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Tobey Maguire morphs from superhero to
super-producer
SUPERSTARS, LIKE SUPERHEROES, don’t get much vacation time. But give
Tobey Maguire the day off and he may just show up for work anyway.
His Spider-Man 3 co-star, Thomas Haden Church (who plays the
villainous Sandman), learned this on his very first day of shooting.
His character was poised to confront the black-suited Spider-Man,
who only had a few lines of off-camera dialogue that could be
recorded later.
“Sam Raimi said, ‘Well, Tobey’s not even here, so I thought I’d do
the dialogue with you.” Recalls Church. “I figured, no biggie. So
we’re rehearsing, and Sam goes, “Thomas, come here.’ I walked over,
and Tobey was standing there in street clothes. He goes, ‘I knew it
was your first day and I wanted to come in so I could do the
dialogue with you.’ That is how I met him. That, to me, is taking
the game to a whole other level – that’s changing sports.”
Before signing on to star as Spider-Man, Maguire lent his doe-eyed
visage to the naïve misfits he portrayed in indie-dramas like Ang
Lee’s The Ice Storm (1997), Lasse Hallstrom’s The Cider
House Rules (1999) and Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys
(2000). “The shy or childlike sensitivity is not who he is,” says
Gary Ross, who directed Maguire in both Pleasantville (1998)
and Seabiscuit (2003). “Tobey’s genuinely one of the toughest
people I know – tough in a real way, I mean. Steven Soderbergh now
says the same thing about him [after directing him in The Good
German]. We don’t see Tobey Maguire as an innocent at all. In
fact, he’s probably one of the least innocent people I know.”
Maguire’s two most recent ventures beyond the web – playing
Seabiscuit’s hard-living, Depression-era jockey Red Pollard and
The Good German’s amoral opportunist Patrick Tully – have
hinted at the duskier corners of his soul. Even Spider-Man 3
will all him to cross completely to the dark side as he dons the
black Spidey suit and falls victim to his own ego and depths of
untapped rage.
“The Spider-Man movies are all stories about identity,” says
producer Laura Ziskin. “The third movie is an exploration of ‘Okay,
I have all this power. What happens if it gets misused?” “It was an
opportunity for us to torture Peter Parker even more and see how he
deals with his pain,” adds producer Avi Arad. “It’s more adult kind
of issues he has to deal with.”
With a fiancée (Jennifer Meyer, daughter of NBC Universal president
Ron Meyer), a daughter (Ruby, born November 10, 2006) and an active
production company (Magurie Entertainment), Maguire is deep in the
throes of grown-up life himself. “He’s blessed with those fantastic
genes that he looks like he’s 18, but to go to these more mature,
more adult roles is going to be so exciting,” says Mark Ross,
director of development at Maguire Entertainment, who is working on
two projects that will star Maguire – the
romantic-comedy/action-adventure Tokyo Suckerpunch as well as
the family dramedy Everything Changes.
As MM sites down in the West Hollywood offices of Maguire
Entertainment, the world’s hardest working webslinger is looking
pretty relaxed. He tilts back in his chair, his jean-clad knees
tucked up against the conference table. The sunshine streaming in
through the sliding glass door illuminates the camera-friendly
geometry of his features – the sweep of bangs, the oversized blue
eyes and the complicit curl of his thin-lipped smile. But despite
the dewy mask of youth, Tobey Maguire is a man of 31 who, by his own
account of his nomadic and anxiety-ridden childhood, stopped being a
boy half a lifetime ago.
MM: It’s been five years since the first Spider-Man movie hit
theaters. You must be totally burnt out from talking about this
character for so long.
TM: Well, I’ve got a lot more to go, so I’ve mentally prepared
myself for the marathon. I’m still chugging along.
MM: Rumors are already flying that won’t be signing up for
Spider-Man 4.
TM: I’m not ruling anything out or in. Certainly the studio is going
to move ahead to develop a fourth movie. If the right team gets put
together and the script is really good and I go “Wow, this is a
movie I’d like to do! And Sam’s there and the right cast and all
that, then I might do another one, yeah. But who knows?
MM: Some people have been saying you were probably not going to do a
fourth Spider-Man but that Sam Raimi was, which sounded a little
strange.
