In this article:
Power and responsibility
What makes stability desirable
A true, soulful character
Also:
Celebs More interviews

Actor Tobey Maguire takes a Spider-Man mantra to heart: "With great power comes great responsibility." (Photo Robert Sebree for USA WEEKEND)

-- By Steven Chean

Power and responsibility
Tobey Maguire has superpowers. Nothing too obvious at first glance. No, his superpowers are more subtle. With six words, he can reduce a superhero to a mere mortal -- or, better yet, elevate a mere mortal to a superhero: "With great power comes great responsibility."

It's a mantra he picked up from his latest film, "Spider-Man," and one he's fond of repeating. And with each repetition, he flashes a satisfied grin, his dark, soulful eyes glancing up from his fishbowl-sized cup of tea. "I completely, utterly relate to it," he muses. "It just blows my mind."

That Maguire, 26, is expected to utilize the tony confines of a Sunset Strip coffeehouse to publicize the biggest film of his young career is somehow beside the point. The weight of a big-budget summer blockbuster has become irrelevant compared with the personal significance of the film's lead character. "Here's a very normal young man, Peter Parker, who goes from being unpopular, intelligent and awkward around girls to a superhero. The responsibility, the loneliness, the sacrifices. I went through some of these themes in my life."

Maguire as Spider-man alter ego Peter Parker, with Kirsten Dunst. (Photo Zade Rosenthal, Columbia Pictures)

Parker, Spider-Man's alter ego, is a conflicted high school kid grappling with growing pains amid his wildly changing life. He makes mistakes, learns and evolves, as Maguire has done. And although Maguire is quick to point out that, unlike Parker, he isn't morphing into a superhero, he makes abundantly clear he, too, deals with tremendous powers he's only begun to master: "Our greatest power is the power of what we do. Like Peter, our actions have consequences. What do we do to enrich our lives and the lives of those around us? I try to make the estimable choice, but I struggle with that daily."

So why did Maguire go from poignant turns in small dramas like "The Ice Storm," "The Cider House Rules" and "Wonder Boys" to undergoing five months of rigorous web-spinning/wall-scaling physical training for a potential summer blockbuster? Perhaps it was his shot at the income and career steadiness that have been lacking in his life.

What makes stability desirable
Maguire has made little secret about what brought him to this point. He was born in Santa Monica, Calif., to an 18-year-old mother and 20-year-old father; they're so young he refers to them as his "buddies." They were married and divorced within a year. Tobey went from California to Oregon and Washington, living primarily with his mom, but occasionally with his dad, aunt, grandmother and various other relatives. "I wouldn't change anything about my life," he says, "because it made me who I am. But some stability would've been nice. It's rough when you just begin to make friends, and then you've got to move again and again and again."

Maguire says his mom, "a dreamer," encouraged him to pursue acting: "I think she wanted me to try something she wanted to do but never got to." Although he later earned a GED, he describes his schooling as a "ninth-grade education, at best." At 14, he supplemented actor's training with home study; at 16, he committed himself to his craft. "I was a huge movie fan, especially '70s films. Still am. I loved Hoffman and De Niro -- the way they disappeared into their characters."

Despite his mom's efforts to provide for her son through office jobs, Maguire describes his childhood as "super-duper poor." "We were on welfare for a while. Food stamps, Medi-Cal, the whole deal. I'd run out of the store when she'd buy food with stamps. I was humiliated, which I'm ashamed of now, because of the shame my humiliation must have brought my parents."

Instability, poverty -- it's enough to give a smart, sensitive kid a complex. His coping mechanism? "I wanted to be independent so I wouldn't need to rely on anybody. I have abandonment issues, and once in a while I worry that I'll be broke again," he says. "So, for a long time, I felt compelled to take control of my life, which I thought would resolve these issues. But I was just covering them up, and it was destroying me."

