Thomas Stanley Holland (born 1 June 1996) is an English actor.
After launching his acting career in the West End production of Billy Elliot the Musical as its title character, he proceeded to take roles in films like The Impossible, Locke, and How I Live Now. He also provided his voice for the UK dub of Arrietty.
In 2015, Marvel Studios and Sony announced that he won the coveted role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe following the deal between Sony and Marvel Studios to share the character's rights. He first showed up in 2016's Captain America: Civil War and quickly won over audiences before spinning-off into his own solo film, Spider-Man: Homecoming, in 2017. He reprised his role in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War.
His popularity as the character only rose in the following years, between a return in Avengers: Endgame and a leading performance in the remainder of the MCU Spider-Man Trilogy: Spider-Man: Far From Home in 2019 and Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021. He is planned to have an appearance in an unknown Marvel Studios movie afterwards, and is also expected to appear in Sony's Spider-Man Universe for an unspecified number of appearances as Spider-Man. Disney CEO Bob Iger credits him with giving him the push necessary to continue negotiations with Sony to keep Spider-Man in the MCU.
Coming off his success as Spider-Man, Holland was then cast as a young Nathan Drake in the long-gestating film adaptation of the Uncharted video game series, that was released in February 2022.
He has three brothers, Paddy, and twins Sam and Harry, all of whom are also actors (Paddy appeared in
Lockwood & Co. (2023), Sam appeared in The Impossible and Harry made appearances in The Mandalorian and an uncredited role in Spider-Man: No Way Home).
Not to be confused with the American horror-movie director of the same name who directed Fright Night, Child's Play and The Langoliers. Nor with the British historian, radio host, and non-fiction writer of the same name. Nor Tom Hollandernote .
Selected filmography:
- Arrietty (2011) as Shô (voice only; UK dub)
- The Impossible (2012) Lucas Bennett
- How I Live Now (2013) as Isaac
- Locke (2014) as Eddie (voice only)
- Wolf Hall (2015) as Gregory Cromwell
- In the Heart of the Sea (2015) as Thomas Nickerson
- Marvel Cinematic Universe (2016 — present) as Peter Parker / Spider-Man
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
- Untitled Marvel film (TBD) note
- Edge of Winter (2016) as Bradley Baker
- Pilgrimage (2017) as Brother Diarmuid
- The Lost City of Z (2017) as Jack Fawcett
- The Current War (2019 * ) as Samuel Insull
- Spies in Disguise (2019) as Walter (voice only)
- The Devil All the Time (2020) as Arvin Russell
- Onward (2020) as Ian Lightfoot (voice only)
- Cherry (2021) as Cherry
- Chaos Walking (2021) as Todd Hewitt
- Sony's Spider-Man Universe (2021 — present) as Peter Parker / Spider-Man
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) note
- Uncharted (2022) as Nathan Drake
- Untitled Fred Astaire Biopic (TBA) as Fred Astaire
- The Crowded Room (TBA) as Danny Sullivan note
Tropes Related to Tom Holland's Career:
- Acting in the Dark: His tendency to spoil his movies has led to Marvel Studios taking every possible precaution to prevent him from even knowing what he's filming and blabbing about what he does knownote . Famously, he believed he was filming a wedding scene when in actuality it was a funeral for Avengers: Endgame. It's gotten to the point of Adam Westing as Holland often jokes about how Peter Parker's confusion is Enforced Method Acting on his part.
- Approval of God: He loves the deepfake video made of a scene from Back to the Future inserting him and Robert Downey Jr. as Marty McFly and Doc Brown respectively. It especially helps that he's expressed that his goal was to make the MCU Spider-Man into his generation's Marty.
- Cannot Keep a Secret: MCU producers have made a meta-running gag about Tom's inability to keep spoilers to himself, to the point where the reveal of the Infinity War poster was staged as Tom accidentally revealing the poster in an Instagram Live before reading the note that says "CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT SHARE". A short was also released imploring viewers to not spoil the movies shows Tom with tape over his mouth.
