The performance Tom Holland has always “aspired to recreate”
It’s quite an achievement in the career of any actor to be able to portray Spider-Man, and Tom Holland‘s efforts have on occasion stood up to the Tobey Maguire performances of the 2000s that superhero cinema fans know and love so well, but her certainly had to fight his way to get the opportunity.
Holland first came into acting through an appearance in Billy Elliot the Musical before making his film debut in the 2012 disaster movie The Impossible. After further performances in How I Live Now, In the Heart of the Sea and Wolf Hall, Holland was afforded his shot at Spider-Man beginning with Captain America: Civil War proceeded by Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home.
But like any young actor, Holland looks up to the stars that came before him and in a feature with Rotten Tomatoes, he once drew attention to an acting performance that he has “always aspired to recreate”. After all, it’s only natural that Holland will have been inspired by the many excellent efforts cinema has provided.
In the feature, Holland named his five favourite films of all time and began, “Okay, my first favourite movie is called Primal Fear. It’s a Richard Gere movie with Edward Norton. It’s Edward Norton’s first movie. It’s a performance that I always have aspired to kind of recreate, you know?”
Primal Fear, as Holland notes, features Edward Norton in his debut feature film role, a legal mystery thriller directed by Gregory Hoblit, based on William Diehl’s 1993 novel of the same name. Alongside Holland and Richard Gere, the 1996 movie also features Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Alfre Woodard and Frances McDormand.
It tells of a defence lawyer from Chicago who fights for his client’s innocence, an altar boy who is accused of murdering a Catholic archbishop. Continuing to express how he is inspired by Norton, Holland added, “Not in the sense of recreating that character but create a character on a similar sort of level that Edward Norton did. That’s my first one.”
Elsewhere amongst Holland’s list of favourite movies of all time is the Martin Scorsese movie The Departed, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson; Steven Spielberg’s 2009 film Avatar and also the director’s 1999 war movie Saving Private Ryan and 1992’s Jonathan Lynn film My Cousin Vinny.
But in terms of the films that have had the biggest impact on Holland’s career, it’s hard to look beyond Edward Norton’s performance in Primal Fear. Check out the trailer below.
