Tobias Vincent "Tobey" Maguire is an American actor and film producer who began his career
in the late 1980s.
He is known for his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy, as
well as for his roles in Pleasantville, The Cider House Rules, Wonder Boys, Seabiscuit,
Brothers, and The Great Gatsby.
He has been nominated for Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe Awards and received two Saturn
Awards, including one for Best Actor.
Early life Maguire was born in Santa Monica, California,
to Wendy, a secretary turned screenwriter and producer, and Vincent Maguire, a construction
worker and cook.
He has four half-brothers.
One of his paternal great-grandfathers was Austrian, and a great-grandmother was Puerto
Rican.
His parents, 18 and 20 years old, were unmarried at the time of his birth; the two married
and subsequently divorced when Maguire was two.
Maguire spent much of his childhood moving from town to town, living with each parent
and other family members.
During his childhood, Maguire entertained the idea of becoming a chef and to that end
wanted to enroll in a home economics class as a sixth grader.
His mother offered him US$100 to take a drama class instead, and Tobey agreed.
The nomadic nature of his school-age years began to take a toll on Maguire emotionally,
and finally, after another relocation for his freshman year, Maguire dropped out of
high school and did not return.
Instead, he pursued an acting career.
By 2000, Maguire had obtained his GED, noting that during his school days, "I wasn't doing
school; I was showing up, but...not really giving myself."
Career Early career
Maguire's first appearance in a feature film was in 1989's The Wizard.
He plays one of Lucas Barton's goons and had no lines.
Maguire initially worked as a child actor in the early 1990s, often playing roles much
younger than his chronological age; as late as 2002, Maguire was still playing teenagers
while in his mid-20s.
He appeared in a variety of commercials and TV and movie roles, working opposite such
actors as Chuck Norris, Roseanne Barr, and Tracey Ullman.
Eventually, Maguire was cast as the lead in the FOX TV series Great Scott, which was cancelled
five weeks later.
During many of his auditions, Maguire found himself auditioning for roles opposite another
rising actor, Leonardo DiCaprio.
The pair quickly became friends and made an informal pact to help each other get parts
in their movies/TV shows/other projects.
For example, both auditioned for the same part in the 1990 TV series based on the 1989
comedy Parenthood.
DiCaprio was cast, and Maguire later got a guest role at least partly on DiCaprio's recommendation.
The same scenario played itself out during casting for the 1993 movie This Boy's Life;
DiCaprio got the main teen role and Maguire got a part as one of Toby's friends.
By the mid-1990s, Maguire was working steadily but was also becoming involved in the hard-partying
lifestyle of some of his fellow young actors.
In 1995, Maguire requested director Allan Moyle to release him from his part in the
movie Empire Records.
Moyle agreed, and all of Maguire's scenes were deleted from the final film.
Maguire then sought help for a drinking problem from Alcoholics Anonymous; he has been sober
ever since.
As part of his recovery from alcoholism and learning to deal with his self-described "addictive
and compulsive nature", Maguire changed his career path slightly in order to obtain roles
where he and DiCaprio would not always be in competition for the same part, and the
move paid off when he got the role of Paul Hood, a teenage boarding school student whose
narration anchors the action in Ang Lee's 1997 film, The Ice Storm.
This led to a variety of lead roles in films such as Pleasantville, The Cider House Rules,
and Wonder Boys.
In the 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas he portrayed a hitchhiker who meets
Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo during their drive to Las Vegas.
In Ride with the Devil, Maguire portrayed Jakob Roedel, opposite Jewel Kilcher.
Here he played the son of a unionist German immigrant who joins his southern friends in
the Missouri riders, avenging the atrocities committed against Missourians by Kansas Jayhawkers
and redleggers.
In 2001, Maguire took a role that featured his youthful-sounding voice, a beagle puppy
named Lou, in the family movie Cats & Dogs.
Spider-Man
In 2002, Maguire starred in Spider-Man, based on the popular Marvel Comics superhero.
The film was a major success and quickly shot Maguire to stardom.
He reprised the role in the sequels Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, and has also provided
the voice of Spider-Man for the video game adaptations of the films.
All three movies went on to be part of the highest grossing movies each year.
Maguire's performance as Spider-Man earned him some glowing reviews.
For instance, Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune wrote that "with his big, round, soulful eyes,
Maguire always has been able to convey a sense of wonder, and his instinct for understatement
also serves him well here."
Due to script and production complications, a proposed fourth Spider-Man movie did not
materialize.
Sony has rebooted the franchise, and has focused on a younger Spider-Man as Peter Parker is
still in high school in the movie; Garfield has a more youthful appearance than Maguire.
The film, titled The Amazing Spider-Man, was released on July 3, 2012.
Later career Maguire solidified his stardom in 2003, with
a leading role as the jockey John M. "Red" Pollard in Seabiscuit, about the famous racehorse
Seabiscuit.
In 2006, Maguire starred in his first villainous role as Corporal Patrick Tully opposite George
Clooney and Cate Blanchett in Steven Soderbergh's The Good German, based on the Joseph Kanon
novel of the same name.
