Tobey Maguire Meeting Goes Awry

By Amy Somensky Dec 2, 2004, 15:55 GMT

Tobey Maguire

The star of the Spider-Man movies, Maguire came into town last week to discuss playing the role of Tom in Tennessee Williams' famous play, with Leveaux, Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson, who has been cast as Tom's painfully shy sister, Laura.

Maguire, sources say, believed he was going to read some scenes with the two actresses in front of Leveaux only, but when he arrived at the theater, other members of the production team were there, including people from the casting office. What was billed as a "meeting" suddenly seemed to Maguire like an audition, theater sources say.

What happened at the meeting-turned-audition is in dispute. One source says Maguire "froze up" and seemed to get "smaller and smaller" as the reading went on. It was obvious to some that he did not have stage chops and after he left the theater, someone sneered: "If he can't do this in front of 12 people, how is he going to be able to do it in front of 1,200 people?" But Paulson, in an interview with The Post, said there was no truth to the report that Maguire was "bad in any way, shape or form. I was impressed with him. I thought he was just lovely." Another defender of Maguire's, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the actor "walked into a situation that was very different from what he had been told it would be, which was not fair."

Right after the reading, Maguire called his agent to say he had been uncomfortable with what had happened at the theater.

He passed on the role because he "no longer had confidence" in the production team, a source says.

Losing Maguire is certainly a setback for the production, which has had to pull an American Express ad announcing the show from the New York Times.

Leveaux, whose idea it was to cast Maguire, is taking some knocks for not handling the actor properly. In general, movie stars don't have to read — or audition — for casting directors or producers' representatives as Maguire did last week. Kenwright himself was said to be upset about how the situation played out, since having Maguire in the show would certainly have generated buzz and ticket sales. One source says the producer even wanted Leveaux to apologize to Maguire in the hope that the actor would reconsider his decision.

But yesterday Kenwright insisted that was not the case.

"What producer wouldn't want to have Tobey Maguire in his show? And I'm sad that he decided not to do the play," Kenwright said. But it is absolutely, 100 percent incorrect that I am upset with David. The only thing I said when I heard Tobey wasn't going to do it, is 'S - - t, that's too bad.' "

Leveaux completely discredited the NY Post story and reporter Micahel Riedel saying, "I have no idea who Mr. Riedel considers to be his 'sources,' but in this case I'm afraid he has been seriously misled. The three days I spent with Tobey working on the play together were not only exhilarating to me but to every one else involved in the production. The fact that he chose in the end not to take up this offer is obviously a disappointment to me, but is part of an entirely proper process, and not, I'm afraid, the melodrama of failure that Mr. Riedel's column is so deeply, and falsely, addicted to."

Source: New York Post