he was ideal for the Spider-man role
despite the objections of studio executives, who deemed him not
heroic-looking enough for the part. They insisted he have a screen
test, usually considered an insult for someone with such a
well-established career, and when the test was inconclusive,
demanded another.
Raimi persuaded Maguire to go along with the studio and eventually
he was hired. He bulked himself up for the first Spider-man film and
had to work even harder for the sequel, because he had lost weight
to play jockey Red Pollard in Seabiscuit.
Working with a nutritionist and counting his intake of
carbohydrates, proteins and fats, he increased his food consumption
from 1,400 calories to 2,800 calories a day. "It wasn't exciting
eating that much food," he recalls with a grimace.
"People say, 'Oh, it must have been great to put on all that weight
after Seabiscuit,' but I'm a vegetarian and I was eating five or six
meals a day of food I didn't really enjoy eating."
The Lakers game started 10 minutes ago, his car is waiting outside
with the engine running and Tobey Maguire is ready to go.
'Spider-Man 2' opens on July 15.
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