He is also a producer whose production credits include 25th Hour, Whatever We Do, and Seabiscuit,
for which he served as executive producer.
In 2008, Maguire made a cameo appearance in the action comedy film Tropic Thunder as a
gay 18th century monk with his eye on Father O'Malley in the faux trailer for Satan's Alley.
Maguire was a last-minute replacement in the role, and due to previously-scheduled commitments
was only available to be on set for two hours to film his scenes.
Downey, who had previously starred alongside Maguire in the 2000 film Wonder Boys, said
he felt like they were creating a "karmic pay-off" for the sequence in Wonder Boys where
Downey's character has a one-night-stand with Maguire's character.
Near the end of Tropic Thunder, it is revealed that Maguire's character has been nominated
for a Best Actor Oscar for Satan's Alley, which he loses.
In 2009, he starred alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman in the Jim Sheridan-directed
war drama Brothers as Sam Cahill, a prisoner of war who returns from Afghanistan and starts
believing that his wife has become romantically involved with his brother.
He received critical acclaim and a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the
film.
Of the nomination, Maguire said, "I had no expectation about getting a nomination, but
I was watching nonetheless.
My wife and my son got really excited.
I was sort of surprised – I was like, 'Oh, wow.'
And I couldn't hear the latter part of my name."
Maguire and DiCaprio once again starred together, in Baz Luhrmann's remake of The Great Gatsby;
DiCaprio played the title role, while Maguire played the story's narrator, Nick Carraway.
The movie was released in America on May 10, 2013.
Future career As of November 2007, Warner Bros. has plans
to fast-track a movie based on the 1980s anime series Robotech.
Maguire is producing the film through his Maguire Entertainment and is eying the lead
role in what the studio plans on being a tent-pole sci-fi franchise.
"We are very excited to bring 'Robotech' to the big screen", Maguire said.
"There is a rich mythology that will be a great foundation for a sophisticated, smart
and entertaining film..."
The decision was said to have been made due to the enormous success of the Transformers
film adaptation, which grossed $690 million during the summer of 2007.
Maguire is attached to produce Afterburn, a science fiction movie based on the comic
book Red 4 by Paul Ens and Scott Chitwood.
Neal Moritz's Original Films is also producing, and Relativity is in talks to board the project,
about treasure hunters in a post-Apocalyptic Earth looking for artifacts from human civilization.
It has been announced that Gerard Butler is in negotiations to star in the film and Antoine
Fuqua is in talks to direct.
Maguire's company is also co-producing an adaptation of a mystery novel by Isaac Adamson
called Tokyo Suckerpunch with Sony Pictures.
The film will star Maguire in the role of American reporter Billy Chaka, who investigates
the murder of a Japanese friend in Tokyo.
Anne Hathaway has also been confirmed for the film.
Personal life
Maguire has been a vegetarian since 1992 and in 2009 became a vegan.
PETA declared him the World's Sexiest Vegetarian in 2002.
He often makes changes in his diet to either gain or lose weight for movie roles; for example,
he dramatically decreased his calorie intake for Seabiscuit followed by a rapid increase
to regain weight for Spider-Man 2.
Maguire has been sober since the age of 19 after experiencing "some difficulty" with
alcohol in his late teens.
In an article for Premiere magazine, Sam Raimi confirmed the long-standing rumor that Maguire
and his Spider-Man co-star Kirsten Dunst had "a thing" going on during the 2001 shooting
of the first film.
As Raimi explained for the article, "I'm so dumb, because I met with them for dinner one
night during the shooting to talk about the next day's scenes.
And I go, 'Okay, well, that's it for the meeting.'
And then I ask Kirsten, 'Can I drive you home?'
And they look at each other and she goes, 'No, no, I'm going to play a game of Touch
10 with Tobey.'
I don't know, it was some game.
I thought, 'That's weird.
She's got to work tomorrow.'"
Maguire met jewelry designer Jennifer Meyer in 2003 while he was shooting the movie Seabiscuit
at Universal Studios, and became engaged in April 2006.
Their daughter Ruby Sweetheart Maguire was born on November 10, 2006.
Ruby's middle name comes from a childhood nickname of Meyer's given to her by her grandmother,
who died a few months before Ruby's birth.
The couple married on September 3, 2007, in Kona, Hawaii.
Their second child, son Otis Tobias Maguire, was born on May 8, 2009.
In 2004, Maguire took up tournament poker.
He has finished in the money in several events and has been tutored by poker professional
Daniel Negreanu.
Maguire can be seen on ESPN's coverage of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 World Series of Poker
Main Event Championship.
Moreover, professional poker player Phil Hellmuth said during the June 28, 2007, episode of
Poker After Dark that Tobey has won $10 million by playing poker in Hollywood.
Maguire played in the 2007 World Series of Poker.
He survived days 1a, 2a, and 3 but was eliminated in 292nd place on the fourth day, taking $39,445
in prize money.
Filmography Video games
References
External links Tobey Maguire at the Internet Movie Database