There were rumors for a while that Tobey McGuire and Sam Raimi were not happy about the Spider-Man reboot…Not in a “Jack Nicholson wants to end Heath Ledger way”…But, still.
Well, surprisingly enough, Andrew Garfield (new Peter Parker) sat down for an interview recently with VMan Magazine, and who was his interviewer? (Old Peter Parker) Tobey. They seemed to get along great, and Tobey seemed very gracious and even ecctatic about the reboot and the casting choices. They finished the interview with a quick comparison of how the role affected the actors, individually (you can read the interview in its entirety HERE):
TM Yeah, I completely understand. What kind of effect has this had on you?
AG The main thing I’m thinking about and worrying about is what happens after this movie comes out. What was your experience when you became Spider-Man in people’s eyes? I’m interested to hear what you have to say about the whole life change that it brings. Because right now I have a host of fears that I’m contending with on a minute-to-minute basis. I’m not in the reality of it yet, so I’m sure I’m imagining it will be much worse than it is. I admire you so much because you’re an actor and that’s all you’ve ever been and all you ever will be. It must be very hard to hold on to the simple fact of wanting to be an actor, to tell stories and not have your image become bigger than your art. Do you have a recollection of a definite change, or was it a seamless thing?
TM I think our thing was a little bit different because movies hadn’t been doing the sort of opening-weekend business that’s fairly common—even expected—today. The first Harry Potter came out about six months before us and it was this phenom- enon from Day one. it was so wild because it was a new thing at that moment—and i’m not saying that hasn’t happened in movie history, but at the time that was a big jump. and then that happened with us. People didn’t anticipate [2002’s Spider- Man] to be like that. Leading up to it you start to get reactions and people tell you, you know, what the tracking is and what range your opening weekend box office is likely to be. but for me it was kind of unexpected. So much shifted in my life the weekend the movie came out. it was shocking.
AG Oh wow, that’s crazy.
Totally F***ING Awesome!! 