Tobey Maguire started acting at a young age, appearing in commercials and small television roles. One of his earliest ventures onto the big screen was when he starred in This Boy’s Life, and over the years won and lost many roles. Back in the early 1990s, he was roped in to star in a teenage cult classic but ultimately lost the role.
A total commercial failure, the movie is now a cult classic and continues to be enjoyed by the youth of today for its eccentric theme and memorable scenes. However, Maguire lost the role due to a ‘psychedelic’ accident.
Tobey Maguire Almost Starred In 90s Teenage Cult Classic
A commercial failure that only earned a total of $0.3 million against the overall budget of $10 million, Empire Records wasn’t a huge success. The movie features multiple actors who are well-reputed now but were then at the beginning of their careers. Even Tobey Maguire was a young actor who only had a handful of small film roles to his name.
While the Spider-Man actor missed out on an integral role, he was still hurled off to Wilmington, North Carolina, on the promise that he would have a role soon. He soon began to settle in with the cast and even began rehearsing despite having no role.
“While the set was prepared, the cast — which was to include Tobey Maguire, who’d been promised a part of some sort — began to rehearse and settle into their characters.”
It was all fun and laughs for the cast really started to develop a healthy friendly relationship. Maguire was also going to be given a role soon until a little ‘incident with magic mushroom’ made him run off to Hollywood.
Tobey Maguire Lost His Role To Psychedelics
To develop friendship among the cast, director Allan Moyle started inviting all of them over to morning Pilates sessions which eventually turned into allegedly ‘magic mushroom’ time. What was a fun and getting-to-know-each-other time ended up becoming the reason for Tobey Maguire leaving the movie.
“They all took mushrooms together; weed was omnipresent. Maguire showed up, felt aimless, may or may not have consumed a psychotropic drug, and somehow ended up in the basement of Moyle’s beach house eating a giant bowl of cereal. Moyle found him there, they talked for several hours, Maguire asked to go back to Hollywood to figure his life out and write a screenplay. Moyle agreed to buy it; Maguire returned to Hollywood—and, as far as Moyle knew, never wrote the script. But two years later, he was the star of The Ice Storm; eight years later, he was Spider-Man.”
While it might have been somewhat of a freak incident, fortunately for the little mishap Maguire’s career didn’t have to suffer because of the movie. While it would have been interesting to see how the movie would have fared had it starred him, fans are mostly thankful that he ended up leaving the box office disaster.
Empire Records can be rented on YouTube.
source: Buzzfeed
