Tobey Maguire Caught in a Web

As usual, before the start of the TV interview during a Hollywood press junket, as soon as I took a seat in front of Tobey Maguire inside a tent serving as "studio" at the Culver Studio in Culver City, California, I had to introduce myself (for proper identification in the videotapes).

"Hello," I said. "I’m Ricky Lo – from the Philippines."

Breaking into a half smile, Tobey stood up, shook my hand and said, his clear blue eyes fixed on me, "And I’m Tobey Maguire – from Los Angeles."

Four feet away from me, Tobey Maguire didn’t look at all like Spider-Man, his screen alter ego. He’s small, only 5’7" tall, and he looked oh-so-vulnerable, like a little boy left alone by his mother, that you thought if you as much as startle him, he would shudder in fear before he could break down in tears. So vulnerable that he aroused your protective, big-brother instincts.

It was a "front" as I would later discover during the round-table print interview when he stopped on her tracks an overbearing middle-aged woman journalist whom he perceived to be "sneaky," trying to peel a layer of his well-guarded private life with a seemingly innocuous question.

"I like your shirt," Tobey said, making small talk while we waited for the cue to start for our five-minute TV interview (to be aired this afternoon on The Buzz, 4 to 5:30 on ABS-CBN).

"It’s by Bench," I told him.

"I should get one when I go to the Philippines."

For a moment, I resisted an impulse to take off my Bench shirt right there and then and give it to him.

I went to the Spider-Man 2 press junket well-prepared. With the help of Edmund Silvestre, News Editor of the New York-based The Filipino Reporter, I dug up facts about Tobey Maguire who, incidentally, is turning 29 today, a Cancerian born in Santa Monica, California, to a mother who was 18 and a father who was 20.

Here are some juicy bits about this guy described by Gary Ross, his director in the Oscar-nominated Seabiscuit, as "a gentle soul who is unbelievably tough":

• His first big screen role was in This Boy’s Life (1993), with another newcomer named Leonardo DiCaprio who would become his bosom buddy. Then, he appeared in Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm (1997), which is the story of sexual goings-on in a New England family; followed by Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry; Pleasantville, his first starring role; the Oscar-nominated The Cider House Rules (1999), as the returning inmate of an orphanage; and The Wonder Boys (2000), with Michael Douglas leading the cast in a story of eccentric academics.

• It was Tobey’s performance in The Cider House Rules that caught the attention of director Sam Raimi’s wife Gillian who informed Raimi about it. Raimi was then casting for Spider-Man 1 for the title role also coveted by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Freddie Prinze Jr., Heath Ledger, Ewan McGregor, Wes Bentley and Jude Law. Tobey fitted to a T the superhero created by Stan Lee for Marvel Comics and, so they say, the rest is history. Spider-Man 1 has so far grossed more than $900 million worldwide – and counting. Spider-Man 2, also produced by Columbia and again directed by Raimi, is predicted to equal, if not surpass, that record. The movie also stars, among others, Kirsten Dunst as Peter Parker’s great love, James Franco as Peter Parker’s friend-turned-foe, Rosemary Harris reprising her role as Peter Parker’s doting aunt and Alfred Molina as Dr. Otto "Octopus" Octavius, a.k.a. Doc Ock, Spider-Man’s new multi-tentacled nemesis.

• Tobey reportedly got only $4 million for Spider-Man 1 and more than twice that amount for Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 (to be released in 2007). Not bad for a boy whose mom would buy groceries with food stamps, ‘no?

• Tobey has been a vegetarian for more than a decade, he avoids drugs, cigarets and alcohol.

• Among his favorite actors are Robert Duvall and Robert De Niro.

• Now, did you know that Tobey almost didn’t do Spider-Man 2 (after shooting Seabiscuit) because of his backache? One of those considered as possible replacement was Jake Gyllenhaal (Day After Tomorrow, as the son of Dennis Quaid) who happens to be the boyfriend of Kirsten Dunst (more on her in next Sunday’s Conversation).

