Elizabeth Banks was apparently 'too old' at 28 to play Mary Jane in 'Spider-Man'
Another day, another actress opening up about the struggles of Hollywood.
Actress Elizabeth Banks sat down with Glamour, revealing she was deemed "too old" to play Mary Jane in the 2002 Spider-Man franchise, despite being only 28 years old -- barely two years older than lead actor Tobey Maguire. (It's worth pointing out that Banks and McGuire went on to play a couple in 2011's The Details, and also starred together in Seabiscuit.)
“I screen-tested for the role of Mary-Jane Watson in the first Spider-Man movie, opposite Tobey Maguire," Banks told the magazine. "Tobey and I are basically the same age and I was told I was too old to play her. I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, that’s what I’ve signed up for.’”
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Instead, the role of high schooler Mary Jane went to then 20-year-old Kirsten Dunst. Banks played supporting character Betty Brant, who works with Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle.
Of course, Banks is far from the first actress to get boxed out of roles due to Hollywood's ultra-specific demands. Olivia Wilde recently shared she was "too sophisticated" to play the lead female role in The Wolf of Wall Street, despite being almost 10 years younger than lead Leonardo DiCaprio.
"I was like, oh, that sounds nice ... and then I found out later that they actually said 'old,'" she told Howard Stern.
Maggie Gyllenhaal shared a similar tale last year. The 37-year-old was told she was "too old to play the lover of a man who was 55."
"It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh," she said.
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Yohana Desta was the senior film reporter for Mashable. She is a Northern Virginia native and an American University grad. She enjoys carefully curating her Instagram account and can often be found reading books, going to concerts, watching movies and learning way too much about pop culture.
