In the Heart of the Sea star Tom Holland has a job that every teenage actor probably dreams of: he is the latest actor to play Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Speaking with the Associated Press to promote In the Heart of the Sea, Holland spoke about how he landed the part of the world-famous superhero and what he enjoyed about starring in Ron Howard‘s In the Heart of the Sea.
Before it was even announced that Andrew Garfield‘s Spider-Man series would end in favor a new reboot set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Holland was angling to play Peter Parker. He reveals, “I said I would like to do the reboot after Andrew Garfield. I don’t think Andrew Garfield had even made his second film yet. I always wanted to play this character and when I found out that they were re-casting the role I rang up my agent and I said, ‘Just get me a self- tape. Please let me send something so that they can see me.'”
Knowing that Spider-Man is recognized for his acrobatic feats, Holland used the physical skills he developed starring in Billy Elliot on the West End in his audition tapes. He explains, “I basically did a somersault into frame and a somersault out of frame and I was like, ‘They may never see this but if they do I need them to know that I’ve got some gymnastics abilities and stuff.’ And every tape I sent in I always did a little acrobatic demo to try and convince them to give me the role.”
Nonetheless, though Holland is excited to play the world-famous webcrawler, he also enjoyed portraying a real-life individual in In the Heart of the Sea — a cabin boy on a nineteenth century whaling ship who was stranded at sea for months. He says, “I always like a challenge and I almost feel like if something’s not a challenge there’s no real point in doing it. The hard work we had to do was for the right reasons and pivotal for the film because we were making a film about real people.”