The night before the interview, the invited journalists (again, from all corners of the globe) attended a preview (a "must") of Spider-Man 2. I assure you Spider-Man fans out there that this one is far better than the first one and I leave it up to you to find out. One scene that I found exhilarating shows Tobey as Peter Parker, walking the streets of New York feeling light and breezy, the conflicts in his life nearing resolution, with the song Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head in the background. A simple scene, really. Nothing spectacular. Nothing mind-boggling. Nothing earth-shaking. That Burt Bacharach song just happens to be one of my all-time favorites.

Meanwhile, here are excerpts from my close encounter with Spider-Man:

Would you like to be Spider-Man?

"Do I want to have super powers? Well, I think that I would probably choose not to be."

Why not?

"Because I like my life now and I don’t want to complicate it with being Spider-Man. I don’t know. What would you do with super powers? How would they affect you? I mean, sure, part of me would like to have fun with it, but it would be too much to deal with. I don’t know. Would you like to be Spider-Man?"

Hmmmm. Sometimes I want to be. Was there ever a moment in your life when you wished you were Spider-Man – maybe when you’re caught in a traffic jam just like in your movie (when he has to fly while delivering a box of pizza)?

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! That’s right. I do want to be Spider-Man everytime I’m in the middle of a traffic jam. Or have a helicopter. Or something, you know."

In the movie, Peter Parker has time to fight Doc Ock, work part-time as a photographer for The Daily Bugle, go to school and swoon over his crush MJ. Would you say the same thing about you in real life? Do you have enough time for everything?

"It’s difficult, you know. That’s one of the things about Peter Parker that I can relate to. Although overwhelmed by everything going on around him, he tries to balance all that stuff. I do the same thing in my life. I try to balance my responsibilities and my work with the other things I want to do. It’s hard but I manage somehow."

You almost didn’t do Spider-Man 2 because of your backache. Would you have regretted if you didn’t?

"I would have been very disappointed. It wasn’t as close as it was reported in the media in terms of me not doing it... It was never that close."

Your backache was kind of highlighted in several scenes in the movie. Did you get your backache from doing Spider-Man?

"No. It’s something that I have for three or four years; it goes up and down... sometimes it doesn’t bother me at all. It hasn’t bothered me for several months now. Maybe it’s gone; I hope it’s gone. Before Spider-Man 2, it was not great; and then it got better."

What about the stunts? Did you do some of them despite your bad back?

"Oh, yes, I did some of them. Some were done by stuntmen and some done by CGI (Computer-Generated Imaging)."

How did you deal with your backache during the shooting of those scenes?

"Again, it didn’t bother me at all throughout the shooting. It was fine. The stunts were good. Everything was easier for me. The harnesses were better; the wirings were better. I was more comfortable doing Spider-Man 2 than I was doing Spider-Man 1. My back was perfect."

What are the other qualities of Spider-Man that you can identify with?

"Well, I don’t know. It’s hard for me to identify with Spider-Man because he’s a superhero, you know."

Spider-Man is burdened with a herculean task. Do you sometimes sympathize with him?

"Oh, yes, I do. Peter Parker especially. He’s living by himself in Manhattan, he’s working two jobs, he’s going to college, he’s doing Spider-Man duties, he’s having trouble keeping his jobs, he’s having trouble with school, he’s having trouble paying his rent and he has isolated himself from people whom he cares about for some reasons, one of them because he doesn’t have much time and, as I’ve said, he’s overwhelmed, he doesn’t want to put them in danger. Worse, he’s achingly in love with MJ and it’s painful for him to see her with another guy. He feels responsible not only for the death of his Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson of Charly fame) but also that of Norman Osborn, Harry’s father (the Green Goblin in Spider-Man 1) and Harry wants to exact vengeance on Spider-Man. There’s a lot of pain in his life. Now, how can you not sympathize with a miserable guy like him?"

Is there some parallelism between your life and that of Peter Parker?

