Tobey Maguire snagged the role of a lifetime by stripping off some of his clothes.
Maguire says Spider-Man director Sam Raimi didn't choose him to star as Peter Parker/Spidey until he showed him some bod. "I had done an audition tape, but it wasn't what they wanted to see," Maguire says. "They were like, 'He can act; we knew that. But we want to see an action scene.' "
So for his call back, Maguire wore an all-blue unitard. However, his physique still didn't look superheroic under the spandex.
"So, I ripped the top down and did a fight scene with my shirt off with stunt doubles," Maguire says in the new issue of Elle magazine, on stands tomorrow. "And that's how they cast me."
Even so, Maguire says Hollywood's obsession with looking perfect "frustrates" him. He remembers when he started in the business, he had thought to himself that if he ever started appearing in magazines, "I'd just look the way I really looked, even if I had pimples."
As we all know, that's not how this town operates.
"They just airbrush them now anyway," Maguire says. "Even though you may be representing more of what a normal kid looks like and not creating these ideals that are impossible, because people don't have airbrushes in the morning before they go to school."
Or have stylists who get your white oxford just wet enough to show off your Spidey body.