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His career after Spider-man! His new role
as a father! His plans to save the world! Read on!
ADVENTURE 1
In Which Maguire Does the 30-Yard Indoor Dash
TOBEY MAGUIRE lives high in the Hollywood Hills, behind a concrete
wall and a wooden door three inches thick. After he buzzes me in he
asks me to take off my shoes. His doorstep is littered with half a
dozen pairs, from sneakers to strappy high heels. Presumably the
latter are the property of his fiancée, Jennifer Meyer. We walk
briskly through the house, pausing just long enough for Maguire to
collect a coffee from an assistant waiting in his kitchen. There’s a
framed Radiohead poster and a white puppy sculpture by Japanese pop
artist Yoshitomo Nara, a general air of moneyed good taste, and half
a dozen employees on the premises. Sixty seconds later we’re in the
garage and I’m putting my shoes back on.
“Everything can be an adventure,” Maguire tells me, after we pull
out of the driveway. He’s not necessarily talking about his passion
for scuba diving, or the $95,000 he won a couple of years ago at a
Hold ‘Em poker tournament, or even how he’d like to travel to
Switzerland and Antarctica, although those things are all true. He’s
talking about something much more fundamental, something
particularly apt at this point in his life, when he finds himself at
a crossroads, both professionally and personally. “Life is an
adventure.”
ADVENTURE 2
In Which We Go Jogging with Spider-Man
WE’RE RUNNING DOW THE GRASS MEDIAN on a west L.A. boulevard, and
Maguire’s a bit gimpy. He sprained his ankle four months earlier
playing basketball. He’s had so much to do lately, between looping
dialogue for Spider-Man 3 (opening May 4) and starting
international publicity for the movie – not to mention the sleep
deprivation that comes with being a new father – that he’s neglected
his rehab.
He’s wearing a plan T-shirt and royal-blue basketball shorts and
holding a blue water bottle. As we head uphill he puffs a little.
Each of the three times he geared up to do a Spider-Man
movie, he submitted to an intense workout regiment: six days a week,
several hours a day. “I’ve trained so hard in the past,” he says,
“that when I get done, I just let go completely. I want to strike a
balance, where it doesn’t feel like a prison. Ideal would be if I
play basketball once a week, take a run or a bike ride a couple of
times a week, and do yoga a couple of times.”
We pass maybe a dozen joggers coming the opposite way, but not one
shows any sign of recognizing Maguire, perhaps because he’s wearing
aviator sunglasses – or maybe it’s the stubble occluding his baby
face.
Does he prefer to go unnoticed? “I appreciate being recognized for
what I do, but in day-to-day life I would rather be anonymous.”
ADVENTURE 3
In Which He Considers His Professional Future
MAGUIRE MADE HIS NAME AS AN ACTOR with his intense portrayals of
young men groping toward adulthood. He became a uniquely American
icon: the tortured kid with heat behind the eyes. He taps into the
same archetype as James Dean, but without the violent menace. As
Paul in The Ice Storm he contemplates fondling an unconscious
girl before reconsidering. As Homer in The Cider House Rules
he wrestles with the morality of performing abortions. And as Red in
Seabiscuit he bare-knuckle fights not just for money, but as
Maguire sees it, “to get that vulnerable little kid beaten out of
him.”
Such roles make Maguire’s ascension as the star of the most
successful superhero franchise of all time seem unlikely. (The first
two Spider-Man films grossed a combined $1.6 billion
worldwide at the box office.) But it also makes perfect sense.
Underneath the garb of the Amazing Spider-Man, after all, stands
Peter Parker. “He’s a young man looking for his identity, and Tobey
seems to embody that.” Says Laura Ziskin, one of the franchise’s
producers.
Maguire earned $17 million for Spider-Man 2 alone. But more
significant, he received a huge boost in Hollywood clout. Even he is
unsure how he’ll tap that now that his initial contractual
obligations to the franchise is over. “I might do another Spider-Man
movie – I don’t know,” he says. “I appreciate movies from a
standpoint of entertainment and distraction, and I also love when
people make movies that help raise awareness. I don’t really have a
lot of formed ideas. It’s more just thoughts.”
One thing he has formed is his own production company, Maguire
Entertainment. Its most notable credit is 25th Hour, the
Spike Lee movie that starred Ed Norton. The lead was meant for
Maguire, but he had to pull out to do Seabiscuit. Projects in
development include Tokyo Suckerpunch (a caper mystery) and
Everything Changes (about a man attracted to his dead
friend’s widow). Maguire knows these could languish in the months
ahead, or some other project could snap into production this summer.
“I’ve been doing it for so long,” he says with a shrug. “If I don’t
work this year, I’ll work next year.”