"Oh, yes, there is, definitely. When I was small, our family moved around a lot. We moved between California, Oregon and Washington. I lived with my mother, my father, my aunts, my uncles and my grandparents. I was always the new kid on the block. I grew up poor. I’ve known poverty."

Did growing up poor affect you in any way?

"I must say that when I was a kid, it didn’t affect me at all. But somehow, as I grew older, it did. We were on welfare for a while – you know, food stamps, Medi-Cal, whatever. The food-stamps stuff kind of embarrassed me. Everytime my mother went to the grocery to buy food with those stamps, I’d run out of the store. I felt kind of humiliated and when I think about it now, there was no reason for me to be because being poor is nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sorry if my feeling embarrassed or humiliated caused pain to my parents. But, thank God, there were times when money was okay and we could buy each other nice Christmas gifts."

Did that phase in your childhood strengthen your character?

"Oh, yes, it did. I resolved to be independent so I wouldn’t have to rely on anybody. I have to deal with certain demons in my life, like I have abandonment issues, and I struggled to get over the fear of going broke again. I wanted to take control of my life, thinking it would help me resolve the issues in my life, only for me to realize that I was just covering them up. You’ve got to face realities and deal with them head-on."

You started in showbiz very young. Your mom had to bribe you with $100 to be an actor?

"As a kid, I wanted to be a cook. I was planning to take up Home Economics in college but, you’re right, my mother did offer me $100 to enroll in a drama class instead. That was a lot of money at that time, so I said, why not?"

What other memories do you treasure from your childhood? Did you do small jobs?

"When I was a kid, I used to pick up leaves or rake a lawn for a few bucks, or something like that. I also sold candies. As I grew older, I helped out doing something for more bucks. Some of my family were into construction so, at 11, I’d go hammer some nails and make a couple of bucks an hour. I started acting at 13. By the time I was 16, I was making like an adult living."

You’re an underdog in the Spider-Man movies just as you were in real life. I presume that you see that aspect of yourself in Peter Parker.

"Yeah, I can relate to Peter Parker in that aspect. First of all, if somebody told you that you should be an actor, you make being a successful actor your goal and the odds are huge against you to do so. I’m an underdog in that situation. Also, I was a poor kid getting out of school at ninth grade and making something of myself – you know, a lot of people doubted that I could achieve something. In that sense, I felt like an underdog. But I know that I have very powerful mental capability in terms of imagining what I want to achieve and then achieving it. So I can relate very well to the underdog thing."

Did you have a favorite comic hero when you were small?

"I never liked comic books when I was a kid."

So it never occurred to you that you would be playing Spider-Man (or any other comic hero)?

"Actually, I knew when I was seven that I was gonna play Spider-Man."

Oh, yeah? How did you know?

(Breaking into a smile) "I’m just kidding. No, I never read comic books; I was never a comic-book fan. I had no idea that I was gonna play Spider-Man."

What makes Spider-Man a popular comic hero?

"Because it’s easy to relate to him. That’s where his appeal lies. Peter Parker is a regular kid with super powers to which he can relate as a human being. He’s a superhero and even then, he deals with conflicts any human being does. And that’s what also makes him interesting – a superhero and a human being at the same time."

What scares you?

"Well, opening up to people and letting them see you for who you are. It’s frightening, isn’t it?"

Of course, you’re doing Spider-Man 3 – definitely?

"Oh, yes, I am. I’m excited to do it."

Are you comfortable in the Spider-Man suit? Isn’t it suffocating?

"I tell you, it’s the worst place to be in – in that suit. When they first fitted me for that suit, I expected them to put tights on me so the bodycast wouldn’t stick to my body hair, but they didn’t. They wanted the costume to fit very well so they didn’t put tights on me. The bodycast had hardened and dried so when they took it off, they ripped almost all the hair off my legs. It was terrible, very excruciating. I could still feel how awful it was."

No wonder you don’t want to be Spider-Man.

"Try getting into that suit and tell me if you want to be Spider-Man."

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