A Birthday Special - Tobey Maguire's Performances

 In my last post I started of with saying the post was not really about him and to an extent I kept my promise. However, I said more about him than I really wanted to, but I was trying to make a point.

 This post wil be about him, because, you know, it’s his birthday. Hopefully, I won’t end up talking about me.

 First things first: Happy birthday, Tobey! I hope you have a good one.

 I’m not the only one remembering his birthday. This article was posted in honor of his special day and inspired me to write this entry: As a wry, reticent spectator, Tobey Maguire delivered one of his best performances in The Great Gatsby | Entertainment News,The Indian Express

 Eventhough I agree with the main point of the article, Tobey’s performances doesn’t get the recognition because it’s often too subtle for viewers, the Great Gatsby is not one of my favorite movies. I am, however, very willing to talk about his under-appreciated performances.

 Tobey himself once talked in an interview about how he is not a flashy sort of actor (paraphrased). It also comes through in his performances. Tobey’s performances always serve the story, make the story shine, but that not necessarily showcases the brilliance of his performance. You have to really watch him to see what he’s doing, to recognize the work he’s putting in, to realize how small expressions and actions contribute to a scene but not upstage it.

 I have not talked about ‘No Way Home’ yet, or have I? I might have mentioned it, because that was how Tobey was brought back to my attention. In this post I will use ‘No Way Home’ for comparison. I’m going to compare his performance to Andrew’s. This is not going to be a “Who is the best spider-man?” or “Who is the best actor?”, but rather why most people noticed and loved Andrew’s performance and missed a lot of Tobey’s beautiful subtle actions.

 To start with Andrew. What comes to mind immediately of course is him tearing up after he saved MJ. The memory of losing Gwen in a similar situation combined with relief and a bit of redemption was so clear in Andrew’s expression. Our hearts bled and cheered at the same time and Andrew really brought it across.

Then there’s the scene on the roof, where Andrew’s Peter talks about losing Gwen, becoming rageful and stopped pulling his punches. It was heart wrenching; Andrew’s performance really packed a punch in both scenes.

 In contrast, Tobey’s performance was more restraint. The pain was still visible in his eyes, but unlike Andrew’s Peter, he has come full circle and learned to live with the memory and pain. He’s in a different place, more settled, more mature and therefore his pain doesn’t pack the same punch anymore.

 His Peter is more concerned with his younger counterparts and this is where Tobey’s performance subtly shines. His look at Tom’s Peter when Tom can’t bring himself to say Osborne’s name or when he doesn’t get a reaction when he says he thinks he can make the cure for Osborne. Very small actions, but it tells you how Tobey’s Peter stands in the situation and how he grew when we weren’t watching.

 Or his conversation with Andrew’s Peter about their relationships. Yes, he stays very much in the background, but does some important things that informs the dynamic between the three. He really pulls and keeps them together. He’s the Peter making sure they all three move in the right direction. Small little nudges that might go unnoticed if you don’t pay attention to it. Beautiful story telling, but also nicely performed, right where those nudges belong. Tobey’s Peter isn’t shouty and attention seeking and Tobey knows that. Also, Peter probably learned from the last time we saw him. I’m sure these days he’s very careful not to lose himself in his own glory; that did not go well for him…no matter how funny or cringy it was for us to watch that.

 Tobey’s performance lay for a great deal in facial expressions and reactions in the background while other bigger stuff is happening. Automatically your attention is attracted by the main event on screen, but the stuff in the background is just as important to make it all feel real and not manufactured. You only notice it when the background stuff is not serving the story; it feels grating and distracts you from the story and leaves you with a feeling something was off. That’s the art of serving the overall story.

 This is only No Way Home. Only looking at this movie you might think this was a particular acting choice on Tobey’s part, and probably to an extent it was. However, when you look at his other works, Brothers excluded, that’s the kind of performance he mainly delivers. Controlled and restrained, inward focused, calm or somewhat quiet. These are all qualities that don’t tend to put you in the spotlight. I know this, I suffer from the same problem(?).

 I’m not saying that because of this Tobey is the best actor in the world; he’s not. But I think he’s a better actor than most people will give him credit for. I will admit that I had to learn to appreciate him. Before I dove into his career I didn’t think he was a good actor at all. I changed that opinion; I think he is a good actor, but it is a bit easy to miss, because his performances are so subtle.

