Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield explain their roles in Spider-Man No Way Home: ‘Being in service to Tom Holland’s journey ‘

While Maguire played the role in Sam Raimi’s trilogy, Garfield starred in the role in Marc Webb’s less successful duology of movies.

Despite the pandemic and curbs, fans came out in droves to watch the movie, catapulting it from a Spider-Man movie to something like a mini Avengers outing. And like Avengers: Endgame, several videos of cacophonous fan reaction in theatres around the world have gone viral.

Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland sat down with Deadline’s Peter Hammond to explain the film’s huge success and (for Maguire and Garfield) the reason behind their return to the franchise.

Maguire revealed that he met producer Amy Pascal and Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige but was not aware of what the project was going to be about. He gave in when he realised the “genuine intent of celebration and love” on part of Pascal and Feige became apparent to him.

Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire in a still from Spider-Man: No Way Home. (Photo: Sony Pictures)

He said, “In that conversation, the intention, the kind of love and celebration of these movies and what it meant, I think, to Amy and Kevin was apparent. And to me, when artists or, you know, people who are steering the creative process have a kind of authentic, genuine intent of celebration and love, it just was so apparent in both of them, that, I don’t know, I just wanted to join that. And I’m a big fan of Tom and those movies and Andrew. So, it was definitely intriguing, but yes, I was also going, ‘well, what are we going to do? And that was a bit mysterious.”

Garfield, however, half-joked that his reason was Tobey. If Tobey would do it, then he would. He also talked being convinced by the pure intention of the makers behind the film and the fact that the appearance of the two former Spider-Man actors actors was substantial and played a big role in the journey of Holland’s webslinger through the course of the movie, instead of being cursory.

“It was like, ‘Oh, the intention feels very pure here. It actually feels like a great creative idea and a great creative story.’ It wasn’t like they were just asking us to come and say hi and then leave again but actually have our presence being in service to Tom, being in service to Tom’s journey and where he is as Peter Parker. And I love the destiny feeling of the multiverse expanding in this film, and actually, without Tobey’s Peter and Andrew’s Peter being present for Tom’s Peter at this very moment, he may not become the Peter Parker that he’s supposed to become. … Getting three Spider-Men together could go one of two ways, and I think it’s a testament to these guys that it went the way that it went, which was a brotherhood, which is just beautiful.”

Spider-Man: No Way Home has broken multiple pandemic-era box office records. (Photo: Sony Pictures)

Directed by returning filmmaker Jon Watts and written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, No Way Home addressed the fallout of Spider-Man’s real identity getting exposed to the world by JK Simmons’ J Jonah Jameson. To make everybody forget he is Spidey, Holland’s Peter Parker requests Doctor Strange to perform a ritual, but his repeated interference messes it up, ripping the multiverse open.

Supervillains from previous Spidey film franchises, like Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, cross over to the MCU to face Tom Holland’s wall-crawler. Unbeknownst to everybody, Maguire and Garfield’s Spideys also enter MCU, but do not appear in the movie until the third act.