Tobias Vincent "Tobey" Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor and producer. He began his career in the 1980s, and has since become best known for his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the 2002 - 2007 Spider-Man films. Maguire was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Wendy (née Brown), a secretary turned screenwriter and producer, and Vincent Maguire, a construction worker and cook. He has four half-brothers. 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 a relocation to yet another school, Maguire dropped out of high school his freshman year and never returned so he could focus on his acting career. By 2000, Maguire had obtained his GED to officially graduate from high school, noting that during his school days as a child, he'd reached a point where "I wasn't doing school. I was showing up, but...not really giving myself." Maguire's first appearance in a feature film was in 1989's The Wizard. He plays one of Lucas Barton's goons (one of three competitors at a video game competition) 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 (Walker, Texas Ranger), Roseanne Barr (Roseanne), and Tracey Ullman (Tracey Takes On...). Eventually, Maguire was cast as the lead in the FOX TV series Great Scott, which was cancelled five weeks later.Tobey Maguire's Spiderman 4 - Movie Trailer
As part of his recovery from alcohol 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 soon led to a variety of lead roles where he played a thoughtful boy coming of age, 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 met Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo during their drive to Las Vegas. In Ride with the Devil (1999), Maguire performed as 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. In 2002, Maguire starred in Spider-Man, based on the popular Marvel comic book character. He reprised his role in the sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007) and has vocally reprised his role as Spider-Man in the video game adaptations of the films. Due to script complications, and failure to comply with later release dates, a proposed 4th installment was laid to rest as well as Maguire's involvement, along with director Sam Raimi. It was confirmed by Sony executives that the franchise will be rebooted for a 2012 release, and will capture the story of young Peter Parker as he is still in high school. Maguire's performance as Spider-Man initially earned him some glowing reviews. For instance, Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune felt 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".
Maguire solidified his stardom in 2003 with a leading role as the jockey John M. "Red" Pollard in the acclaimed film 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. Maguire had also moved into producing. His production credits include 25th Hour (2002), Whatever We Do (2003), and Seabiscuit (2003), for which he served as executive producer. Maguire is attached to produce Afterburn, a science fiction movie based on the Red 4 comic book by Paul Ens and Scott Chitwood. Neal Moritz's Original Films is also producing and Relativity is in talks to board the post-apocalyptic project, whose story is set one year after a solar flare burns half of Earth, leaving what life remains mutated from radiation and nuclear fallout. Treasure hunters then go back to the scorched portion of the planet to retrieve valuable artifacts while facing rival hunters, mutants and pirates along the way. It has been announced that Gerard Butler is in negotiations to star in the film while Antoine Fuqua 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, scheduled to be released in 2011, will star Maguire in the role of American reporter Billy Chaka, who investigates the murder of a Japanese friend in Tokyo.