It's no easy task, imagining the self-assured man as the insecure boy he describes. After all, this is someone who seems to have found a steady groove, peppering introspection with his trademark dry wit. He knows what he likes: stiff competition among close friends -- on the basketball court and especially in impromptu poker games. "Competitive doesn't even describe him," says his friend and fellow gamesman, film director Morgan J. Freeman. "He's intent on annihilating anybody at the table. It gets even worse with backgammon, the game of choice. We've had some 12-hour sessions of pure mental warfare." And Maguire knows what he doesn't like. "I've been a vegetarian for nine years now, so no meat in the kitchen," the actor says. "Not that I have a problem with it, other than the gizzards, blood stains, little bone chunks in hamburgers and little cords in eggs. Makes me nauseous, but I'm funny that way."

Here's a guy who considers his surroundings carefully. He's renting a house in the Hollywood Hills but planning to buy. Considering the number of times he moved as a child, he's given considerable thought to his ideal home. "Modern, but comfortable. Cozy. I want to make it a place where I want to be." Maguire is well aware that turning a house into a home involves more than good furniture. When it comes to the prospect of meeting the right woman, his wheels are clearly turning. Yet he's intensely secretive about it, preferring not to discuss his recent involvement with "Spider-Man" co-star Kirsten Dunst. "It's hard to predict what I want in a partner. It's more about what the universe brings to me, and what I respond to and feel is right."

A bigger consideration: equating home with kids. He remains close with his parents, both of whom live outside California, but given his past, Maguire is sure of one thing: If he were to have children, he'd want them to "grow up, for the most part, in one area. Being a parent ... that's real responsibility. It's not something I'm thinking about now, but I know I'd prepare for it unlike any role I've taken on before."

So again, with great power comes great responsibility. It's a concept Maguire contemplated long before "Spider-Man" -- since he was 19, in fact, when he reached his crossroads, and the insecure kid made an estimable choice. He was in North Carolina for the coming-of-age film "Empire Records." He'd arrived late and was once again the new kid. Although he won't call what happened next a nervous breakdown, it was an emotional and moral crisis. "Opening up to people and letting them see you for who you are is a frightening thing, and I had ways of dealing with people I didn't appreciate. I'd make people laugh by cutting other people down. But I was sick of mean-spiritedness masking my fear of vulnerability."

A true, soulful character
As he puts it, "I wanted to be successful, but there are certain things that are more important, like self-esteem." After six years of increasing work -- including his first feature, "This Boy's Life," and the lead in a short-lived sitcom, "Great Scott!" -- he not only left the movie but left the business altogether. For six months, he turned inward, confronting the perfectionist whose need to be in the driver's seat was driving him mad.

"The big step," he says, "was letting go of control and realizing there's no great humiliation in being vulnerable. I was taking a hard look at my life and surrounding myself with supportive friends. And my life got so much better, and success has come on its own. Sure, I still have bad days, where I'm grouchy and a little arrogant, but I'm working at being a better person."

That better person "bowled over" "Spider-Man" director Sam Raimi. "When the camera gets close on Peter, the audience will know whether he has a good soul. You can't fake it," Raimi says. "Tobey's soulful. He's aware of a lot of life within and around him, more than other men his age. This is a complex, character-driven picture, and Tobey's the only guy who could've made it work."

That goes a long way toward explaining why "Spider-Man" doesn't strike Maguire as a calculated game of box-office chance. It's a deeply personal portrait of a young man on a journey. Taking the role was merely another of Maguire's many choices on his own journey along the higher path. "Somebody once said something to me: In your final moments on Earth, what you were supposed to do here flashes before your eyes. And then your entire life flashes before your eyes -- what you did. In the third moment, you're the judge: How close did you come to accomplishing what you were here to do as a person? I hope," he says, "to feel good about what I did with my life."

Freelancer Steven Chean last wrote for USA WEEKEND about Jeff Tweedy and Elvis Costello.

Also:
Celebs More interviews