TM: I don’t know. We have a good team in place. At this point, I
wouldn’t really want to do one without Sam, so we’ll see. I think
we’re all kind of on the same page with it, which is that we love
working together and we feel really comfortable in the world of
making these movies. But we want to retire when it’s good, not
after. We don’t want to burn it out and start making bad movies just
because there’s good money there. But the thing is there are
so many years of the comic books with different stories that there
is a lot of stuff to draw from. My chief thought is: How do we give
Peter a fresh, new journey and not just have Peter be Peter and
change up the villains? Because that’s not interesting to me. So
we’ll see. But I think everybody will make their best effort to try
and make one happen, and if it does, great. If it happens without
me, that’s cool. If this whole team folds and they reconceive it and
do it differently, like they did with Batman Begins, cool. I’m open
to whatever and support anything.
MM: So you don’t feel any pressure to break free from Spider-Man –
to do different stuff and get your life back?
TM: Well, I definitely want to do different stuff. I look forward to
making more movies. I’ve made five movies in seven years, which is a
little low. I’d like to make more movies. Five movies in seven years
just doesn’t feel like I’m working enough, so I’d like to work a
little more. And it’ll be nice to have complete control of my own
schedule. [Spider-Man] had the power to preempt another movie.
Nothing actually got weird, but there were things I wasn’t even
looking at because I was going to be doing Spider-Man, and it takes
so much time. But I don’t really look at it as a con; I really
enjoyed it. I learned a lot and worked with a great team of people,
so it’s been pretty much good for me. I’m 31, but I look
fairly youthful. I actually think the range of roles opens up as you
begin to look older. Although, I’ve seen all types of roles in terms
of scripts that I’ve gotten, I’m just starting to see more now. It’s
like, in this script I have a young kid and in this one I’ve got a
job that I’ve been at for a while. It’s not like those younger kind
of early twenties type of things; you just don’t have as much life
experience or as many great stories for that age. There are some,
but just not as many.
MM: Do you feel like the roles are now catching up to where you’re
actually at in your life in terms of life experience? Do you feel
old for your years?
TM: I don’t know. I understand the question, but it’s kind of hard
for me to answer it. With something like Seabiscuit, I think
that character had to grow up in a way. He lost his childhood at 14
or 15 or whatever it was, so he was on his own and taking care of
himself. He was growing up in the Depression and was a jockey, which
is a really hard life. He was a drinker and a bad boxer who got beat
up all the time. He went through a lot of stuff and lived a lot. I
feel like I have lived a lot – or have always felt a sense of having
a perspective of wisdom of an older person with more experience than
I actually had. But I feel like that must be common for people to
feel that way, right?
MM: I think it’s common for people to feel either way – either
younger or older.
TM: I feel both ways actually. When I was 15, I remember thinking –
like all teenagers – ‘These adults, they’re not giving me enough
credit. They’re patronizing me. I’ve got a lot to say – A lot to
give. I’m very intelligent and this and that.’ And I think part of
that is true. The other part is that I was a kid who had a lot of
mistakes in front of him as well. But I feel very young
now, too. I feel younger in a way, which I think is just getting
more comfortable and not letting stress bother you. I’ve learned how
to adjust or deal with challenges in a more energy-efficient way –
so I feel better.
MM: “Energy-Efficient” is an interesting word to describe that. Do
you schedule your time pretty rigorously?
TM: Yeah, I do, which is actually exhausting in and of itself. But
I’m just busy, you know, so I have to.
MM: What’s a typical day like for you?
TM: It depends, but I’m usually doing something from 9:00 a.m. until
7:00 p.m. When I’m not shooting, I’m doing something – whether
that’s returning phone calls or having meetings with a writer and my
development guys about something we’re actually working on or
formulating pitches for things to bring to the studio or reading
scripts for potential roles for me. I don’t know, I just end up
having meetings all the time. It doesn’t seem like I should be so
busy, but I really am.
MM: Do you like that? Do you like the nature of the work?
TM: I do like the nature of the work, but development is very
difficult. I’ve had opportunities to work with great writers who’ve
done some great work and it’s still hard. It’s not just like you
hear a pitch, go ‘That sounds like a great idea’ and a few months
later there’s a movie ready to be made. It just doesn’t happen – or
it hasn’t happened like that for me. It’s constantly shaping,
restructuring, reconceiving, getting in there, collaborating,
finding the good stuff and concentrating on that.
