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Elizabeth Banks has revealed that she was deemed too old to play Mary Jane Watson in Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man.
The actress was 28 years old at the time (Maguire was 16 months younger), but producers decided to plump for 18-year-old Kirsten Dunst for the major role.
"Tobey and I are basically the same age - and I was told I was too old to play her," she revealed to Glamour magazine. "I was like, 'Oh, OK, that's what I've signed up for'."
Banks appeared in the 2002 movie, but in the minor supporting role of J Jonah Jameson's secretary Betty Brant.
Her comments come a few months after Olivia Wilde revealed she was passed on the lead female part in The Wolf of Wall Street for similar reasons. Margot Robbie ended up playing Leonardo DiCaprio's character's wife Naomi.
And Maggie Gyllenhaal said last year that she was told she was too old to play the love interest of a 55-year-old actor.
Sequels for Spider-Man were released in 2004 and 2007, before the series was rebooted with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy.
Tom Holland now plays the web-slinging superhero in yet another reboot. He appeared in Captain America: Civil War, and will star in his own solo movie Spider-Man: Homecoming in July 2017.
