HADEN CHURCH: Going great. Sam is a terrific actor’s director. Tobey [Maguire] and the rest of the team, crew and cast, are very humble and very thankful for the success that franchise has had and it’s just really a pleasure to work on what is a huge movie, but it’s being crafted by very personally responsible and personable craftsmen.

QUESTION: What was it that attracted you to Spider-Man 3?

HADEN CHURCH: I wanted to work with Sam Raimi. That’s it, in the singular that’s it. I got very close to working with Sam several years ago on The Gift and I vowed if the opportunity presented itself I was going to do everything I could to close on it and Spider-Man came up and Sam asked me to play Sandman and I didn’t have to think about it to long. He is a terrific and truly brave director.

QUESTION: You look like you have bulked up, how much weight have you gained for that Spider-Man 3 role?

HADEN CHURCH: My weight is about the same as what I weighed in Sideways, but in Sideways Alexander [Payne] asked me to just get fat. For Sideways I gained about 20 pounds and then I dropped it after the movie because I felt horrible and I was horribly out of shape. On Spider-Man I have put on about 20 pounds, but it’s been lean muscle and I have a nutritionist and I have trainers in L.A. and trainers in Texas and it’s just been very intense for about the last 13 months. It’s been very intense weight-training regimen, but no cardio, because as I have learned cardio is the enemy of muscle. They wanted me more bulky than lean but my body fat is pretty low, but I have to attribute that to diet and pretty intense weight training regimen. I work out about 5-6 days a week for about an hour and a half every day. Pretty intense, you burn a lot of calories.