I don’t read a script and then write out pages of notes. I just read
it. Then I get on the phone or in-person with the writer and just
start talking about it. I wish I could do it more like homework,
where I just read and punch out some notes and whatever, but it
doesn’t turn me on as much. I like to get in there and start talking
to the writer and say ‘Let’s find the voice of this character’ and
just start going.
I’m working with Ed Solomon [on Tokyo Suckerpunch] now and we
have a blast. We get together and we just start reading the scenes
and go, ‘How can we make it better?’ We’ll talk about the structure
of the story and how it all comes together and all that, but then
also just going, ‘The character feels a little like this or a little
like that and we want to take it down or up a notch or two. How do
we do that?’ We’ll go through the scene and work on it a little bit.
It’s been fun like that – that part. But constantly reading scripts
and re-approaching the same projects, it’s very different for me.
As an actor, you see the ninth draft of a script. That’s the first
time you see it, when it’s already been through nine drafts and a
studio has decided they want to make it. It’s gone through a major
process by the time it gets to me, so I’m used to reading these
pretty polished scripts. Now I’m in there digging around with
everybody else, trying to get it to that point.
MM: Why did you decided you wanted to produce rather than just focus
on acting?
TM: I want to be more proactive. I also just love movies – I love
making movies. In working with Sam Raimi, I’ve had a great
opportunity to become more and more of a collaborator and
participate in lending my creativity to the film. So it’s been
great, and it’s been more and more on each film. So on this one, Sam
was really open to hearing my thoughts on anything. Obviously I
would focus much more on my part and my perspective or Peter
Parker’s perspective, but it was okay for me to talk about something
I wasn’t involved in at all. He would listen and take it all in, and
it’s been a great experience to have that. I think that I’ll
probably direct something at some point, so it’s good for me to get
in there and learn in preparation for that.
MM: You want to direct?
TM: Yeah. I don’t know if I want to be a director like Sam, though.
I’d certainly start off with something a little simpler. I don’t
know how he does it. We had five units going while we were shooting
and there was a double shift, because we needed the stage. We would
finish our work and the next unit would come to work at night. Sam’s
overseeing all of the units, dealing with questions – whether it’s
casting, visual effects, script stuff, whatever. It’s just one
person after the other – there’s literally a line of people waiting
for him at all times. That would drive me nuts!
MM: What drives you to work so hard?
TM: Well, it only makes sense to me. What else is there? Either do
it, or don’t do it, you know what I mean? I like to try to keep
pushing. If you’re talking about a five percent difference or
whatever, great, go for it. Keep pushing. Keep going. Work hard.
It’s the way to do it.
MM: “What else is there?” is a good question, right?
TM: Well, of course. If you work with Clint Eastwood or Steven
Spielberg or Woody Allen, it’s always different. I sign on to make
my directors’ movies, so I’m not trying to change their approach.
When I worked with Steven Soderbergh, he does one, two or three
takes – at least he did on The Good German which I know was a
whole thing because of the way he approached the style of the
filmmaking. And that’s what I signed up for. At first that was like,
‘Whoa, okay. Are you sure we got it?’ But I was fine. It was more
like: Be prepared, show up and have a good time – which is what I’m
doing anyway, even in working hard. But where it’s required for me
to push myself and dig a little deeper, I like to try to do that.
MM: I heart that you use a system of index cards when you’re
prepping for a role.
TM: First, I’ll go read the script a bunch of times. Then I’ll write
out a scene on each index card and write out what my character’s
experience is: What his view of the world is, what the purpose is of
the scene from the filmmaker’s standpoint, what kind of tone I’m
supposed to create. And then I’ll track it. Once I get that
all written out, then I’ll write it out on one big piece of paper
and I’ll make three of four copies of it, so I can have one in my
trailer, one at home, one in the car, whatever. As we shoot each
scene, especially in a movie like Spider-Man, I can look and
track what’s happening with the character – though mostly I don’t
look at it when I’m shooting. The act of doing it helps me
familiarize myself so much with the movie. In this case, it
was more about sitting with Sam and talking to him about Peter’s
journey. There were so many moving parts to what was happening with
the character that it was actually being constructed as we started
shooting in a way. The foundation was up; we were dealing with the
finishes.
MM: Were you pretty mathematically inclined in school?
TM: Well, I quit school about halfway through seventh grade, but I
was excellent at math. I’m good at games. For me, when I get into
something, I’m going to read books on it. When I started playing
backgammon, I started reading books on it; the same thing with
poker. It’s great fun, but I think, ‘How can I be the best I can be
in this and how can I beat you?’