- Cast the Expert:
- He's been a dancer since he was 10, which led to him getting cast to play Billy Elliot on the West End. During his time in the musical he also trained in gymnastics. These factors played a huge part in why he was cast to play Spider-Man, since he was well familiar with the training and physical conditioning required for the role, and he performed as many of his own acrobatic stunts as the studio would allow.
- His extensive dancing background led to him being cast as the greatest dancer of all time, Fred Astaire, in an upcoming biopic.
- Creator Backlash: He appears to have largely washed his hands of Chaos Walking. While he stated he enjoyed working with Doug Liman and hoped the film would do well after all the hard work that went into it, he expressed that it was challenging and "frustrating" to make due to the constant rewrites and long filming process (including reshoots). He stated he hadn't seen any cut of the movie in over a year (even after it was released to the public), deleted his Instagram photos featuring the film, did little to promote it, and stated in an interview that he was "a little apprehensive" about how it would be received.
- Dawson Casting: At age 19, he was cast as but convincingly plays high-schooler Peter Parker, which makes it an unusually valid Dawson Casting example. He was also 21 when he was cast to play Todd in Chaos Walking (and 23 during reshoots); in the books Todd is almost 13 though he's aged up to his late teens for the movie, as despite being Older Than They Look expecting Holland to believably pass as a preteen was a stretch.
- Endearingly Dorky: The characters he portrays tend to be very dorky.
- Fake American: British, yet has played plenty of Americans (or at least characters with American accents) across his career, chiefly New Yorker Spider-Man. He even joked about how for Spider-Man: Homecoming he was far from home, but Spider-Man: Far From Home was a homecoming of sorts as a few scenes were filmed in London right down the street from his parents' home.
- I Am Not Spock: While he does love playing Spider-Man, he has been open about not wanting to be seen as Spider-Man for the rest of his life, and has been trying to take on more mature roles in an attempt to avert this.
- Meme Acknowledgement: Mostly thanks to his prominent social media presence, he's aware of and a good sport about all the memes made at his expense, whether it be about his portrayal of Peter Parker or his own humorous shortcomings displayed during interviews and behind-the-scenes."I am a walking meme."
- Mr. Fanservice: There are fan accounts which are about 50% his shirtless pictures. You do not even have to look very hard. His abs are shown in all the Spider-Man films as well. Twice in the first one! In Chaos Walking, he strips off entirely in one scene, shown from the back.
- Older Than They Look: As mentioned above, he's a shining example of how Dawson Casting can actually work. There were actually quite a few complaints that he was too young to play Nathan Drake despite being a valid age (he was cast at around age 22) for the character. (That said, he explicitly plays a younger version of the character from before the game series).
- Pretty Boy: Given his youthful appearance and his slender physique, not to mention his heartthrob status to girls everywhere, it's safe to say he's an example of this.
- Promoted Fanboy: Marvel Cinematic Universe movies as a teenager, and he jumped at the opportunity to play Spider-Man when it was presented to him. And not only was he an MCU fanboy, but he loved Spider-Man as a kid, growing up with multiple cartoons, games and even the pre-MCU movies. In Spider-Man: No Way Home he even got to star alongside his predecessors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.
- Romance on the Set: It was revealed in 2021 that he was dating his MCU co-star Zendaya.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Mostly on the receiving end, with Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan relentlessly roasting him on press tours for their shared MCU projects.
- Throw It In!: He's claimed that a lot of scenes with him and Robert Downey Jr. have heavy improvisation. These unscripted moments also cross into Enforced Method Acting as Holland's obvious nervousness around Downey's presence works to match Peter Parker's adorkableness (see above) and eagerness to impress Tony Stark, with a particular highlight being Holland momentarily forgetting his blocking (the positions an actor takes in filming) and Downey remaining in character as he tells him to move. Most notably seen in his death scene in Avengers: Infinity War, where he improvised the now-infamous "I don't wanna go." line, which he revealed in an interview was inspired by David Tennant's final episode in Doctor Who.
- What Could Have Been: He was considered to play Lance Corporal Tom Blake in 1917, but he had to turn it down because the filming schedule would clash with reshoots for Chaos Walking (which he was contractually obligated to complete); the role instead went to Dean-Charles Chapman.
