Tobey Maguire Biography (3)
This past year Maguire starred in the live-action action-adventure blockbuster, Spider-Man, which earned a record shattering $114 million in its weekend debut. Maguire plays the iconic web-spinning hero for director Sam Raimi with a screenplay by David Koepp. Willem Dafoe appears as the Green Goblin.
Maguire is currently filming Spider-Man 2, the highly anticipated sequel in the Marvel Franchise.
Maguire also has an exclusive, two-year, first-look film production deal with Sony Pictures. He made his first outing as producer last year by teaming with producer Julia Chasman and Industry Entertainment's Nick Wechsler on a big screen adaptation of David Benioffs novel 25th Hour. The film is directed by Spike Lee and stars Edward Norton.
In 2001, Maguire lent his voice to the comedy blockbuster Cats and Dogs. The story chronicles the ongoing turf war between cats and dogs occurring undetected right in their owners' back yards. Directed by Larry Gutterman, Cats and Dogs combines live action, CGI animation and animatronic action, along with voices of Alec Baldwin and Michael Clark Duncan, among others; it stars Jeff Goldblum and Elizabeth Perkins.
In 2000, Maguire starred opposite Michael Douglas in Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys. Adapted by Steve Moves from Michael Chabon's best-selling novel, the drama follows a middle-aged professor and formerly successful novelist who suffers through a mid-life crisis during a writers' retreat. Maguire plays James Leer, one of Douglas' students, a promising novelist with a tendency to fictionalize his own background. The film also stars Robert Downey Jr. and Frances McDormand.
In Lasse Hallstrom's critically acclaimed The Cider House Rules, Maguire stars as Homer Wells, the apprentice and surrogate son of Dr. Wilbur Larch (Oscar winner Michael Caine), a physician and abortionist who runs an orphanage in rural Maine. The film received seven Academy Award nominations and won two awards. Based on John Irving's novel, the film follows Homer as he leaves the orphanage, falls in love and then connects his unusual past with his prospects for the future.
Maguire played Jake Roedel, a bushwhacker, in Ang Lee's Civil War epic Ride With the Devil for Good Machine and Universal Pictures. The film co-stars Skeet Ulrich, Jeffrey Wright, Jewel, Simon Baker and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as young Americans striving to define themselves and the country they had always called home amidst national turmoil. Ride with the Devil was adapted by Lee's longtime collaborator, James Schamus, from Daniel Woodrell's novel, Woe to Live On.
Maguire also starred in Gary Ross' comedy-fantasy Pleasantville. Maguire and co-star Reese Witherspoon play a bickering '90s brother and sister who are magically transported into the world of a wholesome 'SOs sitcom. The film also stars Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels and William H. Macy.
In 1997, Maguire received critical notice for his role in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm, opposite Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver and Christina Ricci. James Schamus adapted Rick Moody's novel about familial dysfunction in Watergate era Connecticut and received the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Maguire first gained attention with his performance in Griffin Dunne's Academy Award nominated short film Duke of Groove, with Kate Capshaw, Uma Thurman and Kiefer Sutherland.
Maguire's additional credits include Woody Allen's literary satire Deconstructing Harry, alongside an all-star cast that includes Allen, Kirstie Alley, Demi Moore, Judy Davis, Billy Crystal, and Robin Williams. He also appeared in Terry Gilliam's gonzocomedy Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson, opposite Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro; the film version of Andrew Wellman's prize-winning novel, Jeffrey Levy's S.F. W., opposite Stephen Dorff, Reese Witherspoon, Jake Busey and Joey Lauren Adams; and This Boy's Life, opposite Robert De Niro, Ellen Barkin and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Bio courtesy Universal Pictures for "Seabiscuit"