Not that Maguire can do whatever he pleases. “He’s a character actor
who has been traveling on a leading man’s passport,” contends one
Hollywood producer. “And it’s about to expire.” Maguire himself
points out. “There are very few actors who truly are box office. I’m
not one of the big comedy guys who hit them out of the park, like
Adam Sandler or Ben Stiller. I’m not sure I’ll ever be that guy. I’m
more interested in films and filmmakers than in finding a vehicle to
propel myself.”
You can find one harbinger in last year’s The Good German,
where Steven Soderbergh cast him as a ruthless military officer who
blithely pimps out his girlfriend, played by Cate Blachett. At one
point he punches her in the stomach. It is shocking to see, partly
because it’s freakin’ Spider-Man. But in a way the character is an
extension of the one Maguire’s been playing all these years – only
with a sadistic twist. The tortured has become the torturer.
ADVENTURE 4
In Which He Wrestles with the English Language
INTERVIEW WITH TOBEY MAGUIRE can be punctuated with aloof, awkward
silences, especially when the subject turns to his personal life. So
why are we meeting? "Truthfully, I talk to people to sell my movie.
I don't feel compelled to share anything. But I'll answer questions
happily." he says, not sounding especially happy. "I used to prepare
to go to battle with journalists. Now I don't have my feet planted.
I won't talk about what I won't talk about, but I'm more relaxed
about it."
Still, at times, conversing with him can feel like negotiating a
contract with a particularly tenacious real estate lawyer. During
our two days together he disputes the meaning of the following
terms: "Regret." "Religious" "Feeling like a different person." "I
wonder if people who use that phrase are considering what they're
saying." he says. "I can be fairly literal in the way I think about
things. And I contradict myself -- I'll probably use it myself next
week."
Are you combative? I ask him at one point.
"That's actually kind of a trick question." he says. "If I say no,
that's combative."
ADVENTURE 5
In Which He Discover the Thrill of Staying Home
WE’RE BACK IN MAGUIRE’S CAR. It’s a silver Prius, the standard
vehicle in Hollywood, demonstrating a deep-felt commitment to
environmental ideals. Except this one’s a long term rental from
Budget, suggesting that the earth is best saved at a weekly rate. As
we drive the back roads of western Los Angeles, Maguire keeps his
expression neutral; when he lets an emotional play out on his face –
whether a scowl or a laugh – it’s like a quick-moving thunderstorm
on a cloudless day.
He had a reputation as one of L.A.’ leading party boys – albeit a
brooding, nondrinking one – dating back to his membership to
Leonardo DiCaprio’s “pussy posse.” He’s been romantically linked
with Spider-Man costar Kirsten Dunst, Rashida Jones of The Office,
and even Nicole Kidman. But now Maguire, who turns 32 in June,
praises domestic life with Jennifer, daughter of Universal president
Ron Meyer: “She can be balancing for me. I’m more judgmental than
she is. I sometimes get into a mode where I expect people to think
like I think. She’s more accepting that people are different.”
We chap about their daughter, Ruby Sweetheart, born in November.
“Sometimes it’s hard to leave the house,” he says. “When she smiles,
it’s the most fantastic thing ever. But it’s not like I didn’t
expect that. I expected to fall completely in love with my child.”
So when did he feel like he became a man?
He drives on in silence, not stonewalling, but genuinely pondering
the question. At a red light he answers, “I felt like a man when I
was 14 – and I feel like a kid now.”
ADVENTURE 6
In Which He Grows Up Learning to Be Frugal
POVERTY HAS ITS OWN RULES and disciplines. “I had to be responsible
and take care of myself from a very young age,” Maguire says. When
he was born, his father was 20 and his mother just 18. They got
married when Tobey was two, then divorced shortly afterward. Growing
up, he bounced around the West Coast, everywhere from Vancouver,
Washington, to Palm Springs, living with his mom, then his dad, then
his mom again, but “super-duper poor” the whole time. For a while
his mom was on welfare. Neighbors bought them groceries. Maguire
used to ask his dad to drop him off down the block from school, too
embarrassed by their beat-up orange truck. When he was 11 his mom
bribed him with the unimaginable sum of $100 to take an acting class
instead of home economics; a few years later he was appearing in
commercials and on TV shows like Roseanne and Blossom.
But even after he started to make Hollywood money, Maguire stayed
frugal, banking most of what he made. About three years ago, long
after Spidey stardom had taken hold, Maguire had to book a plane
ticket, and he made it coach. The whole flight he was swarmed by
passengers asking for autographs and pictures. He didn’t mind that
so much, but he could tell they were also looking at him strangely:
What’s he doing in coach? Maguire shakes his head. “It was so hard
for me to justify spending that much more money for a first-class
ticket.” Today, would he drop the extra money? He doesn’t hesitate:
“Well, what I’d really do is try to upgrade with miles.”