MM: I imagine you’ve been pretty studious about acting, as well?
TM: I did more when I was a kid. I’ve studied with different people.
I studied with David LeGrant, who teaches here in Studio City. He’s
in his mid-eighties now and still teaches; he is a wonderful,
wonderful man and a great teacher. I studied with him for about four
years. I worked a little bit with some other teachers as well.
I read a couple of acting books when I was younger and watched the
films of the ‘70s – De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, Nicholson, Duvall,
Hackman and Streep – and really just kind of absorbed all that.
MM: Do you have any regrets about quitting school?
TM: We regret is kind of a bummer, right? In order to regret
something, I’d have to give up things in my life now. But at the
same time I quit because I’d moved around so much and went to so
many different schools that a lot of mornings, I was throwing up,
and I think it was about my social anxiety. It was just some strange
compulsion for my parents to move all the time. I don’t know what it
was. (laughing) Every four months they had to move or something.
MM: Do you think constantly adjusting to all of those different
environments allowed you to become a better actor?
TM: Well, for my sake, I think whatever my history is lends itself
to my profession – whether it’s my mathematical mind or my ability
to observe or the ease with which I adjust to a situation. It all
lends itself to me being better at what I do.
MM: You’ve played a lot of misfits and lonely characters. Does it
ever freak you out when you think of casting directors seeing you in
those terms?
TM: Not really. I’ve chosen to do those parts out of other
possibilities, right? I mean, they asked me to be in one of the
Scream movies. The asked me to be in this and that and whatever
where it wasn’t necessarily that type of role. The movies I did were
the most interesting movies from a standpoint of screenplay,
character and filmmaker. Basically people cast you from what
they’ve seen. The Ice Storm people saw The Duke of Groove,
a short film I did when I was 19. Then Kevin Kline and Sigourney
Weaver talked to Gary Ross about me, and that’s how Pleasantville
came about. And I’m sure The Cider House Rules people saw
The Ice Storm and so on and so forth.
MM: Do you believe in drawing on personal experience when you’re
acting?
TM: I’ll do whatever it takes. Mostly I am trying to work from the
material and trying to get in sync with the character and have the
things that the character is going through conjure the emotions in
me. I’m not thinking about something in my life, but I will think a
lot about ‘Well, this is like this,’ or ‘This is like that.’ Whether
it’s my own experience or something I’ve witnessed or something
that’s kind of similar. A lot of things will have those kind of
roots or anchors for me.
MM: Getting back to Spider-Man: What is Peter Parker’s journey this
time around?
TM: He comes into this film where things are going pretty well for
him, except for his friendship with Harry, which was looming from
the second movie. But other than that, everything is going well –
how he handles himself and his relationship with his girl, the press
likes him, he’s got a handle on school and work and his superhero
duties. He’s still sweet and nerdy – with a slice of arrogance and
an overblown ego. And that starts to get him into trouble
personally, which makes him open to the black suit, which is
basically an alien symbiote that attaches itself to him and enhances
his darker behaviors of anger and vengeance.
MM: How was it working with Thomas Haden Church, who plays Sandman?
TM: He’s really cool, really funny. He and Sam got together and
really did a lot of work and preparation in kind of helping to
create the tone of Sandman – and I’m excited about it. I was saying
from the first movie that I’d love to see Sandman, so I’m excited
about it. And working with Thomas is great – it’s fun. I did some
press with him and that was great, because he’s funny and very
articulate, so it takes some of the pressure off of me, which is
good.
MM: You’re not a big fan of doing press?
TM: I don’t mind. It’s just great to have other people there who are
really good at it and can make people laugh and tell good stories.
I’m not a good anecdote guy. When people throw that, “Okay, any good
stories or anecdotes for me?’ I’m like, ‘Uh, Why don’t you ask me a
question?’
MM: Especially with something like Spider-Man 3, which you shot so
long ago. How can you remember?
TM: Well, I literally said to some people I work with: I should jot
some stories down while I’m working on movies so I can refer to them
later when I’m doing press, because I’m always struggling to try to
give someone a funny story or whatever. “Any really funny little
things happen on the set?” “You mean a year ago? I don’t know.”
MM: So did you write anything down?
TM: (laughing) No.
© Christy Lytal, Movie Maker |
