“A punch in the teeth”: the 2015 movie that mistakenly convinced Tom Holland he was the “dog’s bollocks”
Although most people appreciate Tom Holland for his acting skills, it also helps that he’s undoubtedly one of the most down-to-earth household names in the business.
Maybe that has more to do with his creative upbringing or the fact that he quite literally seems to be up for anything, or maybe it’s simply a symptom of being British, but there’s an authenticity to him regardless that seems incredibly hard to come by in modern-day Hollywood, one that comes through not only in interviews but in the diverse range of characters he plays on the big screen.
And it’s because of his likability that we often feel inclined to watch his movies, even if we’re not all that interested in the stories themselves, and also because, while the actor often appears more laid-back in interview settings and discusses relatable experiences or topics, he also knuckles down where it counts and knows precisely which tricks to pull to make sure he always delivers.
For instance, in 2015, Holland played cabin boy Thomas Nickerson in Ron Howard’s historical drama In the Heart of the Sea, which chronicles the true story of the sinking of the American whaling ship Essex in 1820, saw several members of the main cast lose a hefty amount of weight to portray malnourished sailors on screen, with many of them restricting themselves to a diet of around 500 calories per day.
No wonder Chris Hemsworth, who’d worked with Howard previously for 2013’s Rush, later claimed that it was “physically and emotionally the hardest movie” he’d ever done. Although Holland was also a part of this routine, he also performed most of his own stunts in the film, so you can imagine the additional emotional and physical toll he took to ensure this role would be the one to open doors.
Interestingly, though, there wasn’t much hype around the film following its release. In its opening week, it performed below what was expected at the box office, though it’s uncertain whether this was a result of clashing with another major blockbuster, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, or the fact that people were distracted by the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens the following week.
Either way, those who did see the film might’ve claimed it lacked depth, but there’s no denying the calibre of Holland’s performance and his ability to hold his own, particularly alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Hemsworth and Cillian Murphy. And funnily enough, when Holland got the gig, he wasn’t delusional about how it would make him look, either.
In his defence, he’d been auditioning for things like his life depended on it, and so having just done a Ron Howard film felt about as empowering as you’d expect. “I thought I was dog’s bollocks,” Holland mused to GQ in 2019, “I was like, ‘I’ve just done a Ron Howard film. I don’t need to audition for stuff anymore’. And it was quite the contrary.”
In struggling to land any sort of acting job (which he described as “a punch in the teeth”), he enrolled in a carpentry course as a failsafe, but he kept auditioning for anything he could get. These included James Gray’s The Lost City of Z, indie movie Edge of Winter and his final audition, you guessed it, was Spider-Man: Homecoming. Thankfully, by the time he got the part, he no longer thought of himself with such grandiosity. “It all kind of clicked,” he said.
