Within the labyrinthine story that is Tom Holland’s Spider-Man casting origin tale there is a crucial part that Marvel stans love to mythologise: the part when Tom Holland screen-tests with Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr, in Atlanta with the Russos.
“I remember it very well,” Holland chuckles, lost a little in the reverie. Although what some casual Marvel fans might not know is that the Spider-Man audition story is even more charmingly Tom Holland than the charming Tom Holland Spider-Man audition story they think they know already.
“I was obviously nervous,” Holland tells me. “I mean, it would be strange if I hadn’t been nervous. Thankfully, weirdly, something happened that loosened the pressure valve on my anxiety that day. I saw Ant and Joe and then I saw Downey standing there in the casting room. I went over. I introduced myself. But I remember thinking, ‘That’s a bit odd. He doesn’t look like I’d imagined him or remembered.’ Still, I shook his hand, telling him, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ saying how excited I was at the opportunity, how much it means to me...” And then? “Well, then a door opens and in walks the actual Robert Downey Jr. I’d been chatting up his stunt double the entire time. So, actually, I got my jittery, loser vibe out of the way. And then, when I actually met Downey, I was a little more cool and collected.”
What advice did Downey give you that day? “He took me to one side and said, ‘I remember the feeling. I’ve been through this before and it is incredibly stressful. Enjoy the process and let your body take over.’ Which is advice that I still use. I was doing a new Spider-Man scene just the other day and I had to eat a bowl of cereal. And I just couldn’t eat a bowl of cereal like a normal person – I was too in my head. And the director, Jon [Watts], goes, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘Sorry, I’m leading with my head and I need to lead with my body.’ So it was good advice. And I think that’s the piece of advice that got me the Spider-Man job ultimately.”
Downey also remembers the casting session with Tom Holland. “He had a lot of hair,” Downey tells me, laughing. “I remember thinking, ‘What’s with the hair, dude?’” The scene Downey and Holland went over for the now fabled audition was Holland’s first scene in Civil War, where audiences get to meet the new Spider-Man: following Peter Parker’s school backpack into the small NYC apartment he shares with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). On entering, Parker is gobsmacked to see Tony Stark sitting on his couch talking to his aunt about a “grant”, cover that will allow Parker to work alongside Stark. Marvel movies are heavily scripted and, usually, so too are such casting sessions. But that didn’t stop Downey from changing the first line in a bid to test Holland’s chops.
“Yeah, I may have done that. I did that,” admits Downey. “And the kid handled it. He was seasoned, good presence. I could tell he had good kung fu; he could roll with the punches and keep it more than interesting. Remember, I’d been testing with a bunch of kids that day. They shall remain unnamed, but they all did well and any one of them would have brought something else to the part of Spider-Man. But why Holland? That’s your question, right? Gravitas. Gravitas and the confidence to be able to take on the mantle.
“Look, becoming Spider-Man is a lot,” Downey underlines. “So why does Tom Holland get to be Spider-Man? That character is the gold standard in the MCU. Iron Man? Whatever. When I became Iron Man few had even heard of the character, ergo less pressure. But Spider-Man? Everyone knows Spider-Man. Andrew Garfield did a good job. Tobey Maguire did a good job. So I ask you again: why does Tom Holland get to be number three?”
Downey, of course, has an answer for this. In typical freewheeling Downey style he’s able to zoom out, get macro and stop sweating the small stuff. “What happened at the casting isn’t irrelevant but it isn’t everything. Like I said, it comes down to being able to carry the mantle.” Meaning? “To be able to weather the trial by fire that rains down on someone when taking on such a thing. Marvel fans are wonderfully yet terrifyingly committed. They absorb all of you. They expect to. Becoming Spider-Man is a bit like going down a K-hole: it’s easy to get lost in there. Add in the fact that you are worked relentlessly. It’s crazy. But Tom can handle it. I could tell. He’s a beekeeper.”
A what?
“A beekeeper. Sure. Me, Tom, the Marvel guys, we’re beekeepers. It’s not sexy. It’s hot under those damn suits. You can’t see us. We’re sweating to make the sweet, sweet syrupy nectar to be consumed for our leaders. We’re all beekeepers. Overpaid beekeepers. The great thing about Tom is he has that Chaplin-esque thing. He’s an honourable cockney. Do you know where the terms ‘cockney’ comes from? Middle English ‘coken-ey’, or a ‘cock’s egg’ – a small, unshapen egg. Tom’s different. He’s got moxie. He’s needed it. I can relate to that. And I’m so glad he got this radically different note in with Cherry with the Russos in the interim. He’s full circle.”
How then could Cherry affect Holland’s own trajectory, I ask Downey. “Look, Tom won’t be playing Spider-Man when he’s 37. At least I hope not. And when you’re in the MCU, there’s a feeling of all life beginning with it and ending it. But there’s life outside too. I can confirm this. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. It’s funny, I bumped into Keanu [Reeves] the other day, somewhere in Malibu, I think, and he told me he’d just been filming The Matrix again; he’d stepped back into that world that he once occupied. I asked him what it felt like: ‘Like being in Australia.’
“What I am saying is there was a Spider-Man before Tom Holland and there will be a Spider-Man after Tom Holland. That’s facts, Tommo. Sorry.” What about Downey, I ask, unable to resist: now he’s out, could he ever find himself stepping back into the MCU again? As Iron Man? “Well...” he mummers. “I have alighted, for now. Real world to save. But never say never.”
Much has been made of the relationship between Downey and Holland and, more specifically, Parker and Stark. The relationship, certainly in the films, purposely taps into a master-apprentice vibe between the pair. Downey is clear to nix a theory that he knows only too well is out in the real world, mushrooming on Marvel forums and fan sites: that Holland/Parker/Downey/Stark are forming a bond or legacy that goes beyond team members and colleagues with superpowers.
“I am protective of Tom, sure,” explains Downey. “But I protect his right to be his own man. We have a very, very difficult to explain affinity for each other. I won’t, for example, if asked, extemporise about how incredible he is in the movie. This is because my endorsement is automatic. Did I expect him to get good notices from his part in Cherry? Yes. Do I need to supercharge these notices? No, I do not. We are brothers. He comes to my house in Malibu when he rolls through town. I FaceTime him when he’s in the pub. I am not his weird, rich uncle. He is not my protégé. We’re just... folk.”