ADVENTURE 7
In Which He Comes Clean About Getting Clean
ANYBODY WHO CAN PLAY TORTURED so effectively has to have some
personal history to draw from. Maguire started working through his
issues early. At 19, already an acting veteran, he entered
Alcoholics Anonymous. His life, he says, had become oddly
predictable. “I have an addictive nature,” he explains. “an
obsessive-compulsive nature – well, I don’t know that’s what it is
clinically. But I go to addictive extremes, and before I got sober,
that became routine.”
I ask how he did with the ninth step, where addicts make amends to
those they’ve harmed. Maguire barks with laughter: “I still have
people to apologize to.”
ADVENTURE 8
In Which He Leaps from a Speeding Vehicle
AN OBJECT LESSON ON THE FREEDOM that comes with being Spider-Man: He
flies through the air but is always tethered to something. For
Spider-Man 3, director Sam Raimi wanted to dial up the vertigo; he
always thought of Spidey as living above the city, so he made sure
to include lots of aerial battles. And when he returns to the
ground? “We’ve come up with a fresh story for him,” Maguire says.
“The public is adoring him, and it goes to his head. He’s behaving
arrogantly and is self-involved, which changes the feeling of the
character for me. And it just gets darker from there.”
In addition to a swollen ego, he has to struggle through a troubled
relationship with Mary Jane Watson (Dunst) and tangle with new
villains: Thomas Haden Church plays Sandman, while Topher Grace is
Venom, Spider-Man’s black-suited doppelganger.
There’s one particular show-stopper scene. Bryce Dallas Howard, who
plays Parker’s sweetheart Gwen Stacy, says she’s not allowed to
describe it in detail but that it’s reminiscent of an old Hollywood
musical. It took an entire week of night shots. Afterward, they were
riding in carts back to their trailers, probably going too fast,
Maguire standing on the back of Howard’s cart, when he went flying
off. Howard looked back to see him sprawled on the concrete. “I was
shaking,” she remembers. Oh, my God, the movie’s over. Maguire was
furious. For a minute, anyway. Once he started laughing, it was
clear he had done it on purpose.
Maguire surprised Howard the first time she met him too. He showed
up for her audition, something usually skipped by star actors. “He
read with me and worked through the scene and asked for suggestions.
It was impressive – this was someone really committed to the
process.”
ADVENTURE 9
In Which He Plans to Save the Planet
YOU’VE SEEN VASQUEZ ROCKS dozens of times without realizing it.
Because it’s only about an hour from Los Angeles, it’s a favorite
spot for location scouts, serving as a backdrop for TV shows from
Star Trek to 24. Its large sloping stones jut far enough off the
sandy red ground that it looks like you could climb up and touch the
clouds.
On a Tuesday morning, Maguire clambers up these rocks, shivering in
the cold. He muses on how he’d like to do philanthropic work, but
when I ask him what cause particularly interests him, he seems a bit
flummoxed. “There are so many. The environment, of course. I show up
at a thing here or there, but it’s not like I’m taking the lead on
anything. One of the main things for me is children. I’d like to
give kids guidance and vision and hope.”
We ride back in a chauffeured SUV. Maguire’s juggling his schedule –
he has to fly that night to Japan to promote Spider-man 3 – so he’s
talking to me while he eats his lunch: carrot sticks, celery and
salsa and chips. He stopped eating meat more than 10 years ago. He
describes himself as “near-vegan,” which means he aims for veganism
but cheats. If he tastes butter in a tomato sauce at a restaurant,
he won’t send it back. He has no plans to buy leather furniture, but
he’s not throwing out the pieces he has. He’s uncertain about his
options for vegan shoes.
ADVENTURE 10
In Which He Attempts to Shed Light on His Private Life
“SOME PEOPLE HAVE MANTRAS,” Maguire says. “A code they live by.” He
lowers his voice, and I find myself leaning forward to hear his
secret. “I don’t have that.”
ADVENTURE 11
In Which He Emerges Humble and Somewhat Drier
THAT FIRST DAY, AFTER MAGUIRE AND I finished our job, we returned to
his car. He retrieved his gym bag from the backseat, unzipped it,
and handed me a towel: white, with a “TM” monogram. He was a little
abashed. As he blotted his seat, he explained that he ordered the
towels labeled for their intended use: “gym,” “guest,” and so on. “I
was really clear about what I wanted, but they all came like this.”
Tobey Maguire keeps trying to be anonymous, but the world won’t let
him. On the other hand, he didn’t return the towels.
© Gavin Edwards, Men's Journal |
