Elijah Wood is world famous for playing Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but that doesn’t stop him from getting mistaken for another ’00s genre movie icon, Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire.
“Most recently I think it was actually Tobey Maguire. Which does still happen, and it’s always for Spider-Man. It’s not for any of Tobey’s other work,” Wood tells the HappySadConfused podcast. “It’s just ‘Hey, Spider-Man!’ Nope. Nope. Nope. I won’t correct people.”
The case of mistaken identity goes both ways, with Maguire himself telling a story about meeting a very confused Lord of the Rings fan.
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“No joke, I once signed an autograph as Elijah Wood because the fan was so excited,” said in a Reddit AMA. “I didn’t want to disappoint her by telling her I wasn’t Elijah.”
It’s not impossible to see how some fans might confuse Wood and Maguire. Both are dark haired actors with bright blue eyes, who rose to fame simultaneously in the early ’00s thanks to Maguire’s role as Spider-Man and Wood’s role as Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. However, it is a little surprising how often it seems to happen with excitedly inattentive fans.
Maguire was actually almost replaced as Peter Parker in Spider-Man 2 due to a back injury, with Jake Gyllenhaal waiting in the wings to step in. However, Maguire recovered and went on to play Peter in three Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man films along with 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home crossover movie which also brought in Andrew Garfiel’s Spidey alongside mainstream MCU wall-crawler Tom Holland.
It’s not yet confirmed whether Wood will return as Frodo in Lord of the Rings revival film The Hunt for Gollum, though signs are pointing to ‘yes.’ The Hunt for Gollum arrives on December 17, 2027. In the meantime, fill out your watchlist with our guide to all the most exciting upcoming movies of the year.
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