Tom Holland says he regrets not speaking to Andrew Garfield about Spider-Man takeover
Tom Holland has said he regrets not contacting Andrew Garfield after her took over the role of Spider-Man in 2015.
Garfield’s time as the Marvel character came to an end with 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. His spell as the superhero was cut short following poor reviews and a disappointing performance at the box office.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Holland expressed his regret at not informing Garfield that he would be his successor.
“That’s because of my naivete as a kid,” he said. “I was 19 when I got cast. I was so caught up in getting the role that I never took any time to think about what it must have been like for him.
“If I’d made my second movie and it didn’t necessarily deliver in the way it should have done and they recast me, I would really struggle to bounce back. Andrew bounced back in the most unbelievable way. I just wish I’d called him and just said, ‘You know I can’t turn down this opportunity.’”
Holland said that he had an opportunity to broach the subject while filming Spider-Man: No Way Home, which saw Garfield and fellow former Spider-Man Tobey Maguire reprise their iterations of the character.
“It was wonderful,” Holland said. “Myself, Andrew, Tobey – we have this amazing bond as three people who have been through something that is so unique that we really are like brothers. We have a great group chat and we catch up every now and then. It’s called the Spider-Boys.”
Last year, in a Variety Actors-on-Actors interview with Zendaya (who plays MJ in Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy and is also dating the star in real life), Garfield said his Spider-Man experience left him “heartbroken”.
“When I did my first Spider-Man film, I was your age – 25, 26. And I wasn’t ready, man. I was like, ‘I need to back off, because I don’t know who I am yet. And my prefrontal cortex is still forming,’” he told her.
He added: “I signed up to serve the story and to serve this incredible character that I’ve been dressing as since I was three, and then it gets compromised and it breaks your heart. I got heartbroken a little bit.”
Elsewhere, Holland recently announced that he will be taking a year-long break from acting after his new Apple TV+ series, The Crowded Room, “broke” him.