Tobey Maguire: A tired superhero

The first thing that you notice about Tobey Maguire is his eyes. Large, almond-shaped, a little hooded and preternaturally blue, they are the key to the magnetic quality of his most memorable roles. They are watchful in The Ice Storm, wide and dreamy in Pleasantville, steely behind goggles in Seabiscuit and, in the Spider-Man films, alert to danger, narrowing when his "Spidey sense" tingles, or gooey and coupled with a soppy smile in the presence of his beloved Mary Jane. So it's disconcerting when Maguire spends the first five minutes of our interview with these features shut. "I'm a little tired out", he explains, a touch theatrically. "I'll answer all of your questions perfectly, I just may be opening and closing my eyes. It's only because I can't keep them open. If I start snoring, just tuck me in, if you don't mind."

It's half past five on a Sunday evening and Maguire is nearing the end of a long day which began with him jetting in from Los Angeles on the publicity juggernaut that heralds the global release of Spider-Man 3. After the Tokyo and London premieres, Maguire still has seven more to go world-wide. With an estimated budget of £129m, this is the most expensive film ever made, and Sony Pictures aren't taking any chances.

But even superheroes need to sleep sometimes and the studio bosses obviously didn't count on Maguire's delicate constitution. Even without the heavy-lidded fatigue, he makes an unlikely spokesman for the billion-dollar movie franchise. A yoga-practising vegetarian, and teetotal since attending Alcoholics Anonymous aged 19, the only signs of any superstar rider are several bottles of mineral water and a sludgy green health-drink. Wearing a fashionable, slim-fitting, blue shirt, smart slacks and lace-up shoes, his hair slicked down neatly and just a smattering of stubble darkening his youthful face, Maguire looks almost as though his mother has dressed him up for the occasion.

This incongruity is all part of Maguire's charm. The beauty of the Spider-Man films lies in the disjunction between the masked do-gooder and his nerdy, unfortunate alter-ego, Peter Parker. Before Parker is bitten by a genetically modified spider, in the first film, he is one of life's losers. At the beginning of Spider-Man 3 though, he reminds us, "I've come a long way since I was the boy who was bitten by a spider". Having snared the girl of his dreams at the end of the second film, he has found a happy balance between being a regular guy, puttering around the streets of New York on his moped, and pulling on his suit to swing through the skyscrapers. But, buoyed by the adoration of his grateful public and his long-overdue acceptance by the Daily Bugle, Spider-Man finds himself caught up in his own hype. "I guess I've become something of an icon", he muses in unironic voiceover. But Mary Jane's acting career is floundering. And then there's the sticky goo which attaches itself to his suit, turning it black and bringing out an angrier and more vengeful side of Spider-Man.

"It's great for me as an actor because I'm getting to do something different and fun", says Maguire. "That was one of the things that Sam [Raimi, the director] and I spent the most time talking about, the tone of that side of the character. To balance that, we tried to have fun showing the humorous side of the meaner, darker Peter", explains Maguire, whose comical look as the darker Parker is not unlike that of an emo kid with a lank, greasy fringe hanging over his heavily kohled eyes.

There are also three spectacular villains - Flint Marko, an escaped convict who is turned into the destructive, statuesque Sandman (Sideways's Thomas Haden Church), the rabidly ambitious photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) who becomes the snarling Venom, and a retooled, slicker and faster Goblin in the shape of the original Green Goblin's son, Harry (James Franco). As a result, the action is bigger, better and more sustained than in the previous two films. While there are no whispers this time about the actor's back injury which, allegedly, almost saw him dropped and replaced by Jake Gyllenhaal for the sequel, he remains singularly unenthusiastic about the visual pyrotechnics. "I would say that my least favourite bit of it all is doing the action sequences. It's just so slow. I definitely like a little more pace and energy when we're shooting - it's more fun, you feel more involved and your day feels more productive."

Although Maguire has hinted that this is the end of his turn as the superhero, he is cagey about whether he will don the red and blue suit one more time. "I would consider it if there was a really great story and something new for Peter Parker and Sam was involved and the right cast was there", he says. As the announcement of Spider-Man on Broadway, with music by Bono and The Edge - attests, this superhero has the potential to run and run.

But what does a retired superhero do next? Throughout his 18-year career - which began when his mother bribed him with $100 to take drama instead of home economics at school - and ever since his first major film role in This Boy's Life in 1993, Maguire has specialised in playing on his expression of wide-eyed naivety and nerdy charm. Now at (an admittedly very fresh-faced) 31 years of age, one wonders how long he can sustain such form. Like his best friend Leonardo DiCaprio, Maguire seems suddenly keen to grow up. Today, unfailingly polite and sweet-natured, it's difficult to imagine the Hollywood brat who was a keen and vigorous member of the notoriously laddish "pussy posse", and was linked to his co-star Kirsten Dunst, Christina Aguilera, Demi Moore and Nicole Kidman. I ask whether he, like Spider-Man, ever felt himself becoming seduced by the trappings of fame. "I experienced fame before this but Spider-Man was such an intense thing. I wanted to retreat, I wasn't particularly comfortable with the attention", he says. "I've grown to be more comfortable about it."

His "normal" life revolves around his jewellery-designer fiancée Jennifer Meyer, the daughter of the president of Universal Studios, Ron Meyer, and their five-month old daughter, Ruby Sweetheart. Perhaps mindful of his own itinerant childhood - his mother, Wendy, and father, Vincent, split when he was two years old, and he spent the next nine years being shifted around various relatives - he has recently considered leaving Hollywood for a quieter life.

Although he has no acting roles lined up at the moment, his company Maguire Entertainment, which produced Spike Lee's 25th Hour is keeping him busy. "You look at Mel Gibson, George Clooney or Clint Eastwood and how successful they've been and how talented they are at directing", he says. "I could see getting into that more and more." He's clearly itching to move on. "I look forward to getting this movie out there, enjoying that and also being done with all of the work", he says. "And then I'll feel free to start to focus on what I want to do next." And, with that, he politely apologises for his sleepiness and meekly follows his publicist out of the room - a reluctant and unlikely superhero.

'Spider-Man 3' is released on 4 May