| Shit eating grin. That's the first impression Tobey Maguire makes. Seconds later: a killer smirk. And why not? Twenty-one year old Maguire (no relation to Jerry) has just launched his feature film career with roles in movies by both Woody Allen (Deconstructing Harry) and Ang Lee (The Ice Storm). But that's just at first glance. The second impression is captured in Paul Hood, the struggling-to-make-sense-of-it-all prepster that Maguire plays in the Ice Storm, a clear-eyed look at two emotionally frozen Connecticut families. One of the film's most resonant moments comes when Paul belly flops in an attempt to bond with the girl he longs for. "I'm also a Dostoyevsky fan," he stammers in the film. "If you liked Notes From the Underground, you'll love The Idiot." As she wanders off unimpressed, Paul repeats the title, deadpan, as if it's a label he's used to wearing: "The Idiot." Maguire's charm is that he can swing easily between these two poles: the cool cat with the canary in his mouth and the rejected kid. His own spilt-parent childhood fostered a sense of upheaval that lead, indirectly at least, to his interest in acting. "I was very malleable," he says. "I would direct myself in how I was going to fit in the quickest way wherever we were." His quickest way into Hollywood began with a lead role in the Fox series "Great Scott!" ("It was on right before The Ben Stiller Show; everybody remembers that"). Now that he's entered this memorable phase of his career, Maguire is flush with the sense that anything's possible. "I understand that I have all this comic lightness or innocence," he muses, "but I think I'm going somewhere between Tom Hanks and John Malkovich." |