Yahoo Movies Elizabeth Banks Says She Was Too Old to Play 'Spider-Man' Love Interest: 'Tobey and I Are Basically the Same Age'
Elizabeth Banks was apparently "too old" to kiss an upside down superhero in the rain.
The Pitch Perfect 2 star revealed that she auditioned for the role of Mary Jane Watson in Sam Raimi 's 2002 Spider-Man. However, at the age of 28, she was passed over for Kirsten Dunst, an actress eight years her junior.
"Tobey [Maguire] and I are basically the same age, and I was told I was too old to play her," Banks, 42, told Glamour U.K. of her 40-year-old co-star. "I was like, 'Oh, OK, that's what I've signed up for.'"
Banks eventually did land a part and appeared in all three of Maguire's Spider-Man movies...as a secretary. Still, she appreciates that she was never relegated to, as she calls it, "a flavor of the month."
"What I'm grateful for now is longevity. I was never a flavor of the month," she told the magazine. "I feel very comfortable that I will be working in this industry for a while."
Banks is the latest actress to speak out about ageism in Hollywood. Olivia Wilde recently revealed she was deemed too old to play Leonardo DiCaprio's wife in Wolf of Wall Street -- she is nine years younger than Leo -- while 37-year-old Maggie Gyllenhaal was told the same thing when she auditioned to play a 55-year-old actor's lover.
Find out more in the video below.
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