Date of Birth

27 December 1975, Santa Monica, California, USA

Birth Name

Tobias Vincent Maguire

Height

5' 7¾" (1.72 m)

Mini Biography

Tobias Vincent Maguire was born in Santa Monica, California. His parents were 18 and 20, and not yet married, when he was born. His mother, Wendy (Brown), did advertising, publicity, and acting in Hollywood for years as she coached and managed Tobey. His father, Vincent Maguire, was a cook and sometimes a construction worker. Tobey did not finish high school in order to pursue and focus on acting roles, but he did end up getting his GED. He did several commercials (he was a model dancer for Nordstrom by age six), and he had some roles on various TV shows before landing a starring role on the Fox comedy Great Scott! (1992). That role lasted nine weeks before the show was canceled. Fox-made series were not doing well in general at the time. He avoids drugs and alcohol, and his best friend is Leonardo DiCaprio. Tobey is a vegan and studies yoga. He now has two beautiful children with his wife Jennifer Meyer Maguire. Their names are Ruby Sweetheart and Otis Tobias Maguire. Another little known fact is that his two half-brothers, Jopaul and Weston Epp, were the child actors who handed Tobey (Peter Parker) his mask after the train scene in Spider-Man 2.

Trivia

• Has been a vegan/vegetarian since 1992 and was voted the world's sexiest vegetarian by PETA, 2002.
• Enjoys yoga and cooking.
• Originally wanted to be a chef, but he turned to acting after his mother offered him $100 to take drama rather than home economics in high school.
• He will get $26 million for the two sequels to Spider-Man (2002).
• Packed on several pounds to fit his role in Spider-Man (2002).
• May, 2002: Bought a $3.5 million Beverly Hills mansion with his Spider-Man (2002) earnings.
• Lost 25 pounds to fit his role as Red Pollard in Seabiscuit (2003).
• Has four half brothers: 2 on his dad's side: Vincent Jr. (born 1973) and Timothy (born 1984); and two on his mother's side: Jopaul Van Epp (born 1991), and Weston Epp (born 1994).
• Often portrays heroes that are close to animals or creatures. In Cats & Dogs (2001), he provided the voice of Lou the Beagle in which he saves the world from cats; in Spider-Man (2002), he was bitten by a radioactive (genetically modified in the movies) spider that gave him superhuman abilities; in Seabiscuit (2003), he played Red Pollard, a jockey who rode a winning horse to victory.
• During the Australian release period of Spider-Man (2002), he appeared on an Australian late-night variety show with his co-star Willem Dafoe. During this interview, when asked if he was a fan of the comic book, he claimed that he had never touched a Spider-Man comic book before and that he never wanted to read them.
• Is good friends with his Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007) co-star Kirsten Dunst.
• He was originally set to play the role of Jake Hoyt in Training Day (2001), opposite Denzel Washington. He had even gone through two months of training with narcotic officers, weapons training, and put on a lot of muscle but the role was later given to the producer's first choice, Ethan Hawke, and Tobey went on to star in Spider-Man (2002) instead.
• He played in the World Series of Poker. On October 27, 2004, he won the Phil Hellmuth Poker Invitational at the Hollywood Park Casino in Los Angeles, taking a first prize of $95,480.
• Enjoys playing chess.
• Member of the AAs
• Was engaged to Rashida Jones (2002).
• He and Jennifer Meyer announced their engagement after the birth of their daughter Ruby Sweetheart.
• Close friend of Leonardo DiCaprio
• Considered for the role of Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).
• While promoting The Good German (2006) on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992), he revealed the baby's name, Ruby Sweetheart.
• Almost couldn't do Spider-Man 2 (2004) after having severe back pains at the end of shooting Seabiscuit (2003), Jake Gyllenhaal was already in talks to replace him and had already begun preparation.
• Was originally cast as Alex Chance Browning in Final Destination (2000).
• Married Jennifer Meyer in a secret ceremony on Hawaii. The wedding was only attended by close friends [September 3, 2007].
• He and his best friend, Leonardo DiCaprio, were both in movie directed by Sam Raimi. DiCaprio was in The Quick and the Dead (1995) and Tobey was in Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007).
• He and his wife are very close friends of Sara Gilbert.
• Made his movie debut in This Boy's Life (1993).
• Son-in-law of Ron Meyer.
• Lives in Los Angeles, California.
• Was in attendance at the wedding of Reese Witherspoon to Jim Toth (26 March 2011).
• His ancestry is English, Irish, German, Austrian, one eighth Puerto Rican, one eighth Polish, as well as more distant Danish, French, and Cornish. His maternal grandmother was born in Cape Town, South Africa, to an English family, and came to the U.S. in 1933.
• Became a father for the 1st time at age 31 when his girlfriend [now wife], Jennifer Meyer, gave birth to their daughter, Ruby Sweetheart Maguire, on November 10, 2006.
• Became a father for the 2nd time at age 33 when his wife, Jennifer Meyer, gave birth to their son, Otis Tobias Maguire, on May 8, 2009.
• Filming Spider-Man 3 (2007) in New York. [June 2006]
• Two of his half brothers make a cameo appearance as the two boys who gives him his mask in the train scene in Spiderman 2.
• Close friends with Kevin Connolly.
• He was considered for the role of Norman Bates in Psycho (1998) before Vince Vaughn was cast.
• Has a morbid fear of heights (acrophobia).
• Born at 8:20 AM (PDT).
• Friends with Spiderman co-stars: Bryce Dallas Howard, Topher Grace and Rosemary Harris.
• As of 2022, he has appeared in two films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: The Cider House Rules (1999) and Seabiscuit (2003).
• Played 2 characters with the last name "Parker". Bud Parker in "Pleasantville" and Peter Parker in the "Spider Man" trilogy.

Quotes

• All the people throughout my life who were naysayers pissed me off. But they've all given me a fervor; an angry ambition that cannot be stopped - and I look forward to finding a therapist and working on that.
• I think fame is a really complicated thing. It can be a great challenge to handle the difficult parts of it and strengthen your character so you don't get affected in a negative way by it. And I'm scared and excited and hesitant and anxious. I'm conflicted about it, truly.
• [on ending the Spider-Man film series with Spider-Man 3 (2007)] "To me, it seems like this is a natural point for the team to break up because we have a lot of story conclusions that were going along for the main characters for the first two movies and we kind of tie almost everything up for the third movie. It feels like a trilogy to me and it feels like the end."
• 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.'
• Every actor has to establish a presence that not only fits the overall needs of the story but allows him to interact with other actors in a credible and meaningful way. Every actor wants to work under conditions and with material that enables them to create and use their craft.
• I'm close to being a vegan, but I'm not one, technically. I don't eat eggs, or nearly any dairy - no cheese or milk. I do eat honey, and a piece of milk chocolate here and there. It's never really been that hard for me. I've never had any desire to eat meat. In fact, when I was a kid I would have a really difficult time eating meat at all. It had to be the perfect bite, with no fat or gristle or bone or anything like that. I don't judge people who eat meat - that's not for me to say - but the whole thing just sort of bums me out.
• I've been mistaken for so many different actors, it's just wild. I've gotten Jake Gyllenhaal a few times, like, 'Loved you in Brokeback Mountain (2005)!'