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Biography of the Day: Tobey Maguire

“I was pretty ambitious. I felt like I had a good imagination and vision for my life. And I had people telling me 'You are driving the vehicle of your life here. You are the master of your own destiny in a sense. Do whatever you want to do.”
Maguire was born in Santa Monica, California. His father, Vincent Maguire, was a construction worker and a cook. His mother, Wendy Brown, is a secretary turned screenwriter and producer. 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 $100 USD 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 yet another relocation to yet another school, Maguire dropped out of his freshman year of high school and never returned, deciding to focus himself on his blossoming acting career. By 2000, Maguire had taken the GED to officially graduate from high school, noting that during his high school days, 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 the 1989 movie The Wizard. In that movie, he played a goon of Lucas Barton, 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 stars 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 5 weeks later.
During many of his auditions, Maguire found himself competing opposite another rising child star actor, Leonardo DiCaprio. The pair struck up a fast friendship 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 Parenthood; DiCaprio got the part, and Maguire later got a guest role at least partially due to DiCaprio's recommendation. The same scenario played itself out during casting for the 1993 movie This Boy's Life (featuring Robert DeNiro as the lead); DiCaprio got the main teen role (ironically, the character was named "Toby") and Maguire got a part as one of Toby's friends.
By the mid 1990s, Maguire was steadily working but becoming caught up in the hard-partying lifestyle of some of his fellow teen actors. In 1995, Maguire requested director Allan Moyle to release him from his part in the movie Empire Records. Moyle agreed, and all of Tobey's scenes were deleted from the final film. Maguire then sought help for an underaged drinking problem from Alcoholics Anonymous; he has been sober ever since.
As part of his recovery from alcohol and learning to deal with his self-described "addictive and obsessive/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 Ride with the Devil (1999), Maguire gave a virtuoso performance as Jakob Roedel, opposite Jewel Kilcher. Though it gained little notice at the time, this film represents the best treatment ever of this part of American history. Maguire also played off his youthful-sounding voice in the 2001 children's movie Cats and Dogs, playing a beagle puppy named Lou.
In 2002, Maguire shot to superstardom as the web-slinging superhero Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, based on the popular Marvel comic book series. He reprised the part in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007).
Maguire's performance as Spider-Man initially earned him some glowing reviews. Towards the third part of the franchise the actor experienced some backlash in the media. "For his part Mr. Maguire needs to stop relying on those great big peepers of his: simply widening your eyes to attract attention does not cut it when you’re over 30", remarked Manohla Dargis of the New York Times in her review of Spider-Man-3.
Though Maguire has not yet signed on for another sequel, the actor has denied reports that he will not return, stating, "I feel like the stories all deserve to be told, and, you know, if... the whole team wants to get back together, and we feel like we can make a good movie that's worth making, then I'm up for it."
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 United States' racehorse Seabiscuit. In 2006, Maguire starred in his first villainous role as Corporal Patrick Tully in Steven Soderbergh's The Good German based on the Joseph Kanon novel of the same name opposite George Clooney and Cate Blanchett.
Maguire has also moved into another realm of filmmaking, producing. Maguire's production credits include 25th Hour (2002), Whatever We Do (2003), and Seabiscuit (2003), for which he served as executive producer.

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