 I do wish he had taken a wider range of characters, but most of the roles he played were early on in his career when he couldn’t be quite as picky as he is now. He tended to get typecast quite a bit, and he admits to that. After Spider-man he started to play more roles that gave a bit more variation, like in Brothers or Pawn Sacrifice. Unfortunately, a lot of these movies went relatively unnoticed and got overshadowed by Spider-man. On top of that, Tobey got pickier. None of this helped him get the recognition I think he deserves.

 But at least he will always be Spider-man; this is his gift and his curse. (Blah! Gah! I can’t believe I just wrote that!)

 In my next post I want to talk about James Leer. I’ll leave you hanging with that. If you’re really curious about who James Leer is, Google is your friend.

 As if I have readers…

ETA: I just checked back in time and found this: Wiwipedia: Jake Gyllenhaal's Performances. I had to change the title to this post. It seems, in my opinion, Tobey beats out Jake. Huh! Wot-du-ya-know!

CinemaTherapy

 In my last post I wrote about Tobey Maguire and how I’m not sure why I developed such a hard overwhelming crush on him. I wrote my next quest was to figure out his personality type and that I thought he’s an introvert, but I wasn’t 100% sure. Having watched him more in interviews and behind the scenes and having read more articles about him, I’m starting to get a better picture. I’m not saying I’m getting to know him well, because he’s really good at guarding his privacy and personality.

 I am quite confident in saying he’s an introvert and a judger, based on MBTI. I’m not going to back this up, because this is not a post about MBTI, nor his personality. I would rather concentrate on how he matters to me right now, and why I developed this crush.

 As for most people, 2020 and 2021 have been challenging for me. Unfortunately, I lost some family members during these years. And not being able to go out and let off steam and relax for a bit didn’t help. On top of that, my organization, or at least the part I work in, is in massive transition on top of a shortage in personnel on top of ongoing big projects. Oh yes, and then there was this little thing called Covid19 demanding extra services from us. To say it’s been a bit hectic and chaotic is a gross understatement.

 All this amounted to me pretty much having burnout. I needed an escape and Tobey gave me that. I needed something positive and exciting in my life. I needed some inspiration and motivation to keep going. And Tobey gave me that. Now you want to know how he gave me that and trick me into talking about Tobey after all. Instead I will give you this video: 

 I can add my own two cents why that partnership between Tom, Andrew and Tobey is so inspiring to me, but I think Jonathan said it all in the video.

 This video is from the channel “Mended Light”. I found them through the channel “CinemaTherapy”, because he’s a host on both. I’m subscribed to “CinemaTherapy” and I’m a member of their program here, because I believe you can learn so much from them about your mental health and relationships and how to keep both healthy or how to deal with problems in both.

 Outside of Spider-man (No Way Home or other) Tobey inspires me to keep reflecting, to keep learning, to keep working on myself, to keep taking the difficult hurdles and take my life in my own hands. Sometimes through the movies he’s in or the characters he plays, but also through how he goes through and stands in life. Most people see either a man they call Tobey but is really Peter Parker, or they see a man making mistakes and getting angry and judge him for that.

 When I look at Tobey I see a man who, just like anyone, makes mistakes and sometimes exhibits less than perfect behaviour, but he learns from it. Often you can see patterns in people’s behaviour where they go back and forth between good and bad habits. I don’t see that with Tobey. Tobey makes brand new mistakes from time to time, reflects and then corrects. He is a man visibly learning from his mistakes and I appreciate and admire that.

 If you compare No Way Home Tobey to Spider-man 1 Tobey, he’s much more comfortable and content. Or at least he comes across as more comfortable and content. If you compare his No Way Home demands to his Spider-man 2 demands you also see a clear positive difference. His Spider-man 2 demands were self-serving (even though because partly of health reasons/his back somewhat understandable and his demand for higher salary) where his No Way Home demands were serving the movie (he requested less exposition about his Peter, because it was Tom’s movie, awwww).

 It’s also quite clear he’s a family man and he takes these responsibilities very serious. He guards his family carefully, keeps them out of the public eye and won’t talk much about them in public. I don’t have a very clear view on how he fathers, but what I’ve seen of it, I like it. In this case (seeing) less is better.

 I will say one more thing about Tobey; his taste in movies matches mine beautifully. I watched most movies he appears in now and I enjoyed most of them. I’m even willing to go as far as saying that some of them have entered my list of favourite movies overall. Quite a few of them I will revisit on a regular basis and not just because Tobey is in it, but because I enjoy the story, characters and performances.

 I like to close this post with this from “CinemaTherapy” about mental health problems caused by negative experiences: “It’s Not Your Fault, but It is Your Responsibility.”

