One of the most iconic scenes in Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man trilogy was Tobey Maguire kissing Kirsten Dunst while hanging upside down.
But that moment is nowhere to be found in Emma Stone’s and Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man films. Which Stone felt was for the better.
Kirsten Dunst didn’t think her Spider-Man kiss with Tobey Maguire would be famous
The upside down kiss between Maguire and Dunst is one of Spider-Man‘s many highlights. At the time, however, the kiss heard around the comic book film industry felt anything but iconic. In an interview with W magazine, Dunst gave a more detailed account of how the kiss actually played out. And it was pretty sloppy.
“I did not feel like it was a famous kiss because Tobey was… Water was getting up his nose because of the rain, and then he couldn’t breathe in the Spider-Man suit, and then… And it just felt very late at night,” Dunst said. “I didn’t think about it that way. But the way it was presented to me, Sam gave me this book of famous kisses, so that made me realize how romantic and special Sam wanted this to be. Even though it wasn’t necessarily feeling that way with Tobey hanging upside down.”
Despite how awkward shooting the scene might have been, Dunst was more than proud of the end-result.
Emma Stone didn’t want to do Tobey Maguire’s ‘Spider-Man’ upside down kiss with Andrew Garfield
The Amazing Spider-Man reboot saw a new face taking on the wall crawler’s mantle in Andrew Garfield. His Spider-Man would also be given a new but very familiar love interest. Instead of Mary Jane, Garfield’s Spider-Man would be paired with Stone’s Gwen Stacey, who was Spider-Man’s first love in the comics. Ironically, Stone originally wanted to play Mary Jane first before she got to know the comic book character she’d be embodying. She fell head over heels for Gwen’s story immediately.
“Because it is so incredibly epic and tragic. And Andrew is one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with. And I instantly knew how much I could learn from him. And that really, really drew me to, you know, that challenge,” she once told Long Island Press.
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As Gwen, Stone was able to form a powerful chemistry with Garfield both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Their chemistry was in full display during their kisses for The Amazing Spider-Man, which Stone couldn’t stop thinking about. Stone didn’t want to repeat what Maguire and Dunst did with Garfield, however. She wanted her and Garfield to make their own unique special kiss.
“Why would we do an upside-down kiss? I’m not Mary Jane. I’m Gwen Stacy in the Spider-Man film,” she once told Chicago Sun Times (via MTV News). “New girl. New kiss. I wanted to do different kisses to make our mark.”
Kirsten Dunst felt trying to outdo her ‘Spider-Man’ upside down kiss would only lead to disaster
Dunst was already familiar with the anxiety that came from potentially trying to outdo her upside down kiss. When she heard she’d have to recreate a version of that scene in Spider-Man 2, she couldn’t help panic a little.
“Like that was the kiss and you know you guys all saw the movie so you know that she tries to recreate that somehow and I was so nervous doing that scene cause I didn’t want her to come off like, I don’t know, she’s marrying this guy and she’s trying, you know, I didn’t want Mary Jane, I was afraid of how she would come off for doing that but when I saw the movie I thought it was okay,” she once said according to Black Film.
Dunst felt that, no matter what, her Spider-Man upside down kiss simply couldn’t be surpassed. And attempting to do so in the first place was futile.
“But you know you can’t top that kiss and we didn’t try and we have other things that are topped in this one so I think that if we try to outdo that kiss we’re just setting ourselves up for a disaster anyway,” she said.
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