Tom Holland on Making Projects That Break Away From the "Marvel Machine and the Safety Blanket of Spider-Man"
It’s kind of funny how actors are initially so excited when they get cast in a Marvel movie and they are like, “This is so cool, I can do this forever!” Then a few years down the road they’re like, “Damn… I can’t wait to get out of here and make real movies and play actual interesting characters.” If that’s how Marvel actors feel, Marvel has definitely got to step up their game!
During a recent interview with THR, Spider-Man actor Tom Holland talked about how he wants to work on other projects like The Crowded Room and Cherry, projects that make him feel uncomfortable and take him away from the “Marvel machine and the safety blanket of Spider-Man.” He explained:
"I want to do things that scare me, things that make me uncomfortable. When you do what we do, you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. This show is a perfect example of that. Ben is consistently telling me, if you don’t commit, they won’t believe you. The reason I wasn’t committing is because I was afraid. I’ve never done anything like this before. I got so used to the Marvel machine and the safety blanket of Spider-Man, feeling like I was protected. So, doing something like this was incredibly scary, but because it was so scary, it was so fulfilling and so rewarding. Going forward, if there’s something that I feel like I can’t do, I want to do that one. Playing a sort of stupid English doofus is not what I want to do because that’s my life, right?"
I get it, things get boring and uninteresting after playing a character for so long. When it gets to that point, it’s up to the creative team to start mixing things up to make the characters interesting again. In the meantime, while Marvel figures out what they are doing, actors like Holland are going out and looking for real projects that will get them excited about acting again. They are looking for characters to play that will push them to their limits because Marvel isn’t fulfilling that for them.
This is why Holland seems so apprehensive about making Spider-Man 4. The actor previously explained that he wants to "protect [Spider-Man's] legacy” and says he doesn’t want to “make another one for the sake of making another one.”
"All I can say is that we have been actively engaging in conversations about what it could potentially look like for a fourth rendition of my character. Whether or not we can find a way to do justice to the character is another thing. I feel very protective over Spider-Man. I feel very, very lucky that we were able to work on a franchise that got better with each movie, that got more successful with each movie, which I think is really rare, and I want to protect his legacy. So, I won't make another one for the sake of making another one. It will have to be worth the while of the character."
The actor previously said that he’d be “the luckiest kid alive” if he got to continue to play Spider-Man for the rest of his life. However, he went on to say that if “we can’t find a way to compete with the third one, he’ll swing off into the sunset.”
Holland has also said that there’s a part of him that wants to walk away from Spider-Man, saying: "It was myself, Amy, [Marvel Studios president] Kevin Feige, [executive producer] Rachel [O'Connor], sometimes other executives from Marvel will sit in. It's a collaborative process. The first few meetings were about, 'Why would we do this again?' And I think we found the reason why. I'm really, really happy with where we're at in terms of the creative."
Even though they’ve found a reason to keep going with the character, he explained: "But I'm also a little apprehensive about it. There's a bit of a stigma about the fourth one in all franchises. I feel like we hit a home run with our first franchise and there's a part of me that wants to walk away with my head held high and pass the baton to the next lucky kid that gets to bring this character to life."
Regardless of where the Spider-Man story arc goes, Spider-Man 4 is going to get made and it was recently reported that the movie is looking to start production in 2024. For Holland’s sake, hoping they’ve come up with a great and interesting story.