Tom Holland backtracks from major statement about playing ‘Spider-Man'

Tom Holland has walked back one of his most quoted statements about Spider-Man, and admitted he is not entirely sure what he was thinking when he made it.

Back in 2021, Holland told GQ magazine that "if I'm playing Spider-Man after I'm 30, I've done something wrong." 

He is now 30, has a new Spider-Man film, Brand New Day, opening in cinemas on 31 July, and has no immediate plans to hang up the suit.

Speaking to GQ again for the publication's summer cover story on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, he addressed the contradiction with characteristic candour.

"It's funny, I saw that quote pop up somewhere recently and I kind of reeled, because I was trying to remember what I meant," he said. 

His best explanation was that the comment was about legacy rather than a firm personal deadline, specifically, his long-held desire to eventually pass the role on to someone else. 

"I think the point of it is that I would love to pass the baton on, and I haven't achieved that yet. It's definitely something that we talk about a lot at the studio. So maybe I need to change the quote to 37."

He also floated a more calculating theory. 

"I could also have been trying to leverage Sony and scare them into thinking I wasn't going to do Spider-Man 4 now that I had a new deal on the horizon. So I don't know what it could have been. It could've been part of a strategy to create fear."

Whatever the original intent, his current position couldn't be clearer. 

"I think the truth is that playing Spider-Man has been the joy of my life. I now kind of stand on the plinth of like, I'll do it for as long as they'll have me."

It would be hard to doubt his commitment to the role. 

Holland personally lobbied Sony to delay Brand New Day so he could film The Odyssey first, and in 2019 made a tearful personal call to Disney CEO Bob Iger to plead for the character's future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after it looked as though a deal between Disney and Sony might collapse. 

Iger later described the moment in detail, recalling that Holland "cried on the phone" and that the genuine emotion of the call prompted him to pick up the phone to Sony himself. 

"For Tom and for the fans. And we did," Iger said. "That's how it happened."

For a man who once suggested he'd be done by 30, he appears to be just getting started.