 I really wanted to add this, because it’s so true. Also, I can see Tobey took his responsibility and therefore became a beautiful human being.

ETA: Why I'm crushing so hard on Tobey is confirmed here: Psychology of burnout: is your celebrity crush a symptom? (stylist.co.uk)

I'm a Stupid Little Girl With a Crush

I did not see this coming!

Yes, you're all crying: "It's because of Spider-man: No Way Home!" 

and I reply: "Well, d'oh!"

I managed to remain spoiler free, so for the longest of times, I had no clue this movie had three spider-men....oh, spoiler warning...😐

I'm not a massive Spider-man fan, nor is my friend, so we decided not to go see it in the cinema, but to hold off till it was available online. But this blog is not about all that. I'm trying to write an intro and failing miserably. 

I do need to mention spider-man and my personal history with it. It's actually pretty much absent, or at best minimal. I was aware of the comics, but never read them. I was also aware that Tobey Maguire is the original (movie) spider-man and Andrew Garfield his follow up. I never watched their movies however. I did watch Homecoming and Far From Home. I was even aware of the reboot after reboot, which of course automatically follows out of the fact that we had known two different spider-men before Tom Holland's. I was even aware that Tobey's spider-man is many's favorite spider-man. I was even aware of Tobey Maguire as an actor. I feel I'm listing all this in the wrong order.

My awareness of Tobey Maguire didn't stretch much further then his profession. I never specifically seeked him out. I never went to see a movie because he was in it. To me he was just one of those high profile actors that shuffled by my attention from time to time. That was that. Didn't think much about him.

Along comes No Way Home. Nope, never seen the Maguire/Garfield movies, but I was still excited when both Andrew Garfield and Tobey appeared. I loved the interactions between the spider-men. It was epic to watch them swing through my screen. It was decided then and there I needed to watch what had gone before.

I was more aware of Andrew's career, though I'm not an avid fan and I missed most of what he's been doing. Of Andrew I knew he is a good actor; he impressed me in the movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Tobey, as I wrote before, I had no clue of what he had done in the past.

Remember my crush on Jake Gyllenhaal (I feel like such a soppy fangirl)? In that period, as I always do with new actor crushes, I bought several of his movies including the movie Brothers. Jake was one brother, Tobey was the other. I completely forgot Tobey was in it. In my defense, I was rather focused on Jake.

Brothers was the third movie I checked out (again) to start my research on Tobey. The third, because the DVD was already gathering dust on my shelves and I checked out Spider-man 1 and 2 first. I'm a bit ashamed I had forgotten he was in that movie, because he did a great job. Definately one of his best performances. I wasn't, however, completely hooked yet. I don't know when that happened.

I googled him to see what I could find about the actor, rather than the roles he had been playing. I very quickly found footage of him getting angry and mildly aggressive with paparazzi, some very unflattering stories coming out of his poker games and weird scandal about a movie called Don's Plum. It all didn't look great; it didn't paint a very positive picture of him. But I couldn't shake the feeling there was a sweet person somewhere in there, so I dug deeper to see if I could solve the puzzle that is Tobey Maguire.

With him being a very privat person, it's not easy to get a good grip on his character, if there is any truth to the above, and to explain why it all happened. It's even hard to paint a nice picture of him. The thing is, Peter Parker's sweetness came from somewhere and I believe it didn't just come out of Tobey's acting chops, but for a great deal out of the man himself. So I set out to find out where it came from and how the previous paragraph fits within the Tobey Maguire story.

My goal was not to make him my next interest, my new hobby or fantasy. I just wanted to understand why. So I dug, I googled, I read, I watched, I analyzed. 

Suddenly I was crushing hard. Every time I see a photo of him I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks and butterflies taking off in my stomach. It's somewhat unsettling. I'm 41 fer-goodness-sakes! Ain't I too old to crush so hard?? What am I crushing on? I don't know him personally!! I barely know anything about him!!! It also really took me by surprise and I'm not really sure why this is happening. Like I said, not a very positive picture of him.

To be fair to him, he hasn't been in any scandals for a decade and more, and he does seem to be a good and sweet father. He also seems much more settled, calmed down and content. I think he really did leave his wild days behind him. Visiting a club with Leo doesn't count; he should be able to go out and enjoy himself.

Next stop on this journey is figuring out his personality type. In interviews he's very thoughtful and takes his time finding the right words. That suggests he's an introvert. Not 100% sure yet though.