Tobey Maguire

Tobias Vincent Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor and film producer.

Tobias Vincent Maguire was born on June 27, 1975, in Santa Monica, California, to Wendy Brown and Vincent Maguire.

His parents (who are both of Scottish ancestry) married shortly after his birth but separated when he was two years old, and Maguire spent much of his childhood living with various family members.

During his childhood, Maguire entertained the idea of becoming a chef and wanted to enroll in a home economics class as a sixth grader.

His mother offered him $100 to take a drama class instead, and he agreed.

The transient nature of his school years began to take a toll on Maguire emotionally, and after another relocation for his freshman year, he dropped out of high school and did not return.

Instead, he pursued an acting career.

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.

He worked as a child actor in the early 1990s, often playing roles much younger than his chronological age, and as late as 2002 he 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, he was cast as the lead in the FOX TV series Great Scott!, which was canceled nine 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.

By the mid-1990s, he was working steadily but was also becoming involved in the hard-partying lifestyle of some of his fellow young actors.

Maguire started his career in supporting roles in the films This Boy's Life (1993), The Ice Storm, Deconstructing Harry (both 1997), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998).

The same scenario played itself out during casting for the 1993 movie This Boy's Life (featuring Robert De Niro as the lead); DiCaprio got the main teen role of character Tobias "Toby" Wolff and Maguire got a part as one of his friends.

In 1995, he 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 to obtain roles where he and DiCaprio would not always be in competition for the same part, and the move paid off when given 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.

His leading roles include Pleasantville (1998), Ride with the Devil (1999), The Cider House Rules (1999), Wonder Boys (2000), Seabiscuit (2003), The Good German (2006), Brothers (2009), The Great Gatsby (2013), and Pawn Sacrifice (2014).

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 (1999), 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.

By 2000, he had obtained his General Educational Development, noting that during his school days, "I was not doing school; I was showing up, but... not really giving myself."

In 2001, Maguire took a role that featured his youthful-sounding voice, a beagle puppy named Lou, in the family movie Cats & Dogs.

He is best known for playing the title character in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007), and later reprised the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

In 2002, Maguire starred in Spider-Man, based on the popular Marvel Comics superhero, Spider-Man.

The film was a major success and made him a star.

He reprised the role in the sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and also voiced Spider-Man for the video game adaptations of the films.

His performance as Spider-Man earned him glowing reviews.

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's Columbia Pictures decided to reboot the franchise.

Maguire received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Brothers (2009).

He established his own production company in 2012 called Material Pictures, and co-produced Good People (2012), Pawn Sacrifice (2014), and Babylon (2022).

The film, titled The Amazing Spider-Man, was released on July 3, 2012, with a different actor, Andrew Garfield, playing the lead.

Maguire had a lead role as the jockey John M. "Red" Pollard in Seabiscuit, about the famous racehorse Seabiscuit.