Tobey Maguire - Un-Official Website - In the Press

"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"

TRANSCRIPT: Aired on NBC Dec 16, 2006

Jay Leno introduces Tobey: You know my first guest. Star of the hugely popular Spider-man movies. He’s now getting rave reviews for his work on a new film The Good German. I like this film. Really different. Really unusual. With George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. The movie opens today in select cities. It will go nationwide in January. Please welcome Tobey Maguire.

Jay: You look great.

Tobey: Thank you.

Jay: We started talking backstage and I said no, no let’s save it for out here. We were talking about…..you saw me eat my first vegetable.

Tobey: I did. A piece of broccoli.

Jay: A piece of broccoli, I probably picked the worst one to start with, huh?

Tobey: I like broccoli.

Jay: Really?

Tobey: Yeah, and I’m particular with vegetables but broccoli’s a good one.

Jay: So broccoli’s good. Which one’s don’t ya like.

Tobey: Um. I’m not big on squash,

Jay: Squash

Tobey: zucchini

Jay: yeah?

Tobey: egg plant’s terrible (makes putrid face),

Jay (mocking): yeah, I’m not much on eggplant, yeah exactly

Tobey (mocks back): You’re not an anything guy

Jay: I’m not an anything guy but see I was outed by Parade Magazine.

Tobey: yeah?

Jay: What they do is they out carnivores.

Tobey: They do? That’s what Parade does?

Jay: Have you always been a vegetarian?

Tobey: I became a vegetarian when I was 17.

Jay: wow. Now what made you decide.

Tobey: Well.

Jay: Did you get a bad burger or something?

Tobey (smirks, crowd laughs): It’s actually funny you say that because there was a lead up to it but I ended up getting a burger that was a very unpleasant experience for me. But I, actually I had a burger at this fast food restaurant and it was like a bacon cheeseburger, you know, and it for some reason it tasted like…..(points at audience)….I thought I heard a “mmmmmmm” from somebody (laughs with Jay)…. But for some reason the bacon tasted like they slaughtered the pig out back or something. It was just like this (frowns, gestures)..

Jay: It was fresh!

Tobey: Yeah right. It was fresh bacon. Like thick. Really like pungent kind of a……and I was a little apprehensive about it. As I was chewing the burger all the sudden I bite down on something really hard. And you know I (spits in hands) pick the thing out of my mouth (pretends to look at it with skepticism) and it’s like a little piece of bone or whatever. You know, (audience reacts and Tobey looks to crowd) Yeah, pretty disgusting but that’s happened many times and you know when I pick through chicken and you find the little gizzards, and veins and the blood stains and all that kinda stuff. (audience laughing at Tobey’s facial expressions) it’s like, after a while I was like miserable eating meat so I stopped.

Jay: So you stopped. So no chicken. How about fish?

Tobey: No. I don’t eat fish.

Jay: So you’re the real deal.

Tobey: yeah.

Jay: now Kevin’s (Eubank) a vegetarian but you eat fish right.

Kevin: yeah, yeah I eat fish.

Tobey: (retorts looking at Kevin) so you’re not REALLY a vegetarian (sarcasm)?

Kevin: Not really. I’m practicing.

Tobey: (laughs) you’re practicing.

Jay: He’s trying to pass.

Tobey: pass as a vegetarian?

Jay: Yeah

Tobey: A lot of people do that you know, pass. “I’m a vegetarian, but I eat fish and chicken once in a while, maybe a burger here and there.” (mocking facial expressions, smiles afterward).

Kevin: No no I don’t do that. Maybe fish once a week.

Jay: So I know you have a brand new baby. Congratulations.

Tobey: I do. Thank you. (crowd applauds) Thank you.

Jay: Now, is she a vegetarian? (laughs)

Tobey (smiling): Well, yeah, she is.

Jay: She’s only a month right?

Tobey: She’s uh yeah, she’s 35 days today.

Jay: yeah, you don’t want to give her a ribeye for at least two months.

Tobey: yeah, not yet, yeah, we’ll take our time on that, yeah. But she’s sweet. It’s wonderful.

Jay: Now were you there for the birth or were you one of those guys down the hall with a cigar?

Tobey: No. No. I was there for the birth. In the room. I was actually (cups hands) going to…well I was gonna try to catch her myself, you know. But nobody really coached me on it. So then, when she’s coming, they say “Okay, catch her, catch her.” And I’m like “what do I do?” (shakes hands, makes face), you know it’s like I couldn’t, I didn’t know what to do so I ended up just kind of putting my hand on her while the doctor put her on mom’s belly there.

Jay: Well that’s pretty cool. That’s pretty exciting.

Tobey: yeah

Jay: Now what’s the baby’s name?

Tobey: uhhh, her name is Ruby.

Jay: Ruby?

Tobey: Ruby…….Ruby Sweetheart

Jay: Oh that’s great! I like that name.

Tobey: yeah.

Jay: You know, you don’t have, not a lot of Ruby’s. That’s a good name.

Tobey: Yeah I love it. We love it.

Jay: Named for anything in particular or did you just like the name.

Tobey: Well Ruby was um, we just liked the name, Jen and myself, but Sweetheart, her grandmother who passed away about four or five months ago would always call Jen, my fiancée, the baby’s mother, um Sweetheart….so we kind of named her that to honor her grandmother.

Jay: That’s nice. It’s pretty. Did you always want to have kids? Are you one of these guys that kind of….

Tobey: I love kids. You know, I did want to have kids, but um, you know, I don’t know, it’s different. It’s not quite what I expected. You know I mean its….its…..people and everybody tells you it’s gonna be amazing and completely indescribable and that’s been my experience. Yeah.

