“It really beat me up”: the failed audition that made Tom Holland question himself
These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger star than Tom Holland.
Not only is he the face of one of the most famous superheroes of all time, but he’s managed to branch out and not let his career be defined by his relationship to Peter Parker, his stock only set to increase following his upcoming appearance in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. At the rate he’s going, he’s set to become more legendary than any Greek hero, though it hasn’t always been so straightforward.
In a conversation with Backstage, the Briton spoke about some of his career lows, mentioning his audition for the role of Finn in the most recent Star Wars trilogy, a part he lost out to John Boyega, and also brought up a much more obscure movie called November Criminals, which came out in 2017, written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, following two young heroes as they investigate the suspicious death of their friend.
Holland auditioned for the part of Addison, the male lead and got incredibly close, but ultimately lost out to Ansel Elgort; however, he’d pinned a lot of hopes on this movie so was naturally devastated when he didn’t get it.
“I thought that that film for me was going to be, like, my stepping-stone into a young-adult career,” he recalled, “I didn’t get the role, and it really beat me up. I remember being really angry about it.”
Luckily for the youngster, he had someone on hand to talk him through it, as he mentioned, “My dad sat me down, and we spoke about dealing with rejection. He’s had to deal with rejection his entire life in his career, and he was really kind and said, ‘Son, that’s part of success. If you won every single time, winning would become losing’.”
Dominic Holland, Tom’s father, is also an actor, specialising in comedy, who, in 1993, won the prestigious Perrier award for ‘Best Newcomer’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, climbing relatively high in the world of British comedy, getting his own series on BBC Radio 4 and appearing on a number of high-profile panel shows. He never got anywhere close to his son’s level of success, though, which proves he must have dealt with his fair share of rejection, and this insight into the performance industry was invaluable to his son, quickly paying off for him.
It wouldn’t be long until Holland landed the part that would make him a megastar, with 2017 being the same year that his first solo outing as Spider-Man was released, having made his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe the year before. At the age of just 20, Holland now had the world at his feet, and November Criminals was a distant memory; for context, that film scored 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, so bullet successfully dodged.
Resiliency is one of the most important traits an actor can learn, you don’t become one of the highest-grossing actors of all time if you let every setback get to you. Tom Holland’s dad is a very wise man.
