He might be playing Quentin Beck in Spider-Man: Far From Home but there was a time when Jake Gyllenhaal almost replaced Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 2. Although the Donnie Darko star hasn't addressed this rumor for a long time, Gyllenhaal has finally confirmed that he was up for the role of Peter Parker.
Gyllenhaal recently spoke to Yahoo! where his possible casting as Maguire's replacement was brought up. The Brokeback Mountain actor was initially coy about the subject.
"I heard the same thing. The truth of the matter is, in the end, he's Spider-Man," Gyllenhaal said.
Interestingly, Gyllenhaal tried to change the subject by pointing out that he had to compete with other actors for certain roles. Nevertheless, he still confirmed that he was considered to take over as Peter Parker.
"There are so many roles in my career where I was up against another actor, or there was something happened that possibly could've happened but didn't happen but maybe it would have. Eventually, my belief is when an actor's played a character, particularly in a movie, the character's theirs, and that's that," Gyllenhaal said. "But yeah there was talk, he hurt himself and there was talk. There was a slew of actors [possibly up for the part], and I was one of them."
Back in 2004, Maguire had injured himself while working on Seabiscuit. Considering that Gyllenhaal was dating Maguire's co-star Kirsten Dunst at that time, it's no surprise that he was one of the actors considered to take over. Nevertheless, Maguire managed to get through his injury and reprise his role in the Sam Raimi film.
Gyllenhaal will play Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home, which premieres on July 2.
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