Jay: Now I got you a couple of gifts.

Tobey: Okay. Alright.

Jay: I got you a, this one here is a . You ever see one of these. It’s a Say and See.

Tobey: It looks familiar.

Jay: But it’s kind of a Hollywood one.

Tobey: okay.

Jay: Normally they say “moo” there’s a cow.

Tobey: Right. Right. Right. Right.

Jay: (pull handle, voice says “It’s an honor just to be nominated”)

(Tobey laughs heartily)

Jay: (pulls handle again “I swear, it was just the alcohol talking”)

(laughing more)

Jay explains: You know, as the child’s growing up.

Tobey: Oh yeah.

Jay: (Pulls handle again “I’m going to Africa to adopt a child”)

Tobey: (winces, then laughs a little bit) It’s perfect. It’s good for Ruby.

Jay: I have a gift for Ruby. I thought she could use something like this. Get a shot of this. (holds up a baby T-shirt with a pic of Spidey punching a guy. It says “My Daddy can beat up your daddy”)

Tobey: That’s cute.

Jay: Just a couple of items. We’ll take a break and be right back.

Tobey: Alright.

Jay: Welcome back. Talking with new father Tobey Maguire. Now you mentioned that being a father changes your life. Now you were a big poker player right?

Tobey: Yeah.

Jay: Are you still playing?

Tobey: uuuuum…well….…it’s changed I mean I’ll probably play maybe one time in a ….by the time she’s two months old or three months old. You know, and I mean, and I was playing a LOT more frequently before that.

Jay: Well you were a championship level guy.

Tobey: Well (has the smuggest look of satisfaction on his face…)

Jay: Well I mean..you…you did pretty good.

Tobey: I would say that….you know…. I’m a very good poker player………not, you know, excellent on a professional level but a very good poker player.

Jay: And what’s the longest you’ve played, that you’ve sat at a table.

Tobey: At a table? Um…definitely more than 24 hours.

Jay: Really?

Tobey: Yeah

Jay: Now do you wear Depends or something?

Tobey: No. (laughs) I would actually break to use the restroom. Yeah. But I would run. I would run and Whooo, and come back and you know I’d only miss two hands.

Jay: Now I know you’re also a big Laker fan.

Tobey: Yeah, yeah

Jay: But you were mad at them for a while.

Tobey: You know what. When we, when we didn’t do everything we could to re-sign Shaquille O’Neal, I was very disappointed in our organization and I took a year off. (crowd laughs). I took a year off. I didn’t understand. I was pissed. I didn’t know what the whole internal stuff with Kobe and you know I was just like…I took a year off. But last year, I got back in there, you know and I’ve started watching some games again.

Jay: Now when you go to the games I imagine you sit fairly close.

Tobey: Yeah

Jay: Do you yell at them? Do you scream at the players?

Tobey: Um, well…I do, I do. I can get caught up a little..but, I had an experience this year and I went and I saw….I was watching a game and you know it wasn’t…..you know, it wasn’t like an important game, you know, early in the season...and actually the Lakers had a fairly comfortable lead late in the game…..and there’s Ray Allen inbounding the ball and I’m sitting right there…and you know, I screamed at him. I said “Ray Allen.” I said “Ray! Uh Do they televise your games in Seattle?” and you know uh, he turned around and looked at me and I went….(sits back in chair with semi-fearful expression on face)…..”Uhhhhhhh…….Ray!” (crowd, Jay, Tobey laugh). And I actually kept going with it, which, then I felt horrible and I was like, what am I,…..this guy was so nice and he like responded in such a sweet way and I went home and I was thinking about it and feeling guilty…. (crowd laughing)….oh my gosh…..so you know….I’m gonna try and temper my behavior.

Jay: I hope you’ve learned an important lesson.

Tobey: Yeah, we’ll see.

Jay: Now tell us about the Good German. I like this film. It was unusual and I like any film that takes a chance.

Tobey: yeah

Jay: It’s getting great reviews. Tell people what it’s about and how and why it’s different.

Tobey: Well it stars George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and myself and it’s um, Steven Soderbergh directed it and he shot it in black and white and we approached it like….it doesn’t just look like, you know, a 40s film…it’s basically like a murder mystery noir (pronounced na-war).

Jay: It does look like a 40s film. If you didn’t know you’d think it was a 40s film.

Tobey: That’s right and we approached the actual filmmaking like that which was conceptionally how Steven Soderbergh wanted to make the movie..and it was a lot of fun.

Jay: And I like you as a weaselly bad guy. Do you like playing the weaselly sleazeball? Was that fun?

Tobey: (smiles big) It was fun. It was a lot of fun. It’s a little different from, you know, Peter Parker.

Jay: Exactly. So set up our clip. What is this scene we’re gonna see here. This is when um.

Tobey: Uhhhhh, this is when we’re in the bar and um…I’m talking to Cate and um…(looks clueless)

Jay: You’re Clooney’s driver….you were assigned to be his driver.

Tobey: That’s right. That’s right. Thank you. Yes.

Jay: And you disappeared and he’s come around looking for you.

Tobey: That’s it. Exactly. (smiles at Jay doing his job).

Jay: See, I saw this one.

Tobey: (laughing) That’s good.

Jay: Actually, I saw it twice.

Tobey: wow.

*watches clip which features dialogue between Tobey’s character Tully and Cate Blanchett’s character Lena Brandt. In walks Jake Geismer (George Clooney).

Jay: Good job. The Good German. Hey congratulation on your daughter and you have a good holiday. And we’ll be right back with Jules Sylvester and some spiders.

A spider wrangler is on and Tobey stays on the couch watching intently. Towards the end the guy puts a spider on him and he sits motionless until the guy takes it off.