A quarter of a century after winning an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, the actor is causing a stir as Spider-Mans Aunt May. She talks about being allowed to get old and her reputation as a great on-screen kisser
T oo hot, too young, too sexy: these were the cries of outraged comic-book fans on social media when Marisa Tomei was cast as Spider-Mans Aunt May in July 2015. And the then 50-year-old Oscar winner agreed with the backlash. I know, right? laughs Tomei down the phone from New York, where shes preparing for the blockbusters premiere this week. Its lucky I didnt know much about Aunt May, because I might have been horrified if Id seen the original image of a grey-haired pensioner. Dont toy with my heart, Marvel. Is that really how you view me?
She disagrees, though, that her casting was an example of Hollywoods negative attitude towards age. She points out that it makes sense in the context of the franchises latest reboot, Spider-Man: Homecoming, starring 21-year-old Londoner Tom Holland as the wall-crawling web-slinger in his high school days: They aged Peter Parker down too. Hes 15 in this movie. I ended up picking the brains of my brother Adam, whos been an encyclopaedia of Marvel since we were little, and he explained that Mays not related to Peter by blood shes his aunt by marriage to his uncle Ben. So she could be elderly or pretty young, depending what age she met her husband. I thought maybe I should lean into it and made a case for them to age me up. A lot of young girls are wearing that silver hair now, so it was something we toyed with.
Indeed, Tomei has her own pet theory about Ben and Mays back-story. I decided that maybe he was her professor. I gave it that sexy, naughty little twist in my mind. Thats not in the movie, by the way. A young, hot Aunt May isnt really a character description, so I fleshed out my own mental picture of who she is. Closer in age to the arachnid adolescent, her Aunt May is more of a teasing big sister figure than an apron-clad, cookie-baking granny type. Peters been a super-nerd with his studies, which is laudable, but my version of Aunt May tries to coax him out of that and broaden his interests, maybe even start dating, says Tomei.
To her mind, the 2017 Aunt May is also something of a second-wave feminist. I had numerous conversations with the director, Jon Watts, about Peter Parker being a local hero, which seems particularly apt for these times. He gets those values from Aunt May, who basically raised him. So we discussed how she might be involved in the community and know everyone in the neighbourhood. We considered making her a pro bono lawyer, but didnt want her to wear suits. Instead we made her a book lover who has her own small publishing firm, like a female collective. Shes got a feminist and humanist edge at least in my head.
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