Honestly, becoming a superhero was never part of the plan.

I went to the lookalike audition because I thought it would make a good story. I was a few months out of college, fancied myself a writer, and needed some material. At that age, people used to tell me I looked like Tobey Maguire. So I figured I’d walk into a room full of people who also kinda sorta looked like that guy, and type out something fun about the experience.

As it turns out, I got a lot more than material. I got the actual job of being a Peter Parker photo-double/stuntman. In the parlance of our times, it was a real “how it started / how it’s going” type situation.

And then about six months later…

I know what you’re thinking: It’s too bad you weren’t in Spiderman 2, which ruled, because Spiderman 3 was kind of a mess, what with the emo bangs and the dance sequence… To which I’d say, that’s certainly how it felt at the time! But damn if it hasn’t lived on in memes. And yes, part of my job entailed donning the unfortunate emo Spidey look.

But really who cares if there were too many villains and some scenes were, let’s say, uneven. That wasn’t my department. My department was the stunt team.

We fought bad guys and hung off buildings and rode scooters over the George Washington Bridge for a helicopter shot and got weird paparazzi blogs written about us and chilled fifty feet overhead with love interest stunt doubles in “the web of love.” It’s funny to think of how many people have seen the back of my head.