Shailene Woodley has revealed the heartbreak of seeing her scenes as Mary Jane cut from The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Over a decade later, the Adrift star opened up about discovering that her scenes in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with Andrew Garfield had been removed.
“That was a fun phone call,” Woodley recalled.
She said that being cast as Mary Jane Watson in the movie by director Marc Webb “was my dream because I really, oh my god, Spider-Man’s my favorite superhero. Mary Jane was my favorite character growing up. So, when I got it, I was like, ‘This is so exciting.’”
Woodley said she filmed “like three scenes together, me and Andrew Garfield. And then like a year later, they were like, ‘So, you’re not in the movie anymore.’ And I was like, ‘What? What do you mean?’ And they were like, ‘We’ve introduced a lot of new characters in this last one, and we’re going to wait for… whatever happens between [Emma Stone’s character, Gwen Stacy, who is Peter Parker’s girlfriend in the film] and Andrew.” (Spoiler: Gwen Stacy dies in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”)
The Fault in Our Stars actress said she was also told, “’Let’s wait for [Gwen Stacy] to die and then we’ll introduce Mary Jane.’ Which made sense. But then they didn’t make that film.”
Woodley said she was told filmmakers removed Mary Jane because introducing another love interest for Peter Parker would have been confusing, though she admitted she never knew the full truth.
In 2014, producer Matt Tolmach told Variety that Woodley’s Mary Jane scenes were cut because the 148-page script contained more story than the film could fit.
In Sam Raimi’s trilogy, Mary Jane was played by Kirsten Dunst opposite Tobey Maguire.
During her nearly 90-minute SAG-AFTRA Foundation interview, Woodley also discussed roles in Divergent, Dumb Money, The Descendants, The Fault in Our Stars, Big Little Lies and Paradise.
