Shailene Woodley opens up about her cut scenes from 'Amazing Spider-Man 2'
Twelve years after The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Shailene Woodley spoken out about her scenes as Mary Jane Watson was cut from the film.
In a SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations interview, the Fault in Our Stars actress shared that it was her "dream" to play Mary Jane to Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker.
"[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,'" she said.
Woodley filmed about three scenes with Garfield for the superhero flick. Her character is one of Peter's love interests, alongside Gwen Stacy, who was played by Emma Stone.
"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's character] and Andrew," the actress added.
In the 2014 film, Stone's Gwen (spoiler) dies at the end after she fell from the top of a clock tower during Spider-Man's battle with the Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan).
"'Let's wait for [Gwen Stacy] to die and then we'll introduce Mary Jane,' which made sense," Woodley said. "But then they didn't make that film.
In a 2014 interview, producer Matt Tolmach told Variety that Woodley's scenes were cut because they "bit off more story" than they could tell.
"We had a 148-page script. We were in the middle of that, and we realized this story [with Mary Jane] is not going to be in this movie," he said.
In the comics, Mary Jane becomes Peter's wife. She has been portrayed in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy by Kristen Dunst. Zendaya played a character inspired by Mary Jane named Michelle "MJ" Jones-Watson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Spider-Man.
Meanwhile, Woodley has also starred in TV shows and films like the Divergent trilogy, Big Little Lies, Snowden, Adrift, Spectacular Now, Motor City, and Paradise.