The “15-year goal” Tom Holland set in 2017 that he’s no closer to achieving
To most, Tom Holland will always be Spider-Man, a role he took on when he was just 20 years old and has since played across six Marvel movies. To a select few, though, he’ll always be Billy Elliot, whom he played on the West End for several years when he was a kid.
It’s his roots in the theatre that allowed him to become a star, with the young Holland becoming a proficient singer, dancer, and gymnast, training himself up for whatever part might come his way. Billy Elliot the Musical was the making of Holland, but when it came to his transition to the big screen, he strayed from the world of musical theatre, instead predominantly planting himself in the action and superhero genres.
It’s interesting because while Holland has made a good Spider-Man, roles such as Nathan Drake in Uncharted didn’t really hit the mark. He didn’t seem right for the role at all, and critics were left questioning where Holland should go outside of his Peter Parker persona.
The thing is, Holland is a terribly charming guy, but his credits have been rather limited by his time as Spider-Man. Outside of Marvel, Holland hasn’t given any particularly diverse or truly challenging performances, and it’s only now with his role in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey as Telemachus that it seems like the actor might be working towards something a little more stimulating.
Yet, it still feels like many of the goals Holland set for himself in a certain 2017 interview are far from coming true, especially the one about winning an Oscar. He told Interview Magazine, “The 20-year goal is to be a film director. The 15-year goal is to win an Oscar. The five-year goal is to just keep enjoying myself. I really am having the time of my life.”
Now, I don’t want to sound too mean, because Holland hasn’t done anything to deserve a bashing other than predominantly picking bad movies, but if he thinks he’s going to win an Oscar in the next six years, he should probably think again.
We all know that Marvel movies don’t typically spawn acting award nominations from the Oscars, nor do lacklustre action movies like Uncharted or flimsy sci-fi dystopias like Chaos Walking, which only grossed $27million against its $125m budget… So, if Holland wants to bag an Oscar, he might have to try a little harder to pick the kind of movies that actually generate impressive, nuanced performances.
The then-21-year-old continued, “As far as my future goes, I want to stretch myself as an actor in a way that Jake Gyllenhaal, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Meryl Streep do… I don’t want to be stuck to one character. I think that’s what can happen when you take on a superhero movie. So every conversation I have with my agent is, ‘What have you got for me? What’s next? Who can I play?’”
This just hasn’t been the case, with Marvel still dominating the actor’s schedule a decade on. If Holland wants to play some different characters, he needs to look at some different genres, whether that be gritty dramas or even romantic movies.
The actor also needs to branch out in terms of directors, although I’ll give him credit where credit is due – working with Nolan feels like the first step towards a slightly more interesting cinematic future for the star. Is there an Oscar written in the stars for him, though? Probably not.
