Tom Holland

Thomas Stanley Holland (born 1 June 1996) is an English actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award and three Saturn Awards. Holland's films as a lead actor have grossed over $9.9 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing film actors of all time. He was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list of 2019.

Holland's career began at the age of nine when he enrolled in a dancing class. A choreographer noticed him and arranged for him to audition for a role in Billy Elliot the Musical at London's Victoria Palace Theatre. After two years of training, he secured a supporting part in 2008. Later that year, he was upgraded to the title role, which he played until 2010. Holland made his film debut in the disaster drama The Impossible (2012) as a teenage tourist trapped in a tsunami; he received critical acclaim and a nomination for the Goya Award for Best New Actor. Holland then decided to pursue acting as a full-time career, appearing in How I Live Now (2013) and playing historical figures in the film In the Heart of the Sea (2015) and the TV miniseries Wolf Hall (2015).

Holland achieved international recognition playing Peter Parker/Spider-Man in six Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) superhero films, beginning with Captain America: Civil War (2016). The following year, Holland received the BAFTA Rising Star Award and became the youngest actor to play a title role in an MCU film in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Its sequels, Far From Home (2019) and No Way Home (2021), each grossed more than $1 billion worldwide; the latter became the highest-grossing film of the year. Holland played another action film role in Uncharted (2022), and also expanded to play against-type roles in the crime dramas The Devil All the Time (2020) and Cherry (2021). Holland has directed the short film Tweet (2015) and voiced roles in animated features, including Spies in Disguise (2019) and Onward (2020).

Early life and education

Thomas Stanley Holland was born on 1 June 1996 in Kingston upon Thames, in south-west London, to photographer Nicola (née Frost) and comedian-author Dominic Holland. He has three younger brothers. His paternal grandmother was Irish from County Tipperary of Southern Ireland and his paternal grandfather was Manx from the Isle of Man. He lives in Kingston upon Thames, near the house of his parents and younger brothers. As his parents have creative professions, he is often inspired by them; he considers his father a role model who has unofficially worked as his manager due to his experience in the industry.

Holland was educated at Donhead Preparatory School, an all-male Catholic preparatory school in Wimbledon, in the Merton borough of south west London. When he was seven, he was diagnosed with dyslexia. His parents sent him and his brothers (to avoid making them feel neglected) to a private school so he could get the necessary attention. Although Holland liked the new school, this started to drain his family's finances. Holland attended Wimbledon College, a voluntary aided Jesuit comprehensive school, followed by the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in the Selhurst area of Croydon.

Growing up, Holland considered several career choices. As a child, he was a fan of Janet Jackson songs and often danced to them. His mother signed him up for a dancing class advertised in the private school Holland was visiting at the time. In his teens, Holland briefly attended carpentry school in Cardiff, Wales. He also considered becoming a primary school teacher, as he enjoys being around children.

Career

2006–2014: Early stage work and film debut

At age nine, Holland began dancing at a hip hop class at Nifty Feet Dance School in Wimbledon, where he performed with his school group at the 2006 Richmond Dance Festival. There, he was spotted by choreographer Lynne Page, an associate to Peter Darling, choreographer of Billy Elliot the Musical. Page arranged an audition for Holland, where the musical's director Stephen Daldry thought that he "had great potential and was a very natural actor". After two years of training in ballet, tap dancing and acrobatics, Holland won the role of Michael Caffrey, the protagonist's best friend, and made his debut performance at the West End's Victoria Palace Theatre in June 2008. During his time performing in the musical, Holland learned gymnastics. Holland says when his peers at school found out about his dancing activities, they started bullying him.

Later in 2008, Holland and co-star Tanner Pflueger were promoted to the lead role in the musical. On his first day playing Elliot, Holland developed tonsillitis but performed on stage anyway to positive reviews; he went to the doctor the next day. Following his stage success, Holland hoped to be popular in school and that his schoolmates would stop bullying him. After being in a professional environment, he matured earlier than his peers and struggled to fit in. As a result, his GCSE grades suffered. After his work on Billy Elliot the Musical finished in 2010, Holland voiced a role in the British dub of the Japanese animated fantasy film Arrietty (2011), and sent an audition tape to Juan Antonio Bayona for a part in The Impossible (2012). Bayona then arranged a meeting, and had Holland write a letter to his mother and recite it as an audition. Impressed with his emotional delivery, Bayona cast Holland in the film.

In The Impossible, Holland played a teenager trapped with his family in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Transitioning from stage to screen was initially hard for Holland due to the shift from live audience to camera. He and co-star Naomi Watts filmed physically and psychologically taxing scenes in a 35,000-gallon water tank. Working with Watts made Holland realise that he wanted to pursue an acting career permanently. The Impossible premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September to critical and commercial success, earning $180.3 million against a budget of $45 million. Holland received critical praise for his performance. A. O. Scott of The New York Times found Holland to be "a terrific young actor", praising his character's transition from self-involvement to responsibility. He won several awards, including the National Board of Review Award for Breakthrough Performance and London Film Critics Circle Award for Young British Performer of the Year. Holland featured in the drama film How I Live Now (2013), lent his voice in a supporting role for the drama film Locke (2013), and had a cameo in Billy Elliot the Musical Live (2014).

2015–2017: Breakthrough as Spider-Man

Holland appeared in four episodes of BBC Two's historical miniseries Wolf Hall (2015), as Gregory Cromwell, son of the protagonist Thomas Cromwell played by Mark Rylance. He directed Tweet (2015), a 3-minute short film about a young man building a birdhouse with his grandfather; Holland later expressed an interest in directing feature films in his 40s. Also in 2015, Holland co-starred as the teenage sailor Thomas Nickerson in Ron Howard's historical adventure-drama In the Heart of the Sea. The film is based on the namesake 2000 non-fiction book about the sinking of the American whaling ship Essex in 1820. In preparation, he and co-stars, including Chris Hemsworth, lost significant weight, consuming 500–1,000 calories a day. Holland performed most of his stunts in the film. In the Heart of the Sea received mixed reviews from critics, and grossed $93 million against a $100 million budget. Brian Truitt of the USA Today wrote that Holland "does a good job".

In June 2015, Holland signed a six-picture deal with Marvel Studios to play a teenage Peter Parker / Spider-Man. Growing up, Holland was a fan of Spider-Man; he owned 30 costumes and bed sheet covers of the character. He auditioned against 1,500 teenagers worldwide, including English actors Charlie Rowe and Asa Butterfield. While producers Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal were impressed with his performances in The Impossible, Wolf Hall, and In the Heart of the Sea, directors the Russo brothers cited Holland's dancing and gymnastics background as the reasons to cast him. Stan Lee, Spider-Man's creator, said Holland was the "exact age and height" when he envisioned the character. As part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), he first appeared as Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War (2016). The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $1.1 billion worldwide against a budget of $250 million to become the highest-grossing film of 2016. In a review for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw praised Holland and co-star Paul Rudd (who played Ant-Man) as "seductively high-spirited and hilarious", and Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times wrote that he made "a strong first impression" as Spider-Man.