The ‘Spider-Man’ actor is candid about his next big adaptation.
I will be totally honest. As a fan of both Unknown actor and video game series Tom Holland (you know, Spider-Man?), I don’t think Tom Holland fits well with the main character Nathan Drake in the next Unknown film adaptation. But, I am willing to give the project the benefit of the doubt, especially since its status as an origin story makes the youthful vibrations of Holland make a little more sense in the universe. However, now that I’ve heard Holland talk about his performance choices as Nathan Drake for GQ, I’m feeling all kinds of complicated feelings. Holland is very outspoken about his work in the film – and, at first, he fears that he made some important mistakes as an actor.
When talking about Unknown, directed by Ruben Fleischer (Poison) and co-starring Mark Wahlberg as Drake’s mentor Victor “Sully” Sullivan, Holland talked about how his need to be seen as a bigger action icon than he inherently as an actor (as he calls it, “looking cool”) may have resulted in some creative decisions bad:
“As soon as you start worrying about ‘Do I look good in this photo?’ acting becomes something different from playing a character. I think there are elements of my acting in Uncharted where I kind of fell under the spell of being ‘I want to look good now. I want this to be my cool moment.’ I had to play a very difficult and very stoic guy – basically Mark Wahlberg. My character should be an action hero right now! Look, I didn’t see it, so I don’t know if I got it. But it was an important lesson learned, because, sometimes it was less about hitting a mark and going through that scene and more about hitting a mark, staying like that and seeing my biceps protruding … It was a mistake and it is something I will probably never do again. ”
This is a fascinating self-assessment of the young actor! Holland not only solved the pitfalls and pressures that come with leading an action movie, but wondered aloud if he himself fell into them. The reason I love him as much as Spider-Man is because it plays on his captivating vulnerability; that character is just a kid trying his best, and Holland gives him something that we don’t normally see in action movies. I don’t want Holland to be Mark Wahlberg, “a damn action hero”. But I’m also absolutely interested in seeing how he thinks he’s doing – and whether his “mistakes” will appear on the screen as much as he thinks they were.
About the author
